multiple flip-flops and he shook all over. But it shocked him much less than it would have shocked an adult, because he was wholly familiar with such apparitions from the comic books.

This Thing looked rather like the people on the planet Zmyg, who had tried to wall up Captain McGee in a glass pyramid so he would roast to death when their purple sun rose above the horizon. But also It looked rather like Mr. Schneider, who mowed the lawns on Faculty Row. And It grinned at Tommy.

"Hello!" he said in a clear treble, which shook uncontrollably with his excitement. "I'm Tommy Driscoll of Earth. We're friendly if you're friendly. We're tough if you're tough. How about it?"

That was an exact quotation from the comic book in which Captain McGee had made contact with the people of the System of the Twenty Suns—and later had to fight against swarms of space-ships which wanted to capture his star maps so they could find Earth and attack it treacherously, without warning.

The Thing answered Tommy.

It didn't use words, of course. But in the comic books mind-to-mind communication of alien peoples is common enough. Captain McGee had done it more than once, and the Star Rover frequently, wandering more widely than McGee, as he did.

Tommy knew what the Thing was saying, and his piping small-boy voice answered in his father's laboratory, and he knew that the Thing understood him, too. The comic books were specifically coming true.

The Thing spoke respectfully and cordially, though of course it did not really speak at all. Its people wanted to be friends with Earth. Of course! They had been watching Earth with radar for centuries, so It told Tommy jovially. They knew that sooner or later Earthmen would roam the stars and benevolently rule all the planets of all the suns of the Galaxy in which Earth is placed. Because, of course, Earth has uranium and other heavy metals supplying atomic energy, while other planets are not so fortunate.

Tommy's eyes glowed. But he was extraordinarily composed, in the heroic calm of children in exciting make-believe.

"Oh, sure!" said Tommy largely, to the Thing of outer space. "We're going to have a Space Patrol that will make all the people on all the planets behave. I'm going to be a captain in it. Maybe we'll come and visit you first of all. How far away are you?"

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