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original course. “But can it be miniaturized? Birdlip has been up for fifteen years. In that time I can easily reach Mars, Saturn even, and return.”
    “Yes, in a word. Look at this.” Keeble slid open a drawer and pulled out a wooden box. The joints were clearly visible, and the box was painted with symbols that appeared to be Egyptian hieroglyphs - walking birds and amphibians, eyeballs peering out of pyramids - but there was no sign of a hinge or a latch.
    It immediately occurred to St. Ives that the box was a tamperproof bottle of some sort, perhaps a tiny, self-contained still, and that he would be asked to poke the nose of a painted beast in order to reveal an amber pool of Scotch whisky. But Keeble set the box squarely atop the bench, spun it round forty-five degrees or so, and the lid of the box opened on its own.
    St. Ives watched as the lid rose and then fell back. From out of the depths of the box rose a strangely authentic-looking miniature cayman alligator, its long, toothed snout opening and shutting rhythmically. Four little birds followed, one at each corner, and the cayman snapped up and devoured the birds one by one, then grinned, rolled its eyes, made a sound like a rusty hinge, and sank into its den. After a ten-second pause, up it rose again, followed by miraculously restored birds, fated to be devoured over and over again into infinity. Keeble shut the lid, rotated the box a few degrees farther along, and smiled at St. Ives. “It’s taken me twelve years to perfect that, but it’s quite as workable now as is Birdlip’s engine. It’s for Jack’s birthday. He’ll be eighteen soon - fifteen years he’s been with us - and he’s the only one, I fear, who sees these things with the right sort of eye.”
    “Twelve years it took?” St. Ives was disappointed.
    “It could be done more quickly now,” said Keeble, “but it’s fearsomely expensive.” He was silent for a moment while he put the box away in its drawer. “I’ve been approached, in fact, about the device - about the patent, actually.”
    “Approached?”
    “By Kelso Drake. He seems to have dreams of propelling entire factories with perpetual motion devices. I haven’t any idea how he got onto them in the first place.”
    “Kelso Drake!” cried St. Ives. He almost shouted, “Again!” but hesitated at the melodramatic sound of it and the moment passed. It was an odd coincidence, though, to be sure. First Kraken’s suspicion of Drake’s possessing the alien craft, and now this. But there could hardly be a connection. St. Ives pointed at the plans lying on the bench. “How long then, a month?”
    “I should think so,” said Keeble. “That should do nicely. How long are you in London?”
    “Until this is accomplished. Hasbro stayed on in Harrogate. I’ve got rooms at the Bertasso in Pimlico.”
    Keeble, winking at St. Ives, began unscrewing the handle of a heavy chisel with an iron two inches wide. There was a bang at the casement overhead, as if it had been suddenly blown closed in the wind. Keeble dropped the chisel in surprise, the inevitable liquor within the handle flowing out over the drawing of the oxygenator device.
    “Wind,” said St. Ives, himself shaking from the sudden start. But just as he mouthed the word, a bolt of lightning lit the night sky, illuminating a shadowy face that peered in over the sill, and precipitating a wash of sudden, heavy rain.
    Keeble cried out in horror and surprise. St. Ives jumped across to the tilted stepladder that led to the boxy little gable. There was a shout from above - a cry actually - and the sound of something scraping across the slates. St. Ives flung open the window in the face of the rain, and climbed out into the night, just as a head and shoulders disappeared over the edge of the roof.
    “I’ve got him!” came a shout from below, the voice of Jack Owlesby, and St. Ives started toward it, thinking to follow the man down. But the slick roof would almost certainly