with a fifty mega-ton missile would do to it?"

"If that's an ordnance storage dump," the captain said, "it's an experiment I'd like to try."

"Can you hit it?"

"I've got fifty heavy missiles aboard. If I fire them in direct sequence, it should saturate the defenses. Yes, I can hit it."

"The range isn't too great?"

"These are the de luxe models," the captain smiled balefully. "Video guidance. We could steer them into a bar and park 'em on a stool."

"What do you say we try it?"

"I've been wanting a solid target for a long time," the captain said.

Retief waved a hand toward the screen.

"That expanding dust cloud used to be the satellite of Groac, Shluh," he said. "Looks like something happened to it."

The police chief stared at the picture.

"Too bad," Retief said. "But then it wasn't of any importance, was it, Shluh?"

Shluh muttered incomprehensibly.

"Just a bare hunk of iron, Shluh. That's what the foreign office told me when I asked for information."

"I wish you'd keep your prisoner out of sight," the captain said. "I have a hard time keeping my hands off him."

"Shluh wants to help, Captain. He's been a bad boy and I have a feeling he'd like to cooperate with us now. Especially in view of the imminent arrival of a Terrestrial ship, and the dust cloud out there."

"What do you mean?"

"Captain, you can ride it out for another week, contact the ship when it arrives, get a tow in and your troubles are over. When your films are shown in the proper quarter, a task force will come out here. They'll reduce Groac to a sub-technical cultural level, and set up a monitor system to insure she doesn't get any more expansionist ideas. Not that she can do much now, with 

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