LITMIR.BIZ

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authority in any matter, small or large, affecting more than one Continental Government. The Council has two principal operating agencies; the Triplanetary Patrol, which enforces its decisions, rules, and regulations, and the Triplanetary Service, which performs such other tasks as the Council directs. We have no interest in the purely internal affairs of North America. Have you any information to the contrary?"

      "More quibbling!" the Senator thundered. "This is not the first time in history that a ruthless dictatorship has operated in the disguise of a democracy. Sir, I demand full access to your files, so that I can spread before the North American Senate the full facts of the various matters which I mentioned to Fairchild—one of which was the affair of the Pelarion. In a democracy, sir, facts should not be hidden; the people must and shall be kept completely informed upon any matter which affects their welfare or their political lives!"

      "Is that so? If I should ask, then, for the purpose of keeping the Triplanetary Council, and through it your constituents, fully informed as to the political situation in North America, you would undoubtedly give me the key to safe-deposit box N469T414? For it is common knowledge, in the Council at least, that there is a certain amount of—shall we say turbidity?—in the supposedly pellucid reaches of North American politics."

      "What? Preposterous!" Morgan made a heroic effort, but could not quite maintain his poise. "Private papers only, sir!"

      "Perhaps. Certain of the Councillors believe, however mistakenly, that there are several things of interest there: such as the record of certain transactions involving one James F. Towne; references to and details concerning dealings—not to say deals—with Mackenzie Power, specifically with Mackenzie Power's Mr. Clander; and perhaps a juicy bit or two concerning a person known as le Bay and a tekkyl coat. Of interest no end, don't you think, to the dear people of North America?"

      As Samms drove the harpoon in and twisted it, the big man suffered visibly. Nevertheless:

      "You refuse to cooperate, eh?" he blustered. "Very well, I will go—but you have not heard the last of me, Samms!"

      "No? Probably not. But remember, before you do any more rabble-rousing, that this lock-box thing is merely a sample. We of the Service know a lot of things that we do not mention to anybody—except in self-defense."

      "I am holding Fletcher, Mr. Samms. Shall I put him on now?" Norma asked, as the completely deflated Morgan went out.

      "Yes, please.... Hello, Sid; mighty glad to see you—we were scared for a while. How did you make out, and what was it?"

      "Hi, Chief! Mostly hadive. Some heroin, and quite a bit of Martian ladolian. Lousy job, though—three of the gang got away, and took about a quarter of the loot with them. That was what I want to talk to you about in such a hurry—fake meteors; the first I ever saw."

      Samms straightened up in his chair.

      "Just a second. Norma, put Redmond on here with us.... Listen, Harry. Now, Fletcher, did you see that fake meteor yourself? Touch it?"

      "Both. In fact, I've still got it. One of the runners, pretending to be a Service man, flashed it on me. It's really good, too, Chief. Even now, I can't tell it from my own except that mine is in my pocket. Shall I send it in?"

      "By all means; to Dr. H.D. Redmond, Head of Research. Keep on slugging, Sid—goodbye. Now, Harry, what do you think? It could be one of our own, you know."

      "Could be, but probably isn't. We'll know as soon as we get it in the lab. Chances are, though, that they have caught up with us again. After all, that was to be expected—anything that science can synthesize, science can analyze; and whatever the morals and ethics of the pirates may be, they have got brains."

      "And you haven't been able to devise anything better?"

      "Variations only, which wouldn't take much time to solve. Fundamentally, the present meteor is the best we know."

      "Got anybody you would like to put on it, immediately?"

      "Of course. One of the new boys will be perfect for the job, I think. Name of Bergenholm. Quite a character. Brilliant, erratic, flashes of sheer genius that he can't explain, even to us. I'll put him on it right away."

      "Thanks a lot. And now, Norma, please keep everybody off my neck that you can. I want to think."

      And think he did; keen eyes clouded, staring unseeingly at the papers littering his desk. Triplanetary needed a symbol—a something—which would identify a Service man anywhere, at any time, under any circumstances, without doubt or question ... something that could not be counterfeited or imitated, to say nothing of being duplicated ... something that no scientist not of Triplanetary Service could possibly imitate ... better yet, something that no one not of Triplanetary could even wear....

      Samms grinned fleetingly at that thought. A tall order one calling for a deus ex machina with a vengeance.... But damn it, there ought to be some way to....

      "Excuse me, sir." His secretary's voice, usually so calm and cool, trembled as she broke in on his thinking. "Commissioner Kinnison is calling. Something terrible is going on again, out toward Orion. Here he is," and there appeared upon Samms' screen the face of the Commissioner of Public Safety, the commander-in-chief of Triplanetary's every armed force; whether of land or of water, of air or of empty space.

      "They've come back, Virgil!" The Commissioner rapped out without preliminary or greeting. "Four vessels gone—a freighter and a passenger liner, with her escort of two heavy cruisers. All in Sector M, Dx about 151. I have ordered all traffic out of space for the duration of the emergency, and since even our warships seem useless, every ship is making for the nearest dock at maximum. How about that new flyer of yours—got anything that will do us any good?" No one beyond the "Hill's" shielding screens knew that the Boise had already been launched.

      "I don't know. We don't even know whether we have a super-ship or not," and Samms described briefly the beginning—and very probably the ending—of the trial flight, concluding: "It looks bad, but if there was any possible way of handling her, Rodebush and Cleveland did it. All our tracers are negative yet, so nothing definite has...."

      He broke off as a frantic call came in from the Pittsburgh station for the Commissioner; a call which Samms both heard and saw.

      "The city is being attacked!" came the urgent message. "We need all the reenforcements you can send us!" and a picture of the beleaguered city appeared in ghastly detail upon the screens of the observers; a view being recorded from the air. It required only seconds for the commissioner to order every available man and engine of war to the seat of conflict; then, having done everything they could do, Kinnison and Samms stared in helpless, fascinated horror into their plates, watching the scenes of carnage and destruction depicted there.

      The Nevian vessel—the sister-ship, the craft which Costigan had seen in mid-space as it hurtled Earthward in response to Nerado's summons—hung poised in full visibility high above the metropolis. Scornful of the pitiful weapons wielded by man, she hung there, her sinister beauty of line sharply defined against the cloudless sky. From her shining hull there reached down a tenuous but rigid rod of crimson energy; a rod which slowly swept hither and thither as the Nevians searched out the richest deposits of the precious metal for which they had come so far. Iron, once solid, now a viscous red liquid, was sluggishly flowing in an ever-thickening stream up that intangible crimson duct and into the capacious storage tanks of the Nevian raider; and wherever that flaming beam went there went also ruin, destruction and death. Office buildings, skyscrapers towering majestically in their architectural symmetry and beauty, collapsed into heaps of debris as their steel skeletons were abstracted. Deep into the ground the beam bored; flood, fire, and explosion following in its wake as the mazes of underground piping disappeared. And the humanity of the buildings died: instantaneously and painlessly, never knowing what struck them, as the life-bearing iron of their bodies went to swell the Nevian stream.

      Pittsburgh's defenses had been feeble indeed. A few antiquated railway rifles had hurled their shells upward in futile defiance, and had been quietly absorbed. The district planes of Triplanetary, newly armed with iron-driven ultra-beams, had assembled hurriedly

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