Neither is it strange that the Institute of Knowledge on Jinx would have spent a good deal of time and trouble looking. Until BVS-1 was found, neutronium and neutron stars were only theories. The examination of an actual neutron star could be of tremendous importance. Neutron stars might give us the key to true gravity control.

Mass of BVS-1: 1.3 times the mass of Sol, approx.

Diameter of BVS-1 (estimated): eleven miles of neutronium, covered by half a mile of degenerate matter, covered by maybe twelve feet of ordinary matter.

Nothing else was known of the tiny hidden star until the Laskins went in to look. Now the Institute knew one thing more: the star's spin.

* * *

«A mass that large can distort space by its rotation,» said the puppeteer. «The Laskins' projected hyperbola was twisted across itself in such a way that we can deduce the star's period of rotation to be two minutes twenty-seven seconds.

The bar was somewhere in the General Products building. I don't know just where, and with the transfer booth's it doesn't matter. I kept staring at the puppeteer bartender. Naturally only a puppeteer would be served by a puppeteer bartender, since any biped life-form would resent knowing that his drink had been made with somebody's mouth. I had already decided to get dinner somewhere else.

«I see your problem,» I said. «Your sales will suffer if it gets out that something can reach through one of your hulls and smash a crew to bloody smears. But where do I come in?»

«We want to repeat the experiment of Sonya Laskin and Peter Laskin. We must find —»

«With me?»

«Yes. We must find out what it is that our hulls cannot stop. Naturally you may —»

«But I won't.»

«We are prepared to offer one million stars.»

I was tempted, but only for a moment. «Forget it.»