"I'm in awe," the scientist by Nachtegall whispered to his neighbor.

"Me, too," the woman replied.

Nachtegall didn't know what to think. He knew he wasn't capable of judging just how incredible a thing it was Dykstra had achieved. He had to settle for judging the reactions of others, people who had a real understanding of what was involved.

So far they seemed amazed, though some faces looked positively dour.

"Doctor Dykstra?" A young engineer stood up.

"Yes, Dr. Vander Kam?"

The man looked surprised. "You know who I am? But we've never met."

"You're Rick Vander Kam, heir to the Capitol Products fortune. I worked for your great-grandfather,

your grandfather, and even your father. I've also studied your work-you're very talented."

Vander Kam brightened three shades of red.

"You had a question?"

"Yes. I'm almost afraid to ask, but how are you powering your device? I don't see a power conduit or a

fusion pack or anything."

Dykstra smiled. Nachtegall could see the triumphant twinkle in his eyes from all the way in back. "Total mass conversion, Dr. Vander Kam. I duplicated that process, too." "What?" "I don't believe it!" "Most holy shit!" Shocked disbelief. Questions were fired at Dykstra; he answered them simply, still with that twinkle in his eye-he was thoroughly enjoying himself. After five minutes Nachtegall sorted out the gist of what Dykstra had accomplished: 1) He had leapfrogged all the work of the Gamma Nonsense Project, for cheap antimatter production was a trivial spin-off of Dykstra's development, and also now obsolete.

2) He had not only deciphered the alien technology, but had duplicated it with terrestrial means right at hand, and all by himself. That really galled some of the gathering.

Nachtegall looked at Major Moore, seated off to the side. The major was not smiling. Now what's his problem? Nachtegall wondered. He knew Moore hadn't wanted Dykstra to be given the star treatment, had felt that it might interfere with his authority, and had been overruled. Now Dykstra had managed to outshine even the brightest of the early hopes for what he might accomplish.

Dykstra was tapping his cane on the table. "Quiet, please. Quiet. This seminar is not over yet. I have some other matters to discuss. I need to point out a problem I'm having in understanding the alien design philosophy. It may shed light on the alien thought processes themselves."

The room came to order, though Nachtegall could still see half a dozen conversations continuing in whispers.

Dykstra stood again by his device. "I want to show you one other thing that my copy does." A few changes were made to settings, then the beam reappeared, truncating at eighty centimeters. But instead of a thin cylinder, the beam was now a tight cone, the apex at the point of emergence. Dykstra slid the ceramsteel block against the base of the cone, then backed it away to show the large hole bored through the block. "You see-by allowing the beam to spread, I am now able to make a bigger hole in the block. There are other possible uses for a variable collimation of the beam. I'm sure many of you could think up particularly nasty applications.

"Now here's the rub-the alien weapon can't do this."

There was silence while Dykstra scanned the room, and Nachtegall could almost hear the collective thought of "So, what's your point?"

Vander Kam spoke up. "But even your first duplication attempt has that feature. I gather it isn't difficult to do?"

Dykstra smiled. "Very much correct, Dr. Vander Kam. Adding adjustable beam collimation is altogether trivial. The question is why the aliens didn't do it."

Another older scientist stood up, Dr. Manlinkov, looking like the original Russian bear. He'd begun the seminar with a neutral look that had soured into anger as Dykstra's success became apparent. "Now one damn minute! What the hell does this have to do with anything? Aliens chose not to collimate beam. So what? We're not in position to question what seems to them reasonable-we know nothing about them. To speculate will be utter waste of time!"

"I see no chains confining you to your seat, Dr. Manlinkov. Perhaps you would like to get back to your investigations of the alien technology?"

Nachtegall struggled to keep from laughing. Dykstra had said the words so sincerely, but everyone knew that Manlinkov had been working on the alien power supply, and getting nowhere, for months. He was just being petty.

"Hmph!" Manlinkov said, and sat down.

Dykstra continued. "I think what Dr. Manlinkov is concerned about is that the aliens' failure to add adjustable collimation may be like our reasons for not making every shotgun double-barreled.

"I am convinced that there's more to it than that.

"Suppose you were wandering the old West and you found what you thought was a six-shooter. Upon closer inspection, you discover that the cylinder has only one chamber drilled in it. Now, the cylinder is able to rotate, and there is ample room for five more chambers, and everything works exactly as a six-shooter should, except for that deficit in the number of chambers.

"Clearly, adding five more chambers would make the gun a better weapon. So why didn't the maker do it? Did he have some powerful reason for boring only one chamber? Or did it simply never occur to him to bore five more?"

"That doesn't make sense," Major Moore called out. "How could anyone who could make the gun in the first place be so stupid as to miss something like that?"

"I don't know," Dykstra said. "But consider this: Dr. Manlinkov mentioned that the aliens chose not to add the variable collimation feature. Perhaps there was no choice involved at all."

"I don't know where I'm going, Chris," Nachtegall said. "They gave me the coordinates to some anonymous rock no one's ever heard of-but no indication about what we're supposed to do there." They were sitting in Dykstra's living room a day after the seminar.

"Did you meet any of your team yet?"

"Yes. Four are cybernetically enhanced commandos. The commander, Captain Reynolds, is made of some very fine steel indeed. The two other team members are medical doctors."

"Really?" Dykstra said, curious. "Do you recall their names?"

"Oh, boy, let me think. One had curly blonde hair . . . Mary Beth Doelder, a surgeon. The other one,

Diane something . . . Joseph? No, Joswick. Diane Joswick.""She's not a surgeon," Dykstra said."No. A psychiatrist. You've heard of her?""Yes. She's the name in autism research.""Then what's she doing in the Patrol?"Dykstra shrugged."The whole thing is goofy," Nachtegall said. "But at least it's a real mission.""Courier days finished, Bob?""Nope. I'll be back with Moore in a few weeks."Dykstra smiled. He looked good, Nachtegall thought. Relaxed, at peace, enjoying himself. And more.

He looked like a man at the peak of his powers, and wise enough to know and relish it.

Dykstra was gesturing with his cane. "This mission is a puzzle. Let's figure it out. You were chosen as

pilot because you're already familiar with both the Phinon Project and the Belt antimatter investigations?"

"Yeah. And I'm a damn good pilot, too."

"I wasn't implying otherwise. And I'm beginning to get an idea. Have you seen your ship yet?"

"A Capitol Products Streakbomber. Oversized engines, but no bomb payload. It looks like we'll be going

in fast and coming out fast. But without bombs we're not going on a secret demolition mission."

"You also wouldn't be bringing along Joswick," Dykstra said.

"So? What? We're going to steal something? Or someone?"

"That's my guess," Dykstra said. "You're going in to kidnap someone from the Belt. Someone who is very valuable to them, or to us, or perhaps to both."

The lieutenant went to fix himself a drink, also drawing a coffee refill for Dykstra. "Any idea who?" Nachtegall asked, resuming his seat.

"The man responsible for the Belt antimatter successes. I can think of only one person who could have sorted it out. He lives in the Belt."

"Who?"

"Arie Hague."

"Hey! I've heard of him. He's the guy that found that-"

Dykstra cut him off. "Found that mistake in the Dykstra gravity equations. I've been hearing about that for twenty years. The fact that it wasn't a mistake he found doesn't change the perception on the part of the public . . . or my colleagues, for that matter."

"You disagree?"

Dykstra took a deep breath. "No point in letting myself get worked up about it all over again," he said. "What Hague found was a discontinuity in the full five-dimensional expression of my gravity equations. I knew it was there. I ignored it because it was physically irrelevant. It still seems that way-Hague never has demonstrated any reason why the discontinuity shouldn't just be ignored." His tone lightened. "Still, to have even found it . . .

"Oh, well, this is beside the point. In my judgment, Arie Hague is the one person beside myself who I'm certain understands the physics involved well enough to have invented the Belt antimatter process."

"So, we're going to kidnap Arie Hague?"

"Yes, but what's the justification? Why are you kidnapping him?"

"Hell, that's easy. If he's all you say he is, then just taking him away from the Belt is enough reason. Besides, once he's here, we might be able to bribe or coerce him into working for us. We've already seen what one super genius can do," Nachtegall added, grinning.

"There's one other reason you probably haven't heard about yet. If it's Hague, I think I know what he'll be working on here, provided we can get him to do it."

"What?""The alien faster-than-light drive. If it exists, that is."Nachtegall's eyes went wide. "I have heard some things. But most of the other technogeeks, I mean, scientists, don't believe the aliens have one."

"And not without good reason," Dykstra said. "A few months ago I would have agreed that FTL drives are an impossibility."

"And now?"

Dykstra sat solemnly, his cane still waving unconsciously in front of him. "Lately I've seen too many

new tricks in my physics. Maybe it can be done. One thing I do know, if the discontinuity Hague rediscovered does have physical significance, then the possibility of FTL travel is assured. That's one reason why I ignored it in the first place."

"Oh, geez, look at the time," Nachtegall said, rising abruptly. "Sorry, Chris, but I gotta get out of here. I have to be somewhere in ten minutes."

Dykstra rose also. "Another meeting?"

"A date," the lieutenant said. "It isn't every day a brave man goes off on a secret mission he may never return from."

Dykstra laughed.

"I guess we figured it all out," Nachtegall said.

"Not all of it," Dykstra said. "What's the psychiatrist for?"

* * * The week following the lieutenant's departure brought no direct word on the success of his mission. Dykstra, concerned for the safety of his friend, kept his ear to the ground for any news out of the "spook camp," that subdivision of Patrol Intelligence devoted to using any means possible to gather information on the enemy. He caught excited whispers about a successful Patrol raiding mission. The smug smile on the face of General Hadella confirmed that something had gone very well recently in Special Operations. Dykstra's professional work moved along. He was handed the task of designing a power system and spacecraft drive centered on his mass conversion technology. In the process he gained a helper and disciple-Rick Vander Kam.

"Any additional news on the lieutenant, Chris?" Dykstra heard immediately upon entering the lab.

"Not yet, Rick. Bob's only been gone a week. But I did overhear General Hadella mention something about a big surprise and good news for the 'alien technology boys.' I assume Nachtegall's return will coincide with the release of that other information."

"So Bob will be back in a day or two?"

"I hope so."

Designing a power system based on mass conversion technology was easy. Designing one that was useful for the military was a different matter. Though Dykstra was both a brilliant theorist and experimentalist, he had seldom had to do the sort of intensive detail work that turned a brilliant demonstration experiment into a great product. But that was Vander Kam's forte. Dykstra was routinely impressed by the younger scientist's deftness at both finding necessary equipment already on the market and designing things that would meet their unique needs.

The morning proceeded without unusual incident, but while they were at lunch, general quarters sounded.

"Whoa! Wonder what's up?" Rick exclaimed.

"I'm sure we'll soon know. But let's go to the tracking room," Dykstra said.