Wicksen started to shake his head.

"Put every man you've got onto it," urged Doug. "And every woman."

"We're already working flat out."

"How close are you?"

The physicist shrugged uncomfortably, more like a writhing.

"The beam collimator is finished. The aiming circuitry is ready to be tested. Then we've got to bring the kloodges out to the mass driver and mate them. Then we need to test the complete system."

"Kloodges?" Edith asked. "What are they?"

"Ramshackle collections of hardware," Harry Clemens answered in his laconic twang before Wicksen could respond. "Clinking, clanking, caliginous collections of junk."

"Oh."

"Makeshift hardware," Wicksen said, grimacing slightly at Clemens. "Slapped together quickly, without worrying about how it looks."

"Kloodges," Edith repeated.

Doug demanded, "Can you put it all together by the end of this week?"

"We have to test-"

"We don't have time for testing!" Doug said sharply. "Get the hardware together, make it functional. You can test it after it's completely assembled, if the Peacekeepers give us enough time."

Wicksen's big eyes widened even further. "You'd hang the survival of this base on untested equipment?"

"If it doesn't work, we're dead anyway," Doug pointed out. "Right?"

The physicist thought it over for a moment, his big tarsier's eyes staring at Doug. At last he admitted, "Right."

"Wait a minute," Anson said, from behind her desk. "Wix, will you have enough time to rig the control system so you can operate the beam gun from inside, here?"

"No. We'll have to run it manually, out there at the mass driver."

"In suits," said Vince Falcone.

Wicksen nodded solemnly.

"With a nuclear warhead coming at you," Falcone added.

Another grave nod.

Anson said, "So if the beam gun doesn't work you and your people get fried by the nuke."

"That's right," Wicksen said slowly. "We'll be operating an untested apparatus, in the open, in surface suits, and if it doesn't work the first time we'll all be toast."

All eyes turned to Doug.

"The alternative is to let the Peacekeepers nuke our solar farms," he said. But he was thinking, I can't force Wix and his people to go out there under the gun. I can't order him to do it.

Wicksen smiled a strange, enigmatic smile. "Well… I can see that we'll have to make the apparatus work the first time.' He pushed his chair back from the table. "I'd better get back to the workshop. We have a lot to do and not much time to do it."

The others watched him walk out of the office and slide the door shut softly behind him.

Anson shook her head. "The Japs aren't the only ones who've got kamikazes."

Falcone, his swarthy face set in a scowl, said to Doug, "You're gonna let him go out on a suicide job?"

"Do you see any alternatives?" Doug returned, forcing himself to sound much firmer than he felt.

Before Falcone could answer, Doug added, "Except surrender?"

"Okay, Wix has made his decision," Anson said. "Let's move on."