superheated mercury. Kim and Barnaby threw themselves to the ground as the din increased for a moment, and the Martian sightseers sought refuge behind nearby buildings. Suddenly, the Machine was silent, except for the tinkle of scraps of metal falling to the cement.

Bars of shining steel twisted and snapped, gear teeth flew singing through the thin air....

"Looks as though we were too much for judge, jury, and D.A.," Kim murmured into his radiophone. Barnaby nodded, then cautiously climbed to his feet.

Rhinklav'n climbed back up the stairway to the brink of the amphitheater-become-junkyard. He shoved his way through the questioning crowd of Martian sightseers without a word. "Looks like he's going to cry," Lieutenant Kim commented into his radiophone. True, Rhinklav'n's nose-flaps were hanging limply down below his chin, a sure sign of great emotion in a Martian.

Rhinklav'n faced Captain Barnaby wordlessly for a moment. "You may leave now," he said at last. The Martian turned his back on the captain to look down again on the wreck that had been his beloved Machine.

The two EXTS officers wandered about Klamugra, the cynosure of all Martian eyes, though no one tried to stop them or ask them questions. Lieutenant Kim finally spotted a radio tower jutting up above the red adobe buildings. Hurrying in the direction of the tower, Kim and Barnaby found the Klamugra headquarters of the Extraterrestrial Service.

Colonel Montgomery jumped to his feet as they came in, a look of bald disbelief on his face. "Man, I'm glad to see you two! I was about to storm out like a knight in shiny armor and save you from the Marties." He waved his hand toward the helmet and rifle lying on his typewriter table—"If I'd gotten there too late, I'd have ruptured interplanetary friendship for sure!"—and indicated a decanter on his desk. "Have some: that's Edinbourgh scotch, not Los Angeles moon-dew. Tell me why I happen to be talking to you now instead of making up a couple of packages for your next-of-kin."

"We wrecked their damn Machine," Kim said happily, dropping his helmet and gauntlets to the floor and measuring out several fingers of the colonel's scotch into his ration can.

"To be a bit more accurate," Captain Barnaby corrected, "we drove the Machine insane." He poured himself a stiff shot of scotch and downed it with appreciation.

"Our 

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