further invitation. "I think it's pretty clear by now," he began, "that our two visitors from Planet X aren't attracted by metal in just any old form at all, but by metal in the form of new, or nearly new, automobiles. This strongly suggests that their landing was unpremeditated, because if it had been premeditated they would have come down in a section of the country where such metallic concoctions are in plentiful supply—near a city or a large town, or close to a heavily traveled throughway.

"But what is it about these new cars of ours that they find so irresistible? Let's try an analogy. Suppose that one of us has gone into a bakery to buy a birthday cake and that money is no object. Which cake is he most likely to buy? The answer is obvious: the one with the most visual appeal. To return to our visitors from Planet X. Suppose that all their lives they've been eating metal in various but uninspired ingot forms—the metallic equivalents, let's say, of beans and bread and hominy grits. Now suppose they find their way to another planet where visual appeal in metallic creation is a major occupation, and suppose that shortly after disembarking from their spaceship they come upon a new convertible. Wouldn't they react in the same way we would react if all our lives our diet had been confined to beans and bread and hominy grits and we traveled to another planet, disembarked and came upon a delicious birthday cake just begging to be eaten? Wouldn't they make pigs of themselves and start looking for more cakes?"

"But if it's the ornate nature of our late-model cars that attracts them, why did they eat the staff car?" Colonel Mortby asked. "And why did they eat the teenager's hot rod, and our gas and fragmentation grenades?"

"I suggest," Dexter said, "that they ate the staff car because at the moment there weren't any other cars immediately available. As for the teenager's hot rod, I imagine it was loaded down with enough chrome accessories to sink a battleship. And as for the grenades—your men threw them at them first, did they not?"

Colonel Mortby nodded. "I see what you mean. Sort of like throwing candy to a baby. I'll buy your theory, Mr. Foote."

"And now, if I may," Dexter continued, "I'd like to propose a means of getting rid of our unwanted visitors from Planet X."

General Longcombe sighed. "Very well, Mr. Foote. Go on."

"You mentioned earlier, sir, that there was no way of herding the VEMs into an isolated area. However, 

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