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“Nice!” said Sergeant Bellews appreciatively. “That’s a Mahon jet all by itself, training against regular ships. They have to let it shoot star-bullets in training, or it’d get hot and bothered in a real fight when its guns went off.”

The lower jet streaked skyward once more. Sparks sped from the formation. They flared through emptiness where the Mahon jet had been but now was not. It scuttled abruptly to one side as concerted streams of sparks converged. They missed. It darted into zestful, exuberant maneuverings, remarkably like a dog dashing madly here and there in pure high spirits. The formation of planes attacked it resolutely.

Suddenly the lone jet plunged into the midst of the formation, there were coruscations of little shooting stars, and one-two-three planes disgustedly descended to lower levels as out of action. Then the single ship shot upward, seemed eagerly to shake itself, plunged back–and the last ships tried wildly to escape, but each in turn was technically shot down.

The Mahon jet headed back for its own tiny airfield. Somehow, it looked as if, had it been a dog, it would be wagging its tail and panting happily.

“That one ship,” said Lecky blankly, “it defeated the rest?”

“It’s got a lot of experience,” said the sergeant. “You can’t beat experience.”

He led the way into Communications Center. In the room where Betsy stood, Howell and Graves had been drawing diagrams at each other to the point of obstinacy.

“But don’t you see?” insisted Howell angrily. “There can be no source other than a future time! You can’t send short waves through three-dimensional space to a given spot and not have them interceptible between. Anyhow, the Compubs wouldn’t work it this way! They wouldn’t put us on guard! And an extra-terrestrial wouldn’t pretend to be a human if he honestly wanted to warn us of danger! He’d tell us the truth! Physically and logically it’s impossible for it to be anything but what it claims to be!”

Graves said doggedly:

“But a broadcast originating in the future is impossible!”

“Nothing,” snapped Howell, “that a man can imagine is impossible!”

“Then imagine for me,” said Graves, “that in 2180 they read in the history books about a terrible danger to the human race back in 1972, which was averted by a warning they sent us. Then, from their history-books, which we wrote for them, they learn how to make a transmitter to broadcast back to us. Then they tell us how to make a transmitter to broadcast ahead to them. They don’t invent the transmitter. We tell them how to make it–via a history book. We don’t invent it. They tell us–from the history book. Now imagine for me how that transmitter got invented!”

“You’re quibbling,” snapped Howell. “You’re refusing to face a fact because you can’t explain it. I say face the fact and then ask for an explanation!”

“Why not ask them,” said Graves, “how to make a round square or a five-sided triangle?”

* * * * *

Sergeant Bellews pushed to a spot near Betsy. He put down his now-linked Mahon machines and began to move away some of the recording apparatus focused on Betsy.

“Hold on there!” said Howell in alarm. “Those are recorders!”

“We’ll let ’em record direct,” said the sergeant.

* * * * *

Lecky spoke feverishly in support of Bellews. But what he said was, in effect, a still-marveling description of the possibilities of Mahon-modified machines. They were, he said with ardent enthusiasm, the next step in the historic process by which successively greater portions of the cosmos enter into a symbiotic relationship with man. Domestic animals entered into such a partnership aeons ago. Certain plants–wheat and the like–even became unable to exist without human attention. And machines were wrought by man and for a long time served him reluctantly. Pre-Mahon machines were tamed, not domestic. They wore themselves out and destroyed themselves by accidents. But now there were machines which could enter into a truly symbiotic relationship with humanity.