tongue lolled out happily. The Winship's crew insisted that he'd had Venusian lockjaw once, and now always kept his mouth open to keep it from coming back.

"Sure I've heard that!" Dick Harkness said. "That's why there's so much research going on all the time—why we've still got three feet of lead plating around our tanks, too."

"The Martians," said Joe savagely, "also research. They have made a gadget. They think it might be decisive. They think it might win a war for them. But they're cagey. They want to try it out first. On us!"

Dick Harkness looked blank. "But—blast it! We can't fight back to count! We'd be a sitting duck for a battle cruiser! We'd better get in our report."

"There's a Martian scout-cruiser overhead," Joe told him. "It took off as we landed. The gadget is on the ground here somewhere, trained on us. If the scout-cruiser picks up the beginning of a space-radio message—and it's listening with all four ears—the scout flashes word down and we go pouf!"

"But that's nonsense!"

"Did you ever hear of catalysis?" asked Joe ironically. "Did you ever hear of ultra-violet radiation acting as a catalyst to turn carbon dioxide into sugar? Chlorophyl has to be present, but so has ultra-violet. The Martians have found a wave-form or frequency that acts like ultra-violet on drive-fuel. It synthesizes drive-fuel into energy. If they turn it on us, our fuel will blow."

"Either the Martians would use it and brush off their hands, or they'd never let us know."

"There's a Ganymedian at the trigger of the gadget. There's a Ganymedian listening to the space-radio. A Ganymedian has to give the fire-at-will signal, and a Ganymedian has to pull the trigger. But when that happens, we fly apart into little pieces. Ganymedians don't lie."

Dick Harkness sat down on the settee at the back of the control-room. He didn't look scared. He looked incredulous.

"But—why? They haven't any grudge against us! They've nothing to gain."

"They're cold-blooded fish," Joe said furiously, "and they can be on the winning side! The Martians offer them incredible bribes! Don't you see? It's like that Spanish civil war the history books tell of, when the Germans tested out their weapons by helping one side in the civil war, without risking having another first-class 

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