"I know, but—well. You and he had a run-in so...."
"That's done with," said the Admiral. "I shouldn't have been handling his runabout anyhow." He stopped a moment, then went on. "You know. We could clean up this whole situation if we could only get Webster down on Uranian soil, say right in the middle of Central City. Damn. Can you imagine what would happen?" He fingered his mouth reminiscently.
The others tried to imagine it, and couldn't. So they got back to work listing the crew.
At dawn the Sirius took off. A hundred thousand miles short of Uranus she swung into an orbit around the planet. That was close enough.
Two hours later the remote-controlled gig was ready. All hands watched it flash away from the mother ship, gathering speed every millisecond, set on a course that would carry it within fifty miles of the rim of Uranus.
Webster sat tensely at a visi-scope in the Sirius. Maybe he'd see something that would crystalize the formless thought within him. More than ever he felt he had the answer right at his fingertips. But he couldn't drag it out.
He saw a Uranian ship rise to meet the gig. The two drew closer together. And when they were about ten-thousand miles apart the gig suddenly crumbled. There was no explosion, no sign of a ray, nothing. The gig just broke into little pieces.
An audible gasp went up from the crew of the Sirius.
Webster heard the Admiral and the Second talking behind him.
"I didn't see a thing. Did you?"