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unnoticed, extra pipe that was crawling from the crossbrace hangers. It broke
up into lengths that rolled about unpleasantly. Rod rayed them till the
smallest only, the size of golf balls with curious blue-veined legs, staggered
about uncertainly. Finally even they stopped wriggling.
Half an hour Rod waited, while the air grew very green and thick.
Finally, to make sure, he started some other apparatus, and watched the
thermometer go down, down till moisture grew on the walls and became frost,
and no more changes took place. Then he went around with an opened ion-gun
with a needle beam and poked everything visible with it.
The suction fans cleared out the chlorine-fouled atmosphere in two minutes,
and Blake sat down wearily. He ffipped over the microphone switch and spoke
into the little disc.  I ve got my hand on the main ion-gun control.
Penton, I love you like a brother, but I love Earth more. If you can induce
your boy friends to drop their guns in a neat pile and retire
0. K. If not, and I mean if not within thirty seconds, this ion-gun is going
into action and there won t be any more Pentons. Now, drop!
Grinning broadly, with evident satisfaction, ten Pentons deposited twenty
heart-cores of ultra-essence of destruction, and moved off.  Way off,
said Blake grimly. They moved.
Blake collected twenty guns. Then he went back into the ship. There was a fine
laboratory at one end, and with grim satisfaction, he took down three
cotton-stoppered tubes, being very careful to handle them with rubber gloves.
 You never did man a good turn before, tetanus, but I hope you spread high,
wide and handsome here 
He dumped them into a beaker of water, and took beaker and glass down to the
lock and out. The ten waited at a distance.
 All right, Penton. I happen to know you took a shot of tetanus antivaccine
some while ago, and are immune. Let s see if those blasted brain stealers can
steal the secret of something we know how to make, but don t know anything
about. They can gain safety by turning into a chicken, which is immune, but
not as human creatures. That s a concentrated dose of tetanus. Go drink it. We
can wait ten days if we have to.
Ten Pentons marched boldly up to the beaker, resting beside the ship.
One stepped forward to the glass and nine kept right on stepping. They stepped
into the lee of the ship where the ion-gun could not reach.
Blake helped Penton into the ship with a broad grin.
 Am I right?
 You re right, sighed Penton,  but God knows why. You can t get tetanus by
swallowing it, and lockjaw doesn t develop so quickly as ten days.
 I didn t know for sure, grinned Blake.  They were too busy trying to find
out what I was doing to follow your mind. Ah there they go. Will you ray them
or shall I? asked Blake politely, sighting the ion-gun at the nine flapping,
rapidly vanishing things scuttling across the red, rusty planet. The ship
dipped sharply in pursuit.  There s one thing ahhh  he straightened as the
incredible glare died in thin air.  I want to know. How in blazes did you pick
me out?
 To do what you did requires some five hundred different sets of muscles in a
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
beautifully coordinated neuromuscular hookup, which I didn t believe those
things could imitate without a complete dissection. I took the chance it was
you.
 Five hundred sets of muscles! What the heck did I do?
 You sneezed.
Rod Blake blinked slowly, and slowly his jaw tested again its supports and
their flexibility.
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