Part 2

"Well all right," said Jon with dignity. "Squad dismissed." He turned away to continue his tramp, and stopped with a startled gasp. There were spheres all about him. Ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty--there must be at least fifty of them, he calculated.

"Well, this is cozy," he said. "If I'd known I was working before an audience, I'd shown you some real drilling. Some audience, sitting on your hands."

He walked through the throng of them, giving them plenty of leeway in case one of them decided to roll his way. One, he thought it must be the one he had named Booger, followed him slowly. He got a good close-up look at several of them.

Smooth sleek balls they were, with shiny metallic surfaces, unbroken by any mark. No eyes, no feeding orifices, just smooth spheres.

_What a bunch of bowling balls you'd make_, he thought, _if we just had some pins_. Then he gasped.

At least six of them had extruded necks and _were_ huge bowling pins!

"Now wait a minute," he gasped. "Do that again." They did. It seemed to be contagious. Within a few seconds he was surrounded by a veritable gallery of bowling pins, ten meters high!

He closed his eyes and counted to twenty--slowly. Then he snapped his eyes open quickly. They were still there.

"Doc was right," he groaned. "The heat's getting me." Then his whimsical humor made him think, _Booger, come here!_

One of the anonymous pins sprang back into a sphere and trundled to him. Jon made a sweeping gesture.

"Knock 'em down," he ordered. Booger took a rolling start and smashed into the ranks of pins with the enthusiasm of a runaway space tug. The earth-quaking impact shook Jon off his feet. He lay stretched on his belly laughing hysterically at the ludicrous sight.

_Steady lad_, some sane corner of his brain whispered. _Steady. This is no time to go to pieces._

_What the hell_, he retorted to himself. _At least the condemned man had a hearty laugh._ But he pulled himself to his feet and trudged back to the ship.

* * * * *

Doc silently busied himself with the storage of the new reels after they had eaten.

"I found out how they do that disappearing act," he said finally. "It showed up on the high-speed shots. They shoot out a long pseudopod--like a wire. Then they snap back into a sphere at the other end. It's simply darned fast locomotion."

"Yes," agreed Jon, "and they can shape themselves into bowling pins and stuff too. And hold it. Their shape, I mean."

A thought was uncurling in Jon's mind. "Doc, do you suppose ... by golly, it's _got_ to work!"

And Doc was watching with astonished red-rimmed eyes as Jon slid through the neck of his space suit in its stand in the corner. Jon's voice faded out and came in over the speaker as the wrench settled the helmet in its seat and fell away.

"Warm up the converter, Doc. You'll have to handle that end this time. When I give the word, throw everything on--mains, auxiliaries, steering, everything. I'll have to do my end from the air-lock. And whatever you do, _don't cut acceleration until we're out of orbit and on course away_. Chop chop, chum."

Doc gaped at the door of the air-lock for a second, then shrugged and started closing switches. If the hottest spaceman of Explocenter said "try" ... well, what could you lose?

Jon's voice came in over the speaker again. "Booger! Booger, you big lump, come here. Doc, I'm cutting off trans for a minute, it seems to work better when I think it to him."

The seconds ticked off into minutes, and the READY light was full green. Doc's hand trembled a bit on the firing levers, and he checked the restrainers in his shock-chair for the third time.

Thirty seconds dragged by, and sweat budded on his forehead. "What in Helios is he ..." he muttered, and then the speaker crackled with the one word: "NOW!"

Doc slammed the firing levers home, and instantly was driven deep into his shock-chair. Blackness washed out his trailing thought, _Leaping Luna, what is this doing to Jon? There is no shock-pad in the air-lock._

It did plenty. It took all of Doc's skill and three weeks at Venusenter before the brash spaceman was clamoring for active duty.

"You see, Doc," he answered the question, "Booger and the rest were telepathic--one way at least. I had him gather about fifty of them, so if one or two quit on the job, it wouldn't make too much difference. Then I had them extrude themselves into cables clear over the horizon. I had them hook their ... well, tail ends onto the fins of the ship. Then I gave them the word to get over the hill--fast. With our power, and their catapult action, it worked just like a Plutonian Cradle. Gave us that extra boost we needed."

"But what was their incentive?" inquired Doc. "What made them take your orders?"

Jon grinned broadly. "They ain't very smart. And life there is pretty monotonous. It tickled them to have some one give them something to do. Besides that, just before I passed the word to Booger, I commissioned him Commander-in-Chief of Drake's Irregulars. Authority-crazy, that Booger."