the barrel wereobviously designed to impart a spin to the projectile, to give itgyroscopic stability while in flight.
The dead thing must have thought he was a wild animal, the Nipe decided.Surely no being would carry a weapon for use against members of its own oranother intelligent species.
He examined the rest of the equipment on the thing. Not much informationthere. Too bad the slave-animal was gone; there had apparently been moreequipment strapped to it.
The next question was, what should he do with the body?
Devour it properly, as one should with a validly slain foe?
It didn't seem that he could do anything else, and yet his stomachs wantedto rebel at the thought. After all, it wasn't as if the thing were reallya proper being. It was astonishing to find another intelligent race; nonehad ever been found before. But he was determined to show them that he wascivilized and intelligent, too.
On the other hand, they were obviously of a lower order than the Nipe, andthat made the question even more puzzling.
In the end, he decided to leave the thing here, for others of its kind tofind. They would doubtless consume it properly.
And--he glanced at the sky and listened--they would be here in time. Therewere aircraft coming.
He would have to leave quickly. He had to find one of their production orsupply centers, and he would have to do it alone, with only the equipmenthe had on him. The utter destruction of his ship had left him seriouslyhampered.
He began moving, staying in the protection of the trees. His ethical sensestill bothered him. It was not at all civilized to leave a body to themercy of lesser animals or monocells like that. What kind of monster wouldthey think he was?
Still, there was no help for it. If they caught him while feeding, theymight have thought him a lower animal and shot him. He couldn't put anonus like that upon them.
He moved on.
III
Two-fifths of a second. That was all the time Bart Stanton had from thefirst moment his supersensitive ears heard the faint whisper of metalagainst leather.
He made good use of it.
The noise had come from behind and slightly to the left of him, so he drewhis own gun with his left hand and spun to his left as he dropped to acrouch. He had turned almost completely around, drawn his gun, and firedthree shots before the other man had even leveled his own weapon.
The bullets from Stanton's gun made three round spots on the man's jacket,almost touching each other and directly over the heart. The man blinkedstupidly for a moment, looking down at the round spots.
"My God," he said softly.
Then the man returned his weapon slowly to his holster.
The big room was noisy. The three shots had merely added to the noise ofthe gunfire that rattled intermittently around the two men. And even thatgunfire was only a part of the cacophony. The tortured molecules of theair in the room were so besieged by the beat of drums, the blare oftrumpets, the crackle of lightning, the rumble of heavy machinery, thesquawks and shrieks of horns and whistles, the rustle of autumn leaves,the machine-gun snap of popping popcorn, the clink and jingle of fallingcoins, and the yelps, bellows, howls, roars, snarls, grunts, bleats, moos,purrs, cackles, quacks, chirps, buzzes, and hisses of a myriad of animals,that each molecule would have thought that it was being shoved in ahundred thousand different directions at once if it had had a mind tothink with.
The noise wasn't deafening, but it was certainly all-pervasive.
Bart Stanton had reholstered his own weapon and half opened his lips tospeak when he heard another sound behind him.
Again he whirled his guns in hand--both of them this time--and hisforefingers only fractions of a millimeter from the point that would firethe hair triggers.
But he did not fire.
The second man had merely shifted the weapons in his holsters and thendropped his hands away.
The noise, which had been flooding into the room over the speaker system,died instantly.
Stanton shoved his guns back into place and rose from his crouch. "Realcute," he said, grinning. "I wasn't expecting that one."
The man he was facing smiled back. "Well, Bart, maybe we've proved ourpoint. What do you think, Colonel?" The last was addressed to the thirdman, who was still standing quietly, looking worried and surprised aboutthe three spots on his jacket that had come from the special harmlessprojectiles in Stanton's gun.
Colonel Mannheim was four inches shorter than Stanton's five-ten, and wasfifteen years older. But, in spite of the differences, he would havelaughed at anyone who had told him, five minutes before, that he couldn'toutdraw a man who was standing with his back turned.
His bright blue eyes, set deep beneath craggy brows in a tanned face,looked speculatively at the younger man. "Incredible," he said gently."Absolutely incredible." Then he looked at the other man, a lean civilianwith mild blue eyes a shade lighter than his own. "All right, Dr.Farnsworth, I'm convinced. You and your staff have quite literally createda superman. Anyone who can stand in a noise-filled room and hear a mandraw a gun twenty feet behind him is incredible enough. The fact that hecould and did outdraw and outshoot me after I had started ... well, that'salmost beyond comprehension."
He looked back at Bart Stanton. "What's your opinion, Mr. Stanton? Thinkyou can handle the Nipe?"
Stanton paused imperceptibly before answering, while his ultrafast mindconsidered the problem and arrived at a decision. Just how much confidenceshould he show the colonel? Mannheim was a man with tremendous confidencein himself, but who was capable of recognizing that there were men whowere his superiors, in one field or another.
"If I can't dispose of the Nipe," Stanton said, "no one can."
Colonel Mannheim nodded slowly. "I believe you're right," he said atlast. His voice was firm with inner conviction. He shot a glance atFarnsworth. "How about the second man?"
Farnsworth shook his head. "He'll never make it. In another two years, wecan put him into reasonable shape again, but his nervous system justcouldn't stand the gaff."
"Can we get another man ready in time?"
"Hardly. We can't just pick a man up off the street and turn him into asuperman. Even if we could find another subject with Bart's geneticpossibilities, it would take more time than we have to spare."
"This isn't magic, Colonel. You don't change a nobody into a physical andmental giant by saying _abracadabra_ or by teaching him how to pronounce_shazam_ properly."
"I'm aware of that," said Colonel Mannheim without rancor. "Five years ofwork on Mr. Stanton must have taught you something, though. I should thinkyou could repeat the process in less time."
Farnsworth repeated the headshaking. "Human beings aren't machines,Colonel. They require time to heal, time to learn, time to integratethemselves. Remember that, in spite of all our increased knowledge ofanesthesia, antibiotics, viricides, and obstetrics, it still takes ninemonths to produce a baby. We're in the same position, only more so."
"I see," said Mannheim.
"Besides," Dr. Farnsworth continued, "Stanton's body and nervous systemare now close to the theoretical limit for human tissue. I'm afraid youdon't realize what kind of mental stability and organization are requiredto handle the equipment he now has."
"I'm sure I don't," the colonel agreed. "I doubt if anyone besides Stantonhimself knows."
Dr. Farnsworth's manner softened a little. "You're probably quite right.Suffice it to say that Bartholomew Stanton is the only answer we've foundso far, and the only answer visible in the foreseeable future to theproblem posed by the Nipe."
The colonel's face darkened. "I keep hoping that our policy of handlingthe Nipe hasn't been a mistake. If it has, it's going to prove a fatalone--for the whole race."
"Let's go into the lounge," Farnsworth said. "Standing around in an emptychamber like this isn't the most comfortable way to discuss the fate ofmankind." His voice brought hollow echoes from the walls.
Colonel Mannheim grinned at the touch of lightness the biophysicist hadinjected int
o the conversation. "Very well. I could do with some coffee,if you have some."
"All you want," said Dr. Farnsworth, leading the way toward the door ofthe chamber and opening it. "Or, if you'd prefer something with a littlemore power to it--?"
"Thanks, no. Coffee will do fine," said Mannheim. "How about you, Mr.Stanton?"
Bart Stanton shook his head. "I'd love to have some coffee, but I'll leavethe alcohol alone. I'd just have the luck to be finishing a drink whenour friend, the Nipe, popped in on us. And when I do meet him, I'm goingto need every microsecond of reflex speed I can scrape up."
* * * * *
They