Carrel.

"I couldn't make them, anyhow, and I certainly wouldn't trust any of you at the controls," said Albrekt. "Don't you think my superiors thought of that when they planned this?"

"Maybe," said Carrel.

Albrekt was amazed at the size of the shield Carrel was building. The inflated plastic sphere was bigger than a small asteroid, some six to eight miles in diameter. Carrel had spliced together several of the biggest plastic domes available. Nowhere but in free space, could the sphere have been inflated with so little gas pressure.

The ship could have floated around in Carrel's sphere like a cork in a water bucket.

"It has to be big, because the shield is going to be about 20 miles away from the ship, attached to it by lithium wires," explained Carrel. "So the diameter of the shield has to be this big, to eclipse the disc of Jupiter at the distance we'll pass the planet."

"I don't understand the principle of this at all," said Albrekt irritably. "It seems to me a smaller, heavier shield closer to the ship would be just as effective."

"That's because you don't understand this type of radiation," replied Carrel.

When the shield was completed and the plastic framework removed, it was a tissue-thin metal hemisphere, attached to the ship like a parachute. Migl used up several oxygen cylinders as makeshift rockets to push the shield out to the proper distance from the ship, while the attaching wires were unreeled from the cargo winches.

"We leave the wires on the winches, because we'll have to shift the position of the shield from time to time by shortening some wires and lengthening others," Carrel said.

When the task was complete and the shield glimmered in the sunlight like a nearby moon, they all returned to the living quarters.

"Qoqol, you'll be in charge of keeping the shield at the proper angle," said Carrel. "And, Albrekt, the truce is over."

"What do you mean by that?" growled Albrekt, his hand dropping to his heat gun.

"I've kept my promise while the shield was being built," answered Carrel. "Now, if we can catch you off guard, and do it without being burned down, I warn you we're going to try to disarm and capture you."

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