“Atomics and fuel tanks are installed elsewhere,” Dickenson explained. “That job has to be carried out under safety precautions. This way.”

He led the way diagonally across the hangar, ducking under a fuselage, and stepping over. stacks of rods and girders. They passed through a door into a smaller room.

“There!” Dickenson exclaimed, “What’d you make of that?” A single ship occupied the center of the room, set high up in the trestles. The ship was short and stubby, and it was colored a deep scarlet.

“A Jacko ship!” Jason exclaimed. “So we’ve captured a Jacko ship at last!”

Dickenson shook his head. “This was made right here in these workshops. Look there!”

He waved a hand to draw attention to the array of drawings, diagrams and blown-up photographs on the walls.

“As near as we can manage it, however,” he went on, “this is a Jacko ship. Perhaps it’s a little better than a Jacko ship; it’ll accelerate harder, and carry more fuel. We’ve been working on this for more than a year, and a lot of thought and time and money has been put into it. Can you guess what we mean to do with it, Jason?”

“No, sir. Had it been just a mock-up. I’d have guessed it was intended for training, for familiarization, but you say it’s a real ship.”

“It’s certainly no mock-up.” The admiral clicked open his cigarette case. “Smoke?” he invited. He himself lit up and perched on the end of a work bench.

“D’you know where the Jackoes come from, Jason?”

“No, sir. All I know is the usual theories; that they come across from Alpha Centauri; or that they come from one of the big planets, Jupiter or Neptune or Saturn; or there’s the theory about the big mother ship hanging around outside the orbit of Neptune. According to this all the little scouts we don’t manage to kill go back to the mother ship to get themselves patched up and rearmed.”

“What d’you think of these notions?”