The second man had merely shifted the weapons in his holsters and then dropped his hands away.
The noise, which had been flooding the room over the speaker system, died instantly.
Stanton shoved his guns back into place and rose from his crouch. "Real cute," he said, grinning. "I wasn't expecting that one."
The man he was facing smiled back. "Well, Bart, perhaps we have proved our point. What do you think, Colonel?" The last was addressed to the third man, who was still standing quietly, looking worried and surprised about the three spots on his jacket that had come from the special harmless projectiles in Stanton's gun.
Colonel Mannheim was four inches shorter than Stanton's five-ten, and was fifteen years older. But in spite of the differences, he would have laughed if anyone had told him five minutes before that he couldn't outdraw a man who was standing with his back turned.
His bright blue eyes, set deep beneath craggy brows in a tanned face, looked speculatively at the younger man.
"Incredible," he said gently. "Absolutely incredible." Then he looked at the other man, a lean civilian with mild blue eyes a shade lighter than his own. "All right, Farnsworth; I'm convinced. You and your staff have quite literally created a superman. Anyone who can stand in a noise-filled room and hear a man draw a gun twenty feet behind him is incredible enough. The fact that he could and did outdraw and outshoot me after I had started—well, that's almost beyond comprehension."
He looked back at Bart Stanton. "What's your opinion? Do you think you can handle the Nipe, Stanton?"
Stanton paused imperceptibly before answering, while his ultrafast mind considered the problem before arriving at a decision. Just how much confidence should he show the colonel? Mannheim was a man with tremendous confidence in his own abilities, but who was nevertheless capable of recognizing that there were men who were his superiors in one field or another.
"If I can't dispose of the Nipe," Stanton said, "no one can."