Terran with hardly a trace of an accent. "If there's one thing I can't abide, it's practical jokers. You'd better get up here at once, Chu."

"Right away, sir. What—seems to be the trouble?"

"I've already told you," the guest said. His gaze shifted away for a minute. "The Warning Red just flashed on in my room, so you'll have to wait until your damned Mercurian stops parading up and down the hall, but I want you here immediately afterward. I will not stand—" He broke off and a startled expression came over his face. Alister Chu saw that he was staring off to one side of the visiphone, then he started to scribble madly with a pencil on the pad that was beside the phone. "I was wrong," he said thickly. "It's not-"

At this point, as it seemed to Chu, the guest fell apart. Not literally, of course, but there was a minute when his face seemed to be working in all directions at once, then he fell forward in front of the visiphone. From the way he fell, Alister Chu was almost certain that he was dead.

Then a gloved hand came into view on the screen, moved quickly to the phone itself, and the screen went dead.

Alister Chu went quickly from the room, stopping for a moment beside the desk of his assistant. "Something's happened upstairs," he said quietly. "I think you had better put in a call for the police. I'll be on the hundred and seventieth floor. Mr. Gru's room." He hurried on toward the elevators, trying to look as if nothing had happened.

Chief Inspector Maiset, head of the Solar Department, Terran Division, took the call that came into the Interplanetary Criminal Police Commission. Since it was coming in over a closed circuit, he didn't bother to activate the screen. He never did on such calls, his reason being, as he said, that he saw enough policemen without looking at another one when it was not necessary.

"Maiset here," he said into the audiphone. He listened for a few minutes, doing nothing more than grunt occasionally to show that he was still there. "Let me see now," he said amiably when his caller had run down, "you say the case involves suspected murder, although you're not sure anyone is dead; a hotel full of suspects, if it is necessary to suspect anyone of anything, these being delegates from all over the galaxy. That about it? No, no, you did quite right. I expect you'll be needing someone like Detective Inspector Calder. He'll be right along. You'll meet him? Good."

Chief Inspector Maiset disconnected. He leaned over and pressed one of a number of buttons on his desk, then waited patiently.

After a moment the door to his office opened and a young man stepped inside. Being a detective, he was in plain clothes. That is, he wore an attractive one-piece suit which made him look like any one of a dozen successful young businessmen. But his face lacked the alertness of such young men, his expression usually giving the impression that he was half asleep.

"Another official call, I see," the young man said as he came up to the chief inspector's desk.

"That's true," admitted Maiset, "but how did you know?"

"Simple deduction," the young man answered. "When it's an official call, you never activate the screen. There is, you'll note, a slight film of dust over the screen switch. Since you also never summon me unless there's a case, it means you just received a plea for help from some other station. That, in turn, means a case involving either delicate interplentary relations or murder,"

The chief inspector beamed at the young man. Detective Inspector Jair Calder was always making just such deductions as these. Although it was an age when crime was usually solved by unrelieved science, the chief inspector was a sentimental man who delighted in the old literature of crime, and therefore never ceased to be pleased by Calder's ability.

"You're right," he said. "I just had a call from Sub-Inspector Aly Mordette of the Terran Provincial Police. It's suspected murder and delicate interplanetary relations. At the new Planetary Rest Hotel. You know where it is?"

Inspector Calder nodded.

"All that Mordette has done is throw an energy belt around the hotel so that no one can enter or leave. He'll meet you on the Third Level above the hotel and key you through the belt."

Inspector Calder nodded again and left.

A few minutes later he arrived at the Third Level in his small, inconspicuous air-car. He was broadcasting a short-wave impulse which only the police sets could pick up as a means of identification.

The police cruiser soon came alongside, then led the way down toward the hotel. Inspector Calder set his air-car down on the roof-port of the hotel, and by the time he climbed out the uniformed sub-inspector was waiting for him.

The latter was a large, abdominal man, whose light blue uniform managed to look wrinkled in spite of being manufactured from non-wrinkleable plastic. The expression on his red face indicated that the sub-inspector was a man who lived in an aura of constant suspicion.

"Inspector Jair Calder?" he asked formally as Jair stepped from his car.

"Yes," Jair said pleasantly. "I take it you're Sub-Inspector Mor-dette? A bit of a go here, eh?"

"It would seem so," the sub-inspector said glumly. "I haven't done a thing, you understand. The hotel is filled with all sorts of queer fish—and some of them are fish—and there's no telling what'll hurt their feelings. A mere sub-inspector in the Provincial Police doesn't carry much weight, I can tell you."

"Just so," Jair agreed. "I expect we ought to look in on the trouble, don't you think?"

"We'll have to do down to the hundred and seventieth floor," the sub-inspector said. He started for the elevators and Inspector Calder fell into step beside him. "Things haven't changed much, I tell you, in spite of all the talk about living in a brave new galaxy."

"How do you mean?" Jair asked.

The sub-inspector waved his hand at the hotel. "All this. Convention at a hotel. Place filled with big shots. A guy gets murdered —probably for the same sort of reason people were murdered three hundred years ago. And it's a time for the little policeman to watch his step or some big shot will have his job. Oh, we have our Twenty-second Century gadgets, but everything works just the same as it did in the Nineteenth or Twentieth Century. You can take my word for it, Inspector."

"I shall," Jair said amiably.

The sub-inspector scowled uncertainly, but was silent for the rest of the trip. When they stepped out of the elevator on the hundred and seventieth floor, it seemed that the hall was filled with policemen. But finally, halfway down the corridor, Jair caught sight of an immaculately dressed man who could only be the manager of the hotel. He saw them at the same time and hurried to meet them.

"Well, I'm certainly glad that you're here," he said, speaking directly to Jair and ignoring the sub-inspector. "I do trust that this unfortunate matter can be handled discreetly. We have a number of important men here this week and I wouldn't want them disturbed."

"We shall handle them most gently," Jair said. "I'm Inspector Calder, of Planepol. And you're—?"

"Alister Chu," the manager said. "I have the honor of being the manager of—"

"Of course," Jair interrupted. "Now, what seems to be the trouble?"

The manager quickly told of the call he'd received from the guest on this floor. He explained the whole thing in great detail, including his impression of the guest's falling apart: "Not literally, of course." By the time he'd finished, they were standing in front of the room in question.

"Of course," Jair said, agreeing with the impression. He glanced around the luxurious, brightly-colored corridor. "You know, this is the first time I've seen the Planetary Rest Hotel, although I've read about it. Everything is constructed of plastic, eh?"

"Oh, yes." For a minute, pride replaced the worried look on Alister Chu's face. "As you may know, the hotel is owned by Plasti-corp and they built everything with their own products. There are two hundred and seventy-three different plastics used. Notice how springy the floor is; it cuts down fatigue by sixty per cent. The doors, for example, are of Plexilite with a tensile strength several times that of steel. Then, due to a few new formulas, we are the only hotel capable of catering to every life form in the galaxy—"

"I was wondering about that," interrupted Jair Calder. "Do you have separate sections for the inhabitants of other planets?"

"Oh, no. We have special rooms, of course, but they're on the same floors. Why, there are a number of rooms for Mercurians right here on this floor."

"Mercurians? I should think it would be dangerous for your human guests having them on the same floor."

"No danger of that at all," the manager said. "When the Mercurians want to leave their rooms they naturally have to come through a sort of air-lock. There are warning lights which go on in all the other rooms, in the hallway and in the elevators. This gives everyone a good thirty seconds to get out of the way." "What about damage to the hallway?"

"None at all," the manager said with pride. "A Mercurian passing through the hall will raise the temperature to about two hundred degrees Centigrade, but none of the plastic used will grow soft at temperatures below two hundred and fifty degrees Centigrade. So there's plenty of margin. And the hallway reverts to its normal temperature within thirty seconds after the Mercurian has passed. At the end of the hall there are special Mercurian elevators, taking them down to where they can enter their fire coaches."

"All of this is very interesting," Jair Calder said, "but I suspect we'd better get down to cases. This the room of the guest?"

"Yes."

"His name?"

"G. G. Gru. He's been coming here regularly since we opened, and he always reserves the same room."

"He was not, I take it, a delegate to the convention?"

"Oh, no. In fact, he loathed the convention."

"I see. Well, since he doesn't answer the door, I expect you'd better open it."

For the first time, the manager looked embarrassed. "I can't," he said.

Something akin to interest crept into Inspector Calder's eyes. "Why not?"

"Well, we have two sorts of doors here. The regular doors are locked or unlocked by a combination of pressures. The combination is given the guest and then changed for the next guest. Naturally, the management has no difficulty opening those doors if circumstances demand it. But with certain regular guests—and Mr. Gru was one of these—we replace the door with a special one with a palm-lock keyed to the atomic structure of the guest. No one but the guest can either lock or unlock these doors."

"Ah," said Jair Calder. He was really interested now, "I presume there is interior ventilation and so no windows?"

"That is correct, Inspector."

"And this door is the only entrance or exit?"

"Yes."

Inspector Calder looked again at the door. It was a plain plastic door, dark green in color, perfectly smooth and unbroken except for the slight impression, in the shape of a hand, which was the palm-lock.

Now the inspector, like his chief, was of a romantic turn of mind and was fond of the old literature on crime. So, perhaps, it was only natural that, staring at the door, he muttered to himself: "If Gideon Fell could have lived to see this . . ."

"I beg your pardon, Inspector?" the manager said.

"Nothing," Jair Calder said hurriedly. "An unimportant historical allusion. Now, Mr. Chu, I believe you said that Mr. Gru was on the visiphone to you at the time he was apparently killed? And that you yourself saw another hand reach in and turn off the visiphone?"

"That's right."

"And you also tell me that this door—which is the only egress to this room—could not be locked or unlocked by anyone except Mr. Gru?"

"That is also correct, Inspector."

"But then," suddenly exclaimed Sub-Inspector Mordette, "that means the murderer is still in the room. We'd better prepare to rush him."

"It'll be a pity if you're right," Inspector Calder said. "And how do you suggest rushing into the room, Sub-Inspector?"

"Why—why—" stammered the official, "I guess we'll just break the door down."

"You couldn't break that door down if you had a thousand men," the manager said with a patronizing air.

"He's right, you know," said Jair. He drew a small weapon from his picket. "But I expect this will get us in. Plexilite, I believe you said?"

"What's that?" the manager asked.

"Aromatic hydrocarbon gun," the inspector answered. "Very useful in getting through Plexilite doors. In fact, it's the only thing that'll do the trick." He aimed the gun and moved it in a half circle while holding the trigger down. The door swung open, leaving a half-moon section hanging from the lock.

Mr. G. G. Gru was slumped across his desk in front of the visi-phone screen, in much the fashion that the hotel manager had described. There was no doubt that he was quite dead.

Inspector Jair Calder walked across and stood looking down at the body, ignoring the fact that Sub-Inspector Mordette and his men were sniffing around the room with drawn weapons. Then, as he saw Mordette approaching, he leaned over and ripped off the top sheet of a scratch pad on the desk. He folded back the top inch or so and held it in his hand. There was a jagged tear across the lower half.

"No villain, eh, Mordette?" he asked casually.

"No," growled the sub-inspector. "An Algenibian worm couldn't be hidden in here without my men finding him." He stopped and gazed down at the body. "No wound. Must have been a magnetic weapon."

Inspector Calder grunted what might have been either an affirmative or negative.

"Demagnetized," Mordette said with scorn. "Just a fancy method of electrocution. I told you that even methods hadn't changed in the last two hundred years."

"So you did," murmured Jair. "Mr. Chu, I take it that Mr. Gru here was from Sinus Two?"

"Yes, Inspector."

"Hmmm. I thought so. Humanoid, but a Si-type of life." He glanced again at the paper in his hand. "As you probably suspected, Mr. Chu, the victim did try to leave us a clue to his death, but I'm afraid most of it has been made off with." He held the paper up so that the others could see it. One jagged piece of paper, torn on both sides, still retained a crude drawing of a six-sided figure and the letters COO.

"Coo?" asked a bewildered sub-inspector. "What sort of a clue is that?"

"Not a very good one, I'm afraid," admitted Jair. "By itself, the word might indicate a soft, murmuring sound—hardly to be associated with an act of violence. I believe at one time it was also an expression of surprise among a small, lower-class group of Ter-rans. Then again—and perhaps more to our purpose—it might be part of a name. Mr. Chu . . ."

"Yes, Inspector?"

"I'd like a little assistance, please. First, a place where I may conduct the investigation. Preferably a comfortable place where I might also have some coffee. Then, someone sufficiently familiar with the convention here to inform me about the various delegates. Thirdly, I'd like a quick search made of your register and a list of all names which have the letters C-O-O appearing together."

"Of course, sir," the manager said. "We have a rather comfortable executive's lounge."

"Fine." Inspector Calder walked out of the room with the others trooping behind him. As he stepped into the hallway, he lurched and almost fell. He stooped quickly and came up holding a small, transparent six-sided figure. As he held it up to the light, faint markings could be seen inside as if someone had managed to etch the letter U within the solid.

"A rather interesting piece of Plexilite," he observed. "Any idea what it was doing in the corridor, Mr. Chu?"

"No," the manager said. He stepped closer and looked at it. "Looks like interior etching. Could it be some sort of costume jewelry, perhaps?"

"Perhaps," Jair said. He tossed it in the air a couple of times and then put it in his pocket. He took one more look at the door. "Mr. Chu, what about someone's removing the door from its hinges?"

"It can only be done when the current is off or when the door is unlocked, and even then it's a good twenty-minute job. There would have been no time for the . . . ah . . . murderer to replace the door. You will remember the warning light went on while Mr. Gru was speaking to me. So a Mercurian went down the hallway within thirty seconds and I myself was here as soon as the Mercurian returned to his room."

"Of course. Shall we go lounge like executives?"

The manager disapproved of the levity, but he led the way to the elevator without speaking.

"Now," said Inspector Calder, when they were in the luxurious executive's lounge, "before you dash off to fetch my coffee, the list of names, and a convention expert, would you know the time you received the call from Mr. Gru?"

"Yes," said the manager. "It was just one minute past two o'clock."

"Then," said Jair, writing the time down, "Mr. Gru was murdered at approximately one minute and ten seconds past two. The Mercurian entered the hallway at approximately one minute and thirty-five seconds past two. How long would you say before he returned to his room?"

"Four or five minutes. I waited in the elevator until the light went off."

"Let's say five minutes. So at six minutes and thirty-five seconds past two, the Mercurian went back to his room of fire. Then, at seven minutes and five seconds past two, you entered the corridor —and found it empty?"

The manager nodded.

"Good. While you're about it, you might also find out which one of your Mercurians was promenading down the corridor."

Inspector Calder studied the timetable he'd written down, ignoring the glum-looking sub-inspector, until the hotel manager returned. With him was another Terran, a rather brusque-looking young man dressed in the latest sports-plastic.

"This," he said, "is James Bruce. He's an employee of Plasti-corp and has been in charge of the present Acrylic convention. Mr. Bruce, Inspector Calder of the I.CP.C"

"Hi, Inspector," the newcomer said in a breezy fashion. "Chu, here, told me about the business upstairs. I'll be glad to help in any way I can. I do hope, however, that your investigation won't disturb our convention too much. We have some pretty important men here." He bore down on the word important just enough. Jair Calder got the implication, but gave no recognition of having noticed it:

"We'll try to keep the murder from inconveniencing you too much," he said dryly. "What is your position with Plasticorp, Mr. Bruce?"

"Vice president in charge of testing. But I'm also the convention chairman. And if I do say it myself, this is one of our best conventions. We've been having a high old time."

"Quite," the Inspector said. "Mr. Chu, the names?"

"Only four guests fit the requirements," the manager said. "Cooerl II, from Mercury. Rruda Akcoo of Mars. Somer Alcoon of Rigel. And Amos Coombs, a Terran. All of them are delegates to the convention."

Jair Calder nodded and turned to the convention chairman. "You know them, Mr. Bruce?"

"Sure. All of them are good guys."

"They are delegates from different companies?"

"Not exactly," Bruce said. "To get the picture, you have to realize that Plasticorp controls about ninety per cent of the plastics business in the galaxy. There are a few minor companies, but almost everyone at this convention is a part of Plasticorp. These four are all executives in the corporation. I'll vouch for them, Inspector."

"That's nice of you," Jair Calder said dryly. He turned back to the manager. "Did you learn which Mercurian was out?"

The manager nodded. "By a strange coincidence, it was this same Cooerl II."

"Let's hope it was no more than a coincidence. You have a flame-suit I can borrow?"

The manager nodded.

"I'll go up and see Cooerl II then," the inspector said. "Mr. Bruce, I wonder if you'd mind learning the whereabouts of Coombs, Akcoo, and Alcoon at about two o'clock?"

"Sure thing," Bruce said.

Inspector Calder donned a standard flame-suit and returned to the hundred and seventieth floor. He'd arranged for the desk to announce he was coming, so he was admitted without delay. Once the inner door had closed, the Mercurian turned from the controls and greeted his visitor politely.

The Mercurians were, of course, originally descended from a form of salamander, but Cooerl II stood upright and resembled a salamander about as much as Jair Calder resembled the Peking Man. The Mercurian and the Terran exchanged polite views on the weather, the Mercurian's relatives, and other such unimportant matters for several minutes.

"I understand," Jair Calder finally said, "that you were out in the hall briefly this afternoon. I wonder if you'd mind telling me why?"

"Certainly not." The Mercurian's voice sounded querulous in the head-phones. "I was notified by the operator that there was a visiphone call for me. There is no set in my room—I understand the heat is not good for the screen—and so I went to the public visiphone booth at the end of the corridor. But there was no one there when I answered. Apparently the party had hung up, or it was a practical joke."

"Strange," said Jair, more to himself, "this is the second mention of a practical joke without any more evidence than that. You met no one in the hallway?"

"Of course not. It would be dangerous to anyone other than another Mercurian or someone dressed as you are now."

Inspector Calder wasted another few minutes telling the Mercurian how much he admired his home planet and wishing him warmth and good health, and then left the room. Out in the hall he removed the flame-suit, emerging drenched in sweat, and went back downstairs. The manager, Mr. Bruce and the Provincial Police still waited for him.

"I checked up on the boys for you," Bruce announced. "All three of them have perfect alibis. They were in a committee meeting from one until three."

"Thank you," said Inspector Calder. "What about yourself?"

"Me?" asked the startled vice president. "You're kidding, Inspector. But if you really want to know, I got an alibi too."

Jair Calder nodded agreeably and sat down. He tasted the coffee which was sitting at his place and was glad to find it fresh and hot. Then he turned to the manager.

"Mr. Chu, I must trouble you for two more things. I'd like all the elevator operators who were on duty from about twelve o'clock until after two brought here one at a time so that I can question them. I'd also like to question any other guests on the hundred and seventieth floor who were in their rooms at about two o'clock. That is, excepting the Mercurians. Then—I believe the hotel has its own shops, does it not?"

"Yes, indeed. You can purchase anything without leaving the hotel."

"Good. Check each shop and get me a list of any unusual purchases made during the past two days." He waited until the manager left the room and then smiled at Sub-Inspector Mordette. "Best do this in an orderly fashion, eh, Mordette? Looks better on the report."

"You see," Mordette said triumphantly, "even you must follow the exact form that was used centuries ago." "I'll make a note of it," Jair said solemnly.

For the next several minutes, he was busy with the stream of hotel employees who came in to be questioned, all of them nattily attired in the hotel service uniform. But the result of the questioning only proved that no one had been on the one hundred and seventieth floor between twelve and two o'clock except G. G. Gru, himself, and the Mercurian.

The manager returned to report that the other guests of the one hundred and seventieth floor had all been downstairs with the exception of a rather ill-tempered crustacean from Aldebaran who refused even to be questioned.

Inspector Calder nodded and seemed to lose interest in that trend of thought.

"You will be finished soon, won't you?" the manager inquired anxiously. He stifled his conviction that the inspector was incompetent and would never be finished.

"I expect so," Jair said. "You checked with your shops?"

"Yes. There were a few unusual purchases. The Pleasure Shop sold a silver-handled whip to a visiting Terran and had one request for Martian /hung cigarettes. These are illegal, of course, so there was no sale. The Dispensary sold a small order of carbolic acid and one of formaldehyde."

"All right," Inspector Galder said. "I think I'd like to make an outside call. Where is the nearest public visiphone booth?"

"Through there," the manager said, indicating a door.

While the inspector was gone, the manager tried to hold a conversation with the sub-inspector in the hope of learning that Inspector Calder had some idea of leaving the hotel before too long.

"Maybe it was suicide," he suggested, glancing idly at a hotel service man who had entered and was fixing one of the wall lights. "I've heard that the inhabitants of Sirius II are often melancholy. And after all, the room was locked."

"Personally," the sub-inspector finally said, "I'd think that somebody pumped poison through your ventilating system, if it weren't for the fact that you saw the murderer's hand on the screen. And maybe that's what it was anyway. Witnesses are never very reliable."

"Nonsense," the manager said sharply. "It couldn't be done." He looked sharply at the sub-inspector, but the latter had already decided he'd been hasty in venturing an opinion at all.

"I'd vote for suicide/' James Bruce added. "Moody, all of those humanoid types. They're almost human, but not quite, and they can't stand it"

Sub-Inspector Mordette still refused to rise to the bait, so the three men fell silent. They watched the repairman stroll from the room, then turned to staring at the ceiling while they waited.

"Well," said Inspector Calder, coming back into the room in what seemed to be good humor, "I expect we'll be through with this shortly." He sat in his chair and pulled out a cigarette case. "Cigarette, anyone?"

James Bruce took one, but the others refused.

"I say," Calder exclaimed. He reached over and grabbed Bruce's lighter just as he was about to activate it. Then he jumped up and went over to the wall. He reached up and pulled a small brown ball from the wall. "A thallium bomb," he said to the others. "A good thing I saw it before you struck that lighter. The slightest change in temperature and we would've all been poisoned."

"Good heavens," said the manager. His face was pale, a color that was matched by the faces of the other two men. "How did it get there? There hasn't been anyone in the room but the three of us."

"No one?" Jair Calder asked softly.

"Not a soul. It—" A startled expression came over the manager's face. "There was a repairman," he said. His face darkened with anger. "I'll-"

"Never mind," said the inspector. He opened a small case and popped the thallium bomb into it. "I was the repairman who came in. It was easy to borrow a coat. I also put the bomb there."

"But why?"

"I just wanted to demonstrate that the testimony we received stating no one appeared on the one hundred and seventieth floor meant nothing. Repairmen, like servants, are invisible people. I think we can be pretty sure that our murderer, dressed in a hotel uniform, was up on the floor twice today."

"Twice?" said Mordette. "Why twice?"

"First, he had to arrange matters—it was this arrangement which Mr. Gru thought was a practical joke. Then, after arranging for a call to be put through to Cooerl II, he returned to the floor, killed Mr. Gru, grabbed up the clue or part of it, ran out and off the floor. Thirty seconds doesn't sound like much time, but he needed no more."

"But—but what about the door?" asked the manager.

"Oh, yes, he unlocked the unlockable door and locked it again."

"But it's impossible."

"Only improbable," Jair Calder said. "Mr. Chu, where did you keep the special door to that room when the guest from Sirius II was not here?"

"In the workshop in the basement."

"And the regular door is kept there when Mr. Gru is in the hotel?" The manager nodded.

"I wonder if you'd mind phoning down and checking the door situation now?" the inspector asked.

The manager crossed the room in nervous strides to an audi-phone. He talked for a minute, then returned, a frown on his face.

"I don't understand it," he said. "They report that the regular door and the special door are both there. That means—"

"A third door," finished Jair Calder. "Also special, in that it was made for this one occasion. I might add that it was just like your special door except for a slight chemical difference. The murderer's first trip was to install his door, of course. By the way," he added, turning to Bruce with a smile, "as vice president in charge of testing I imagine you carry a Sonicolt, don't you?"

The vice president nodded.

"Could I see it a moment?"

James Bruce handed over what appeared to be a good-sized automatic pistol. Inspector Calder peered at it.

"A 47-M caliber," he said. "You use this for testing plastic?"

"Yeah," Bruce said. "That's the best Sonicolt made. Our plastic will stand the full force of it, even through a supersonic periodic disturbance of 47,000 cycles per second, it is even strong enough to ki—" He broke off.

"Exactly," the inspector said softly. "While relatively harmless to human beings, a Sonicolt will kill anyone from Sirius II. And it was such a weapon as this that killed Mr. Gru."

"But I don't understand," said the manager.

"Si-type life form," said Jair. "The inhabitants of Sirius II, while humanoid in appearance, have a silicon constitution instead of

important situations came off. The dangerous situations—not boy-meets-girl.

This affair of the Black Horse Nebula, for instance. Some days ago the papers and the commentators had begun to mention reports of disturbances in that area, and Jo's practiced eye had picked up the mention. Something big was cooking.

Today it had boiled over—the Black Horse Nebula had suddenly spewed ships by the hundreds, a massed armada that must have taken more than a century of effort on the part of a whole star-cluster, a production drive conducted in the strictest and most fanatical kind of secrecy—

And, of course, the Service had been on the spot in plenty of time. With three times as many ships, disposed with mathematical precision so as to enfilade the entire armada the moment it broke from the nebula. The battle had been a massacre, the attack smashed before the average citizen could ever begin to figure out what it had been aimed at—good had triumphed again over evil.

Of course.

Furtive scuffings on the gravel drew his attention briefly. He looked at his watch, which said 14:58:03. That was the time, according to his instructions, when boy had to meet girl.

He had been given the strictest kind of orders to let nothing interfere with this meeting—the orders always issued on boy-meets-girl assignments. But, as usual, he had nothing to do but observe. The meeting was coming off on the dot, without any prodding from Jo. They always did.

Of course.

With a sigh, he folded his newspaper, smiling again at the couple —yes, it was the right man, too—and moved away, as if reluctantly. He wondered what would happen were he to pull away the false mustache, pitch the newspaper on the grass, and bound away with a joyous whoop. He suspected that the course of history would not be deflected by even a second of arc, but he was not minded to try the experiment.

The park was pleasant. The twin suns warmed the path and the greenery without any of the blasting heat which they would bring to bear later in the summer. Randolph was altogether the most comfortable planet he had visited in years. A little backward, perhaps, but restful, too.

It was also slightly over a hundred light-years away from Earth. It would be interesting to know how Service headquarters on Earth could have known in advance that boy would meet girl at a certain spot on Randolph, precisely at 14:58:03.

Or how Service headquarters could have ambushed with micro-metric precision a major interstellar fleet, with no more preparation than a few days' build-up in the newspapers and video could evidence.

The press was free, on Randolph as everywhere. It reported the news it got. Any emergency concentration of Service ships in the Black Horse area, or anywhere else, would have been noticed and reported on. The Service did not forbid such reports for "security" reasons or for any other reasons. Yet there had been nothing to report but that (a) an armada of staggering size had erupted with no real warning from the Black Horse Nebula, and that (b) the Service had been ready.

By now, it was a commonplace that the Service was always ready. It had not had a defect or a failure in well over two centuries. It had not even had a fiasco, the alarming-sounding technical word by which it referred to the possibility that a boy-meets-girl assignment might not come off.

Jo hailed a hopper. Once inside, he stripped himself of the mustache, the bald spot, the forehead creases—all the make-up which had given him his mask of friendly innocuousness.

The hoppy watched the whole process in the rear-view mirror. Jo glanced up and met his eyes.

"Pardon me, mister, but I figured you didn't care if I saw you. You must be a Service man."

"That's right. Take me to Service HQ, will you?"

"Sure enough." The hoppy gunned his machine. It rose smoothly to the express level. "First time I ever got close to a Service man. Didn't hardly believe it at first when I saw you taking your face off. You sure looked different."

"Have to, sometimes," Jo said, preoccupied.

"I'll bet. No wonder you know all about everything before it breaks. You must have a thousand faces each, your own mother wouldn't know you, eh? Don't you care if I know about your snooping around in disguise?"

Jo grinned. The grin created a tiny pulling sensation across one curve of his cheek, just next to his nose. He stripped away the overlooked bit of tissue and examined it critically.

"Of course not. Disguise is an elementary part of Service work. Anyone could guess that. We don't use it often, as a matter of fact—only on very simple assignments."

"Oh." The hoppy sounded slightly disappointed, as melodrama faded. He drove silently for about a minute. Then, speculatively: "Sometimes I think the Service must have time-travel, the things they pull . . . well, here you are. Good luck, mister."

"Thanks."

Jo went directly to Krasna's office. Krasna was a Randolpher, Earth-trained, and answerable to the Earth office, but otherwise pretty much on his own. His heavy, muscular face wore the same expression of serene confidence that was characteristic of Service officials everywhere—even some that, technically speaking, had no faces to wear it.

"Boy meets girl," Jo said briefly. "On the nose and on the spot." "Good work, Jo. Cigarette?" Krasna pushed the box across his desk.

"Nope, not now. Like to talk to you, if youVe got time."

Krasna pushed a button, and a toadstool-like chair rose out of the floor behind Jo. "What's on your mind?"

"Well," Jo said carefully. "I'm wondering why you patted me on the back just now for not doing a job."

"You did a job."

"I did not," Jo said flatly. "Boy would have met girl, whether I'd been here on Randolph or back on Earth. The course of true love always runs smooth. It has in all my boy-meets-girl cases, and it has in the boy-meets-girl cases of every other agent with whom I've compared notes."

"Well, good," Krasna said, smiling. "That's the way we like to have it run. And that's the way we expect it to run. But, Jo, we like to have somebody on the spot, somebody with a reputation for resourcefulness, just in case there's a snag. There almost never is, as you've observed. But—if there were?"

Jo snorted. "If what you're trying to do is to establish preconditions for the future, any interference by a Service agent would throw the eventual result farther off the track. I know that much about probability."

"And what makes you think we're trying to set up the future?"

"It's obvious even to the hoppies on your own planet; the one that brought me here told me he thought the Service had time-travel. It's especially obvious to all the individuals and governments and entire populations that the Service has bailed out of serious messes for centuries, with never a single failure." Jo shrugged. "A man can be asked to safeguard only a small number of boy-meets-girl cases before he realizes, as an agent, that what the Service is safeguarding is the future children of those meetings. Ergo—the Service knows what those children are to be like, and has reason to want their future existence guaranteed. What other conclusion is possible?"

Krasna took out a cigarette and lit it deliberately; it was obvious that he was using the maneuver to cloak his response.

"None," he admitted at last. "We have some foreknowledge, of course. We couldn't have made our reputation with espionage alone. But we have obvious other advantages: genetics, for instance, and operations research, the theory of games, the Dirac transmitter —it's quite an arsenal, and of course there's a good deal of prediction involved in all those things."

"I see that," Jo said. He shifted in his chair, formulating all he wanted to say. He changed his mind about the cigarette and helped himself to one. "But these things don't add up to infallibility—and that's a qualitative difference, Kras. Take this affair of the Black Horse armada. The moment the armada appeared, we'll assume, Earth heard about it by Dirac, and started to assemble a counter-armada. But it takes Unite time to bring together a concentration of ships and men, even if your message system is instantaneous.

"The Service's counter-armada was already on hand. It had been building there for so long and with so little fuss that nobody even noticed it concentrating until a day or so before the battle. Then planets in the area began to sit up and take notice, and be uneasy about what was going to break. But not very uneasy; the Service always wins—that's been a statistical fact for centuries. Centuries, Kras. Good Lord, it takes almost as long as that, in straight preparation, to pull some of the tricks we pulled! The Dirac gives us an advantage of ten to twenty-five years in really extreme cases out on the rim of the Galaxy, but no more than that."

He realized that he had been fuming away on the cigarette until the roof of his mouth was scorched, and snubbed it out angrily. "That's a very different thing," he said, "than knowing in a general way how an enemy is likely to behave, or what kind of children the Mendelian laws say a given couple should have. It means that we've some way of reading the future in minute detail. That's in flat contradiction to everything I've been taught about probability, but I have to believe what I see."

Krasna laughed. "That's a very able presentation," he said. He seemed genuinely pleased. "I think you'll remember that you were first impressed into the Service when you began to wonder why the news was always good. Fewer and fewer people wonder about that nowadays; it's become a part of their expected environment." He stood up and ran a hand through his hair. "Now you've carried yourself through the next stage. Congratulations, Jo. You've just been promoted!"

"I have?" Jo said incredulously. "I came in here with the notion that I might get myself fired."

"No. Come around to this side of the desk, Jo, and I'll play you a little history." Krasna unfolded the desktop to expose a small visor screen. Obediently Jo rose and went around the desk to where he could see the blank surface. "I had a standard indoctrination tape sent up to me a week ago, in the expectation that you'd be ready to see it. Watch."

Krasna touched the board. A small dot of light appeared in the center of the screen and went out again. At the same time, there was a small beep of sound. Then the tape began to unroll and a picture clarified on the screen.

"As you suspected," Krasna said conversationally, "the Service is infallible. How it got that way is a story that started several centuries back. This tape gives all the dope. You should almost be able to imagine what really happened...."

Dana Lje—her father had been a Hollander, her mother born in the Celebes—sat down in the chair which Captain Robin Wein-baum had indicated, crossed her legs, and waited, her blue-black hair shining under the lights.

Weinbaum eyed her quizzically. The conqueror Resident who had given the girl her entirely European name had been paid in kind, for his daughter's beauty had nothing fair and Dutch about it. To the eye of the beholder, Dana Lje seemed a particularly delicate virgin of Bali, despite her western name, clothing and assurance. The combination had already proven piquant for the millions who watched her television column, and Weinbaum found it no less charming at first hand.

"As one of your most recent victims/' he said, "I'm not sure that I'm honored, Miss Lje. A few of my wounds are still bleeding. But I am a good deal puzzled as to why you're visiting me now. Aren't you afraid that I'll bite back?"

"I had no intention of attacking you personally, and I don't think I did," the video columnist said seriously. "It was just pretty plain that our intelligence had slipped badly in the Erskine affair. It was my job to say so. Obviously you were going to get hurt, since you're head of the bureau—but there was no malice in it."

"Cold comfort," Weinbaum said dryly. "But thank you, nevertheless."

The Eurasian girl shrugged. "That isn't what I came here about, anyway. Tell me, Captain Weinbaum—have you ever heard of an outfit calling itself Interstellar Information?"

Weinbaum shook his head. "Sounds like a skip-tracing firm. Not an easy business, these days."

"That's just what I thought when I first saw their letterhead," Dana said. "But the letter under it wasn't one that a private-eye outfit would write. Let me read part of it to you."

Her slim fingers burrowed in her inside jacket pocket, and emerged again with a single sheet of paper. It was plain typewriter bond, Weinbaum noted automatically: she had brought only a copy with her, and had left the original of the letter at home. The copy, then, would be incomplete—probably seriously.

"It goes like this: 'Dear Miss Lje: As a syndicated video commentator with a wide audience and heavy responsibilities, you need the best sources of information available. We would like you to test our service, free of charge, in the hope of proving to you that it is superior to any other source of news on Earth. Therefore, we offer below several predictions concerning events to come in the Hercules and the so-called "Three Ghosts" areas. If these predictions are fulfilled 100%—no less—we ask that you take us on as your correspondents for those areas, at rates to be agreed upon later. If the predictions are wrong in any respect, you need not consider us further/ "

"H'm," Weinbaum said slowly. "They're confident cusses—and that's an odd juxtaposition. The Three Ghosts make up only a little solar system, while the Hercules area could include the entire star-cluster—or maybe even the whole constellation, which is a hell of a lot of sky. This outfit seems to be trying to tell you that it has thousands of field correspondents of its own, maybe as many as the government itself. If so, I'll guarantee that they're bragging."

"That may well be so. But before you make up your mind, let me read you one of the two predictions." The letter rustled in Dana Lje's hand. " 'At 03:16:10, on Year Day, 2090, the Hess-type interstellar liner Biindisi will be attacked in the neighborhood of the Three Ghosts system by four—'"

Weinbaum sat bolt upright in his swivel chair. "Let me see that letter!" he said, his voice harsh with repressed alarm.

"In a moment," the girl said, adjusting her skirt composedly. "Evidently I was right in riding my hunch. Let me go on reading: '—by four heavily armed vessels flying the lights of the navy of Hammersmith II. The position of the liner at that time will be at coded coordinates 88-A-theta-88-aleph-D and-per-se-and. It will-'"

"Miss Lje," Weinbaum said, "I'm sorry to interrupt you again, but what you've said already would justify me in jailing you at once, no matter how loudly your sponsors might scream. I don't know about this Interstellar Information outfit, or whether or not you did receive any such letter as the one you pretend to be quoting. But I can tell you that you've shown yourself to be in possession of information that only yours truly and four other men are supposed to know. It's already too late to tell you that everything you say may be held against you; all I can say now is, it's high time you clammed up!"

"I thought so," she said, apparently not disturbed in the least. "Then that liner is scheduled to hit those coordinates, and the coded time coordinate corresponds with the predicted Universal

Time. Is it also true that the Brindisi will be carrying a top-secret communications device?"

"Are you deliberately trying to make me imprison you?" Wein-baum said, gritting his teeth. "Or is this just a stunt, designed to show me that my own bureau is full of leaks?"

"It could turn into that," Dana admitted. "But it hasn't, yet. Robin, I've been as honest with you as I'm able to be. You've had nothing but square deals from me up to now. I wouldn't yellow-screen you, and you know it. If this unknown outfit has this information, it might easily have gotten it from where it hints that it got it: from the field."

"Impossible."

"Why?"

"Because the information in question hasn't even reached my own agents in the field yet—it couldn't possibly have leaked as far as Hammersmith II or anywhere else, let alone to the Three Ghosts system! Letters have to be carried on ships, you know that. If I were to send orders by ultrawave to my Three Ghosts agent, he'd have to wait three hundred and twenty-four years to get them. By ship, he can get them in a little over two months. These particular orders have only been under way to him five days. Even if somebody has read them on board the ship that's carrying them, they couldn't possibly be sent on to the Three Ghosts any faster than they're traveling now."

Dana nodded her dark head. "All right. Then what are we left with but a leak in your headquarters here?"

"What, indeed," Weinbaum said grimly. "You'd better tell me who signed this letter of yours."

"The signature is J. Shelby Stevens."

Weinbaum switched on the intercom. "Margaret, look in the business register for an outfit called Interstellar Information and find out who owns it."

Dana Lje said, "Aren't you interested in the rest of the prediction?"

"You bet I am. Does it tell you the name of this communications device?" "Yes," Dana said. "What is it?"

"The Dirac communicator."

Weinbaum groaned and turned on the intercom again. "Margaret, send in Dr. Wald. Tell him to drop everything and gallop. Any luck with the other thing?"

"Yes, sir," the intercom said. "It's a one-man outfit, wholly owned by a J. Shelby Stevens, in Rico City. It was first registered this year."

"Arrest him, on suspicion of espionage."

The door swung open and Dr. Wald came in, all six and a half feet of him. He was extremely blond, and looked awkward, gentle, and not very intelligent.

"Thor, this young lady is our press nemesis, Dana Lje. Dana, Dr. Wald is the inventor of the Dirac communicator, about which you have so damnably much information."

"It's out already?" Dr. Wald said, scanning the girl with grave deliberation.

"It is, and lots more—lots more. Dana, you're a good girl at heart, and for some reason I trust you, stupid though it is to trust anybody in this job. I should detain you until Year Day, video-casts or no videocasts. Instead, I'm just going to ask you to sit on what you've got, and I'm going to explain why."

"Shoot."

"I've already mentioned how slow communication is between star and star. We have to carry all our letters on ships, just as we did locally before the invention of the telegraph. The overdrive lets us beat the speed of light, but not by much of a margin over really long distances. Do you understand that?"

"Certainly," Dana said. She appeared a bit nettled, and Weinbaum decided to give her the full dose at a more rapid pace. After all, she could be assumed to be better informed than the average layman.

"What we've needed for a long time, then," he said, "is some virtually instantaneous method of getting a message from somewhere to anywhere. Any time lag, no matter how small it seems at first, has a way of becoming major as longer and longer distances are involved. Sooner or later we must have this instantaneous method, or we won't be able to get messages from one system to another fast enough to hold our jurisdiction over outlying regions of space."

beep 47

"Wait a minute/' Dana said. "I'd always understood that ultra-wave is faster than light." "Effectively it is; physically it isn't. You don't understand that?" She shook her dark head.

"In a nutshell/' Weinbaum said, "ultrawave is radiation, and all radiation in free space is limited to the speed of light. The way we hype up ultrawave is to use an old application of wave-guide theory, whereby the real transmission of energy is at light speed, but an imaginary thing called phase velocity is going faster. But the gain in speed of transmission isn't large—by ultrawave, for instance, we get a message to Alpha Centauri in one year instead of nearly four. Over long distances, that's not nearly enough extra speed."

"Can't it be speeded further?" she said, frowning.

"No. Think of the ultrawave beam between here and Centrums III as a caterpillar. The caterpillar himself is moving quite slowly, just at the speed of light. But the pulses which pass along his body are going forward faster than he is—and if you've ever watched a caterpillar, you'll know that that's true. But there's a physical limit to the number of pulses you can travel along that caterpillar, and we've already reached that limit. We've taken phase velocity as far as it will go.

"That's why we need something faster. For a long time our relativity theories discouraged hope of anything faster—even the high phase velocity of a guided wave didn't contradict those theories; it just found a limited, mathematically imaginary loophole in them. But when Thor here began looking into the question of the velocity of propagation of a Dirac pulse, he found the answer. The communicator he developed does seem to act over long distances, any distance, instantaneously—and it may wind up knocking relativity into a cocked hat."

The girl's face was a study in stunned realization. "I'm not sure I've taken in all the technical angles," she said. "But if I'd had any notion of the political dynamite in this thing—"

"—you'd have kept out of my office," Weinbaum said grimly. "A good thing you didn't. The Brindisi is carrying a model of the Dirac communicator out to the periphery for a final test; the ship is supposed to get in touch with me from out there at a given Earth time, which we've calculated very elaborately to account for

48 space police

the residual Lorentz and Milne transformations involved in overdrive flight, and for a lot of other time-phenomena that wouldn't mean anything at all to you.

"If that signal arrives here at the given Earth time, then— aside from the havoc it will create among the theoretical physicists whom we decide to let in on it—we will really have our instant communicator, and can include all of occupied space in the same time-zone. And we'll have a terrific advantage over any lawbreaker who has to resort to ultrawave locally and to letters carried by ships over the long haul."

"Not," Dr. Wald said sourly, "if it's already leaked out."

"It remains to be seen how much of it has leaked," Weinbaum said. "The principle is rather esoteric, Thor, and the name of the thing alone wouldn't mean much even to a trained scientist. I gather that Dana's mysterious informant didn't go into technical details ... or did he?"

"No," Dana said.

"Tell the truth, Dana. I know that you're suppressing some of that letter."

The girl started slightly. "All right—yes, I am. But nothing technical. There's another part of the prediction that lists the number and class of ships you will send to protect the Brindisi— the prediction says they'll be sufficient, by the way—and I'm keeping that to myself, to see whether or not it comes true along with the rest. If it does, I think I've hired myself a correspondent."

"If it does," Weinbaum said, "you've hired yourself a jailbird. Let's see how much mind-reading J, Whatsit Stevens can do from the sub-cellar of Fort Yaphank." He abruptly ended the conversation and ushered Dana Lje out with controlled politeness.

Weinbaum let himself into Stevens' cell, locking the door behind him and passing the keys out to the guard. He sat down heavily on the nearest stool.

Stevens smiled the weak benevolent smile of the very old, and laid his book aside on the bunk. The book, Weinbaum knew— since his office had cleared it—was only a volume of pleasant, harmless lyrics by a New Dynasty poet named Nims.

"Were our predictions correct, Captain?" Stevens said. His voice was high and musical, rather like that of a boy soprano.

Weinbaum nodded. "You still won't tell us how you did it?"

"But I already have," Stevens protested. "Our intelligence network is the best in the Universe, Captain. It is superior even to your own excellent organization, as events have shown."

"Its results are superior, that I'll grant," Weinbaum said glumly. "If Dana Lje had thrown your letter down her disposal chute, we would have lost the Brindisi and our Dirac transmitter both. Incidentally, did your original letter predict accurately the number of ships we would send?"

Stevens nodded pleasantly, his neatly trimmed white beard thrusting forward slightly as he smiled.

"I was afraid so." Weinbaum leaned forward. "Do you have the Dirac transmitter, Stevens?"

"Of course. Captain. How else could my correspondents report to me with the efficiency you have observed?"

"Then why don't our receivers pick up the broadcasts of your agents? Dr. Wald says it's inherent in the principle that Dirac 'casts are picked up by all instruments tuned to receive them, bar none. And at this stage of the game, there are so few such broadcasts being made that we'd be almost certain to detect any that weren't coming from our own operatives."

"I decline to answer that question, if you'll excuse the impoliteness," Stevens said, his voice quavering slightly. "I am an old man, Captain, and this intelligence agency is my sole source of income. If I told you how we operated, we would no longer have any advantage over your own service, except for the limited freedom from secrecy which we have, I have been assured by competent lawyers that I have every right to operate a private investigation bureau, properly licensed, upon any scale that I may choose; and that I have the right to keep my methods secret, as the so-called 'intellectual assets' of my firm. If you wish to use our services, well and good. We will provide them, with absolute guarantees on all information we furnish you, for an appropriate fee. But our methods are our own property."

Robin Weinbaum smiled twistedly. "I'm not a naïve man, Mr. Stevens," he said. "My service is hard on naïveté. You know as well as I do that the government can't allow you to operate on a free-lance basis, supplying top-secret information to anyone who can pay the price, or even free of charge to video columnists on a 'test/ basis, even though you arrive at every jot of that information independently of espionage—which I still haven't entirely ruled out, by the way. If you can duplicate this Brindisi performance at will, we will have to have your services exclusively. In short, you become a hired civilian arm of my own bureau."

"Quite," Stevens said, returning the smile in a fatherly way. "We anticipated that, of course. However, we have contracts with other governments to consider: Erskine, in particular. If we are to work exclusively for Earth, necessarily our price will include compensation for renouncing our other accounts."

"Why should it? Patriotic public servants work for their government at a loss, if they can't work for it any other way."

"I am quite aware of that. I am quite prepared to renounce my other interests. But I do require to be paid."

"How much?" Weinbaum said, suddenly aware that his fists were clenched so tightly that they hurt.

Stevens appeared to consider, nodding his flowery white poll in senile deliberation. "My associates would have to be consulted. Tentatively, however, a sum equal to the present appropriation of your bureau would do, pending further negotiations."

Weinbaum shot to his feet, eyes wide. "You old buccaneer! You know damned well that I can't spend my entire appropriation on a single civilian service! Did it ever occur to you that most of the civilian outfits working for us are on cost-plus contracts, and that our civilian executives are being paid just a credit a year, by their own choice? You're demanding nearly two thousand credits an hour from your own government, and claiming the legal protection that the government affords you at the same time, in order to let those fanatics on Erskine run up a higher bid!"

"The price is not unreasonable," Stevens said. "The service is worth the price."

"That's where you're wrong! We have the discoverer of the machine working for us. For less than half the sum you're asking, we can find the application of the device that you're trading on— of that you can be damned sure."

"A dangerous gamble, Captain."

"Perhaps. We'll soon see!" Weinbaum glared at the placid face.

"I'm forced to tell you that you're a free man, Mr. Stevens. We've been unable to show that you came by your information by any illegal method. You had classified facts in your possession, but no classified documents, and it's your privilege as a citizen to make guesses, no matter how educated.

"But we'll catch up with you sooner or later. Had you been reasonable, you might have found yourself in a very good position with us, your income as assured as any political income can be, and your person respected to the hilt. Now, however, you're subject to censorship—you have no idea how humiliating that can be, but I'm going to see to it that you find out. There'll be no more newsbeats for Dana Lje, or for anyone else. I want to see every word of copy that you file with any client outside the bureau. Every word that is of use to me will be used, and you'll be paid the statutory one cent a word for it—the same rate that the FBI pays for anonymous gossip. Everything I don't find useful will be killed without clearance. Eventually we'll have the modification of the Dirac that you're using, and when that happens, you'll be so flat broke that a pancake with a hare lip could spit right over you."

Weinbaum paused for a moment, astonished at his own fury.

Stevens' clarinetlike voice began to sound in the windowless cavity. "Captain, I have no doubt that you can do this to me, at least incompletely. But it will prove fruitless. I will give you a prediction, at no charge. It is guaranteed, as are all our predictions. It is this: You will never find that modification. Eventually, I will give it to you, on my own terms, but you will never find it for yourself, nor will you force it out of me. In the meantime, not a word of copy will be filed with you; for, despite the faot that you are an arm of the government, I can well afford to wait you out."

"Bluster," Weinbaum said.

"Fact. Yours is the bluster—loud talk based on nothing more than a hope. I, however, know whereof I speak. . . . But let us conclude this discussion. It serves no purpose; you will need to see my points made the hard way. Thank you for giving me my freedom. We will talk again under different circumstances on—let me see; ah, yes, on June 9th of the year 2091. That year is, I believe, almost upon us."

Stevens picked up his book again, nodding at Weinbaum, his expression harmless and kindly, his hands showing the marked tremor of paralysis agitans. Weinbaum moved helplessly to the door and flagged the turnkey. As the bars closed behind him, Stevens' voice called out: "Oh, yes; and a Happy New Year, Captain."

Weinbaum blasted his way back into his own office, at least twice as mad as the proverbial nest of hornets, and at the same time rather dismally aware of his own probable future. If Stevens' second prediction turned out to be as phenomenally accurate as his first had been, Captain Robin Weinbaum would soon be peddling a natty set of secondhand uniforms.

He glared down at Margaret Soames, his receptionist. She glared right back; she had known him too long to be intimidated.

"Anything?" he said.

"Dr. Wald's waiting for you in your office. There are some field reports, and a couple of Diracs on your private tape. Any luck with the old codger?"

"That," he said crushingly, "is Top Secret."

"Poof. That means that nobody still knows the answer but J. Shelby Stevens."

He collapsed suddenly. "You're so right. That's just what it does mean. But we'll bust him wide open sooner or later. We've got to."

"You'll do it," Margaret said. "Anything else for me?"

"No. Tip off the clerical staff that there's a half-holiday today, then go take in a stereo or a steak or something yourself. Dr. Wald and I have a few private wires to pull . . ,"

"Right," the receptionist said.

As soon as the door closed, his mood became abruptly as black as before. Despite his comparative youth—he was now only fifty-five—he had been in the service a long time, and he needed no one to tell him the possible consequences which might flow from possession by a private citizen of the Dirac communicator. If there was ever to be a Federation of Man in the Galaxy, it was within the power of ƒ. Shelby Stevens to ruin it before it had fairly gotten started. And there seemed to be nothing at all that could be done about it.

"Hello, Thor," he said glumly.

"Hello, Robin. I gather things went badly. Tell me about it."

Briefly, Weinbaum told him. "And the worst of it," he finished, "is that Stevens himself predicts that we won't find the application of the Dirac that he's using, and that eventually we'll have to buy it at his price. Somehow I believe him—but I can't see how it's possible. If I were to tell Congress that I was going to spend my entire appropriation for a single civilian service, I'd be out on my ear within the next three sessions."

"Perhaps that isn't his real price," the scientist suggested. "If he wants to barter, he'd naturally begin with a demand miles above what he actually wants."

"Sure, sure . . . but frankly, Thor, I'd hate to give the old reprobate even a single credit if I could get out of it." Weinbaum sighed. "Well, let's see what's come in from the field."

Thor Wald moved silently away from Weinbaum's desk while the officer unfolded it and set up the Dirac screen. Stacked neatly next to the ultraphone—a device Weinbaum had been thinking of, only a few days ago, as permanently outmoded—were the tapes Margaret had mentioned. He fed the first one into the Dirac and turned the main toggle to the position labeled Start.

Immediately the whole screen went pure white and the audio speakers emitted an almost instantly end-stopped blare of sound— a beep which, as Weinbaum already knew, made up a continuous spectrum from about 30 cycles per second to well above 18,000 cps. Then both the light and the noise were gone as if they had never been, and were replaced by the familiar face and voice of Weinbaum's local ops chief in Rico City.

"There's nothing unusual in the way of transmitters in Stevens' offices here," the operative said without preamble. "And there isn't any local Interstellar Information staff, except for one stenographer, and she's as dumb as they come. About all we could get from her is that Stevens is 'such a sweet old man.' No possibility that she's faking it; she's genuinely stupid, the kind that thinks Betelgevse is something Indians use to darken their skins. We looked for some sort of list or code table that would give us a line on Stevens' field staff, but that was another dead end. Now we're maintaining a twenty-four hour Dinwiddie watch on the place from a joint across the street. Orders?"

Weinbaum dictated to the blank stretch of tape which followed: "Margaret, next time you send any Dirac tapes in here, cut that damnable beep off them first. Tell the boys in Rico City that Stevens has been released, and that I'm proceeding for an Order In Security to tap his ultraphone and his local lines—this is one case where I'm sure we can persuade the court that tapping's necessary. Also—and be sure you code this—tell them to proceed with the tap immediately and to maintain it regardless of whether or not the court okays it. I'll thumbprint a Full Responsibility Confession for them. We can't afford to play patty-cake with Stevens—the potential is just too damned big. And oh, yes, Margaret, send the message by carrier, and send out general orders to everybody concerned not to use the Dirac again except when distance and time rule every other medium out. Stevens has already admitted that he can receive Dirac 'casts."

He put down the mike and stared morosely for a moment at the beautiful Eridanean scrollwood of his desktop. Wald coughed inquiringly.

"Excuse me, Robin," he said, "but I should think that would work both ways."

"So should I. And yet the fact is that we've never picked up so much as a whisper from either Stevens or his agents. I can't think of any way that could be pulled, but evidently it can."

"Well, let's rethink the problem, and see what we get," Wald said. "I didn't want to say so in front of the young lady, for obvious reasons—I mean Miss Lje, of course, not Margaret—but the truth is that the Dirac is essentially a simple mechanism in principle. I seriously doubt that there's any way to transmit a message from it which can't be detected—and an examination of the theory with that proviso in mind might give us something new."

"What proviso?" Weinbaum said. Thor Wald left him behind rather often these days.

"Why, that a Dirac transmission doesn't necessarily go to all communicators capable of receiving it. If that's true, then the reasons why it is true should emerge from the theory."

"I see. Okay, proceed on that line. I've been looking at Stevens' dossier while you were talking, and it's an absolute desert. Prior to the opening of the office in Rico City, there's no dope whatever on J. Shelby Stevens. The man as good as rubbed my nose in the fact that he's using a pseud when I first talked to him. I asked him what the 'J' in his name stood for, and he said, 'Oh, let's make it Jerome.' But who the man behind the pseud is—"

"Is it possible that he's using his own initials?"

"No," Weinbaum said. "Only the dumbest ever do that, or transpose syllables, or retain any connection at all with their real names. Those are the people who are in serious emotional trouble, people who drive themselves into anonymity, but leave clues strewn all around the landscape—those clues are really a cry for help, for discovery. Of course we're working on that angle—we can't neglect anything—but J. Shelby Stevens isn't that kind of case, I'm sure." Weinbaum stood up abruptly. "Okay, Thor—what's first on your technical program?"

"Well ... I suppose we'll have to start with checking the frequencies we use. We're going on Dirac's assumption—and it works very well, and always has—that a positron in motion through a crystal lattice is accompanied by de Broglie waves which are transforms of the waves of an electron in motion somewhere else in the Universe. Thus if we control the frequency and path of the positron, we control the placement of the electron—we cause it to appear, so to speak, in the circuits of a communicator somewhere else. After that, reception is just a matter of amplifying the bursts and reading the signal."

Wald scowled and shook his blond head. "If Stevens is getting out messages which we don't pick up, my first assumption would be that he's worked out a fine-tuning circuit that's more delicate than ours, and is more or less sneaking his messages under ours. The only way that could be done, as far as I can see at the moment, is by something really fantastic in the way of exact frequency control of his positron-gun. If so, the logical step for us is to go back to the beginning of our tests and re-run our diffractions to see if we can refine our measurements of positron frequencies."

The scientist looked so inexpressibly gloomy as he offered this conclusion that a pall of hopelessness settled over Weinbaum in sheer sympathy. "You don't look as if you expected that to uncover anything new."

"I don't. You see, Robin, things are different in physics now than they used to be in the Twentieth Century. In those days, it was always presupposed that physics was limitless—the classic statement was made by Weyl, who said that 'It is the nature of a real thing to be inexhaustible in content/ We know now that that's not so, except in a remote, associational sort of way. Nowadays, physics is a defined and self-limited science; its scope is still prodigious, but we can no longer think of it as endless.

'This is better established in particle physics than in any other branch of the science. Half of the trouble physicists of the last century had with Euclidean geometry—and hence the reason why they evolved so many recomplicated theories of relativity—is that it's a geometry of lines, and thus can be subdivided infinitely. When Cantor proved that there really is an infinity, at least mathematically speaking, that seemed to clinch the case for the possibility of a really infinite physical universe, too."

"I remember," Wald continued, "the man who taught me theory of sets at Princeton, many years ago. He used to say: 'Cantor teaches us that there are many kinds of infinities/ There was a crazy old man!"

"So go on, Thor."

"Oh," Wald blinked. "Yes. Well, what we know now is that the geometry which applies to ultimate particles, like the positron, isn't Euclidean at all. It's Pythagorean—a geometry of points, not lines. Once you've measured one of those points, and it doesn't matter what kind of quantity you're measuring, you're down as far as you can go. At that point, the Universe becomes discontinuous, and no further refinement is possible.

"And I'd say that our positron-frequency measurements have already gotten that far down. There isn't another element in the Universe denser than plutonium, yet we get the same frequency-values by diffraction through plutonium crystals that we get through osmium crystals—there's not the slightest difference. If J. Shelby Stevens is operating in terms of fractions of those values, then he's doing what an organist would call 'playing in the cracks' —which is certainly something you can think about doing, but something that's in actuality impossible to do."

"Maybe Stevens has rebuilt the organ?"

"If he has rebuilt the metrical frame of the Universe to accommodate a private skip-tracing firm," Wald said firmly, "I for one see no reason why we can't counter-check him by declaring the whole cosmos null and void."

"All right, all right," Weinbaum said, grinning. "I didn't mean to push your analogy right over the edge—I was just asking. But let's get to work on it anyhow. We can't just sit here and let Stevens get away with it. If this frequency angle turns out to be as hopeless as it seems, we'll try something else."

"It's a very pretty problem," Wald said.

The computer occupied an entire floor of the Security building, its seemingly identical banks laid out side by side on the floor along an advanced pathological state of Peano's "space-filling curve." At the current business end of the line was a master control board with a large television screen at its center, at which Dr. Wald was stationed, with Weinbaum looking, silently but anxiously, over his shoulder.

The screen itself showed a pattern which, except that it was drawn in green light against a dark gray background, strongly resembled the grain in a piece of highly polished mahogany. Photographs of similar patterns were stacked on a small table to Dr. Wald's right; several had spilled over onto the floor.

"Well, there it is," Wald sighed at length. "And I won't struggle to keep myself from saying 'I told you so.' What you've had me do here, Robin, is to reconfirm about half the basic postulates of particle physics—which is why it took so long, even though it was the first project we started." He snapped off the screen. "There are no cracks for J. Shelby to play in. That's definite."

"If you'd said That's flat,' you would have made a joke," Weinbaum said sourly. "Look . . . isn't there still a chance of error? If not on your part, Thor, then in the computer? After all, it's set up to work only with the unit charges of modern physics; mightn't we have to disconnect the banks that contain that bias before the machine will follow the fractional-charge instructions we give it?"

"Disconnect, he says," Wald groaned, mopping his brow reflectively. "The bias exists everywhere in the machine, my friend, because it functions everywhere on those same unit charges. It wasn't a matter of subtracting banks; we had to add one with a bias all its own, to counter-correct the corrections the computer would otherwise apply to the instructions. The technicians thought I was crazy. Now, five months later, I've proved it."

Weinbaum grinned in spite of himself. "What about the other projects?"

"All done—some time back, as a matter of fact. The staff and I checked every single Dirac tape we've received since you released J. Shelby from Yaphank, for any sign of intermodulation, marginal signals, or anything else of the kind. There's nothing, Robin, absolutely nothing. That's our net result, all around."

"Which leaves us just where we started," Weinbaum said. "All the monitoring projects came to the same dead end; I strongly suspect that Stevens hasn't risked any further calls from his home office to his field staff, even though he seemed confident that we'd never intercept such calls—as we haven't. Even our local wiretapping hasn't turned up anything but calls by Stevens' secretary, making appointments for him with various clients, actual and potential. Any information he's selling these days he's passing on in person—and not in his office, either, because we've got bugs planted all over that and haven't heard a thing."

"That must limit his range of operation enormously," Wald objected.

Weinbaum nodded. "Without a doubt—but he shows no signs of being bothered by it. He can't have sent any tips to Erskine recently, for instance, because our last tangle with that crew came out very well for us, even though we had to use the Dirac to send the orders to our squadron out there. If he overheard us, he didn't even try to pass the word. Just as he said, he's sweating us out—" Weinbaum paused. "Wait a minute, here comes Margaret, And by the length of her stride, I'd say she's got something particularly nasty on her mind."

"You bet I do," Margaret Soames said vindictively. "And it'll blow plenty of lids around here, or I miss my guess. The I.D. squad has finally pinned down J. Shelby Stevens. They did it with the voice-comparator alone."

"How does that work?" Wald said interestedly.

"Blink microphone," Weinbaum said impatiently. "Isolates inflections on single, normally stressed syllables and matches them. Standard I.D. searching technique, on a case of this kind, but it takes so long that we usually get the quarry by other means before it pays off. Well, don't stand there like a dummy, Margaret. Who is he?"

" 'He/ " Margaret said, "is your sweetheart of the video waves, Miss Dana Lje."

"They're crazy!" Wald said, staring at her.

Weinbaum came slowly out of his first shock of stunned disbelief. "No, Thor," he said finally. "No, it figures. If a woman is going to go in for disguises, there are always two she can assume outside her own sex: a young boy, and a very old man. And Dana's an actress; that's no news to us."

"But—but why did she do it, Robin?"

"That's what we're going to find out right now. So we wouldn't get the Dirac modification by ourselves, eh! Well, there are other ways of getting answers besides particle physics. Margaret, do you have a pick-up order out for that girl?"

"No," the receptionist said. "This is one chestnut I wanted to see you pull out for yourself. You give me the authority, and I send the order—not before."

"Spiteful child. Send it, then, and glory in my gritted teeth. Come on, Thor—let's put the nutcracker on this chestnut."

As they were leaving the computer floor, Weinbaum stopped suddenly in his tracks and began to mutter in an almost inaudible voice.

Wald said, "What's the matter, Robin?" "Nothing. I keep being brought up short by those predictions. What's the date?" "M'm . . . June ₉th. Why?"

"It's the exact date that 'Stevens' predicted we'd meet again, damn it! Something tells me that this isn't going to be as simple as it looks."

If Dana Lje had any idea of what she was in for—and considering the fact that she was 'J- Shelby Stevens' it had to be assumed that she did—the knowledge seemed not to make her at all fearful. She sat as composedly as ever before Weinbaum's desk, smoking her eternal cigarette, and waited, one dimpled knee pointed directly at the bridge of the officer's nose.

"Dana," Weinbaum said, "this time we're going to get all the answers, and we're not going to be gentle about it. Just in case you're not aware of the fact, there are certain laws relating to giving false information to a security officer, under which we could heave you in prison for a minimum of fifteen years. By application of the statutes on using communications to defraud, plus various local laws against transvestism, pseudonymity, and so on, we could probably pile up enough additional short sentences to keep you in Yaphank until you really do grow a beard. So I'd advise you to open up."

"I have every intention of opening up," Dana said. "I know, practically word for word, how this interview is going to proceed, what information I'm going to give you, just when I'm going to give it to you—and what you're going to pay me for it. I knew all that many months ago. So there would be no point in my holding out on you."

"What you're saying, Miss Lje," Thor Wald said in a resigned voice, "is that the future is fixed, and that you can read it, in every essential detail."

"Quite right, Dr. Wald. Both those things are true."

There was a brief silence.

"All right," Weinbaum said grimly. "Talk."

"All right, Captain Weinbaum, pay me," Dana said calmly.

Weinbaum snorted.

"But I'm quite serious," she said. "You still don't know what I know about the Dirac communicator. I won't be forced to tell it, by threat of prison or by any other threat. You see, I know for a fact that you aren't going to send me to prison, or give me drugs, or do anything else of that kind. I know for a fact, instead, that you are going to pay me—so I'd be very foolish to say a word until you do. After all, it's quite a secret you're buying. Once I tell you what it is, you and the entire service will be able to read the future as I do, and then the information will be valueless to me."

Weinbaum was completely speechless for a moment. Finally he said, "Dana, you have a heart of purest brass, as well as a knee with an invisible gunsight on it. I say that I'm not going to give you my appropriation, regardless of what the future may or may not say about it. I'm not going to give it to you because the way my Government—and yours—runs things makes such a price impossible. Or is that really your price?"

"It's my real price . . . but it's also an alternative. Call it my second choice. My first choice, which means the price I'd settle for, comes in two parts: (a) to be taken into your service as a responsible officer; and (b) to be married to Captain Robin Weinbaum."

"the voice of the President of our Galaxy, in 3480, announcing the federation of the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds. IVe heard the commander of a world-line cruiser, traveling from 8873 to 8704 along the world-line of the planet Hathshepa, which circles a star on the rim of NGC 4725, calling for help across eleven million light-years—but what kind of help he was calling for, or will be calling for, is beyond my comprehension. And many other things. When you check on me, youil hear these things too—and you'll wonder what many of them mean.

"And you'll listen to them even more closely than I did, in the hope of finding out whether or not anyone was able to understand in time to help."

Weinbaum and Wald looked dazed.

Her voice became a little more somber. "Most of the voices in the Dirac beep are like that—they're cries for help, which you can overhear decades or centuries before the senders get into trouble. You'll feel obligated to answer every one, to try to supply the help that's needed. And you'll listen to the succeeding messages and say: 'Did we—will we get there in time? Did we understand in time?'

"And in most cases you won't be sure. You'll know the future, but not what most of it means. The farther into the future you travel with the machine, the more incomprehensible the messages become, and so you're reduced to telling yourself that time will, after all, have to pass by at its own pace, before enough of the surrounding events can emerge to make those remote messages clear.

"The long-run effect, as far as I can think it through, is not going to be that of omniscience—of our consciousness being extracted entirely from the time-stream and allowed to view its whole sweep from one side. Instead, the Dirac in effect simply slides the bead of consciousness forward from the present a certain distance. Whether it's five hundred or five thousand years still remains to be seen. At that point the law of diminishing returns sets in—or the noise-factor begins to overbalance the information, take your choice—and the observer is reduced to traveling in time at the same old speed. He's just a bit ahead of himself."

"You've thought a great deal about this," Wald said slowly. "I dislike to think of what might have happened had some less conscientious person stumbled on the beep." "That wasn't in the cards," Dana said.

In the ensuing quiet, Weinbaum felt a faint, irrational sense of let-down, of something which had promised more than had been delivered—rather like the taste of fresh bread as compared to its smell, or the discovery that Thor Wald's Swedish "folk-song" Nat-og-Dag was only Cole Porter's Night and Day in another language. He recognized the feeling: it was the usual emotion of the hunter when the hunt is over, the born detective's professional version of the post coitum triste. After looking at the smiling, supple Dana Lje a moment more, however, he was almost content.

"There's one more thing," he said. "I don't want to be insufferably skeptical about this—but I want to see it work. Thor, can we set up a sampling and smearing device such as Dana describes and run a test?"

"In fifteen minutes," Dr. Wald said. "We have most of the unit already in assembled form on our big ultrawave receiver, and it shouldn't take any effort to add a high-speed tape unit to it. I'll do it right now."

He went out. Weinbaum and Dana looked at each other for a moment, rather like strange cats. Then the security officer got up, with what he knew to be an air of somewhat grim determination, and seized his fiancee's hands, anticipating a struggle.

That first kiss was, by intention at least, mostly pro forma. But by the time Wald padded back into the office, the letter had been pretty thoroughly superseded by the spirit.

The scientist harrumphed and set his burden on the desk. "This is all there is to it," he said, "but I had to hunt all through the library to find a Dirac record with a beep still on it. Just a moment more while I make connections . . ."

Weinbaum used the time to bring his mind back to the matter at hand, although not quite completely. Then two tape spindles began to whir like so many bees, and the end-stopped sound of the Dirac beep filled the room. Wald stopped the apparatus, reset it, and started the smearing tape very slowly in the opposite direction.

A distant babble of voices came from the speaker. As Weinbaum leaned forward tensely, one voice said clearly and loudly above the rest:

"Hello, Earth bureau. Lt. T. L. Matthews at Hercules Station NGC 6341, transmission date 13-22-2091. We have the last point on the orbit-curve of your dope-runners plotted, and the curve itself points to a small system about 25 light-years from the base here; the place hasn't even got a name on our charts. Scouts show the home planet at least twice as heavily fortified as we anticipated, so we'll need another cruiser. We have a 'can-do' from you in the beep for us, but we're waiting as ordered to get it in the present. NGC 6341 Matthews out."

After the first instant of stunned amazement—for no amount of intellectual willingness to accept could have prepared him for the overwhelming fact itself—Weinbaum had grabbed a pencil and begun to write at top speed. As the voice signed out he threw the pencil down and looked excitedly at Dr. Wald.

"Seven months ahead," he said, aware that he was grinning like an idiot. "Thor, you know the trouble we've had with that needle in the Hercules haystack! Ths orbit-curve trick must be something Matthews has yet to dream up—at least he hasn't come to me with it yet, and there's nothing in the situation as it stands now that would indicate a closing-time of six months for the case. The computers said it would take three more years,"

"It's new data," Dr. Wald agreed solemnly.

"Well, don't stop there, in God's name! Let's hear some more!"

Dr. Wald went through the ritual, much faster this time. The speaker said:

"Nausentampen. Eddettompic. Berobsilom. Aimkaksetchoc. Sanbetogmow. Datdectamset. Domatrosmin. Out."

"My word," Wald said. "What's all that?"

"That's what I was talking about," Dana Lje said. "At least half of what you get from the beep is just as incomprehensible. I suppose it's whatever has happened to the English language, thousands of years from now."

"No, it isn't," Weinbaum said. He had resumed writing, and was still at it, despite the comparative briefness of the transmission. "Not this sample, anyhow. That, ladies and gentlmen, is code-no language consists exclusively of four-syllable words, of that you can be sure. What's more, it's a version of our code. I can't break it down very far—it takes a full-time expert to read this stuff-but I get the date and some of the sense. It's March 12, 3022, and there's some kind of a mass evacuation taking place. The message seems to be a routing order."

"But why will we be using code?" Dr. Wald wanted to know. "It implies that we think somebody might overhear us—somebody else with a Dirac. That could be very messy."

"It could indeed," Weinbaum said. "But we'll find out, I imagine. Give her another spin, Thor."

"Shall I try for a picture this time?"

Weinbaum nodded. A moment later, he was looking squarely into the green-skinned face of something that looked like an animated traffic signal with a helmet on it. Though the creature had no mouth, the Dirac speaker was saying quite clearly, "Hello, Chief. This is Thammos NGC 2287, transmission date Gor 60, 302 by my calendar, July 2, 2973 by yours. This is a lousy little planet. Everything stinks of oxygen, just like Earth. But the natives accept us and that's the important thing. We've got your genius safely born. Detailed report coming later by paw. NGC 2287 Thammos out."

"I wish I knew my New General Catalogue better," Weinbaum said. "Isn't that M 41 in Canis Major, the one with the red star in the middle? And we'll be using non-humanoids there! What was that creature, anyhow? Never mind, spin her again."

Dr. Wald spun her again. Weinbaum, already feeling a little dizzy, had given up taking notes. That could come later; all that could come later. Now he wanted only scenes and voices, more and more scenes and voices from the future.

The indoctrination tape ended, and Krasna touched a button. The Dirac screen darkened, and folded silently back into the desk.

"They didn't see their way through to us, not by a long shot," he said. "They didn't see, for instance, that when one section of the government becomes nearly all-knowing—no matter how small it was to begin with—it necessarily becomes all of the government that there is. Thus the bureau turned into the Service and pushed everyone else out.

"On the other hand, those people did come to be afraid that a government with an all-knowing arm might become a rigid dictatorship. That couldn't happen and didn't happen, because the more you know, the wider your field of possible operation becomes and the more fluid and dynamic a society you need. How could a rigid society expand to other star-systems, let alone other galaxies? It couldn't be done."

"I should think it could," Jo said slowly. "After all, if you know in advance what everybody is going to do—"

"But we don't, Jo. That's just a popular fiction—or, if you like, a red herring. Not all of the business of the cosmos is carried on over the Dirac, after all. The only events we can ever overhear are those which are transmitted as a message. Do you order your lunch over the Dirac? Of course you don't. Up to now, you've never said a word over the Dirac in your life.

"And there's much more to it than that. All dictatorships are based on the proposition that government can somehow control a man's thoughts. We know now that the consciousness of the observer is the only free thing in the Universe. Wouldn't we look foolish trying to control that, when our entire physics shows that it's impossible to do so? That's why the Service is in no sense a thought police. We're interested only in acts. We're an Event Police."

"But why?" Jo said. "If all history is fixed, why do we bother with these boy-meets-girl assignments, for instance? The meetings will happen anyhow."

"Of course they will," Krasna agreed immediately. "But look, Jo. Our interests as a government depend upon the future. We operate as if the future is as real as the past, and so far we haven't been disappointed: the Service is 100% successful. But that very success isn't without its warnings. What would happen if we stopped supervising events? We don't know, and we don't dare take the chance. Despite the evidence that the future is fixed, we have to take on the role of the caretaker of inevitability. We believe that nothing can possibly go wrong . . . but we have to act on the philosophy that history helps only those who help themselves.

"That's why we safeguard huge numbers of courtships right through to contract, and even beyond it. We have to see to it that every single person who is mentioned in any Dirac 'cast gets bom.

Our obligation as Event Police is to make the events of the future possible, because those events are crucial to our society—even the smallest of them. It's an enormous task, believe me, and it gets bigger and bigger every day. Apparently it always will."

"Always?" Jo said. "What about the public? Isn't it going to smell this out sooner or later? The evidence is piling up at a terrific rate."

"Yes and no," Krasna said. "Lots of people are smelling it out right now, just as you did. But the number of new people we need in the Service grows faster—it's always ahead of the number of laymen who follow the clues to the truth."

Jo took a deep breath. "You take all this as if it were as commonplace as boiling an egg, Kras," he said. "Don't you ever wonder about some of the things you get from the beep? That 'cast Dana Lje picked up from Canes Venatici, for instance, the one from the ship that was traveling backward in time? How is that possible? What could be the purpose? Is it—"

"Pace, pace," Krasna said. "I don't know, and I don't care. Neither should you. That event is too far in the future for us to worry about. We can't possibly know its context yet, so there's no sense in trying to understand it. If an Englishman of around 1600 had found out about the American Revolution, he would have thought it a tragedy; an Englishman of 1950 would have a very different view of it. We're in the same spot. The messages we get from the really far future have no contexts yet."

"I think I see," Jo said. "I'll get used to it in time, I suppose, after I use the Dirac for a while. Or does my new rank authorize me to do that?"

"Yes, it does. But, Jo, first I want to pass on to you a rule of Service etiquette that must never be broken. You won't be allowed anywhere near a Dirac mike until you have it burned into your memory beyond any forgetfulness."

"I'm listening, Kras, believe me."

"Good. This is the rule: The date of a Serviceman's death must never be mentioned in a Dirac 'cast."

Jo blinked, feeling a little chilly. The reason behind the rule was decidedly tough-minded, but its ultimate kindness was plain. He said, "I won't forget that. I'll want that protection myself. Many thanks, Kras. What's my new assignment?"

"To begin with/' Krasna said, grinning, "as simple a job as IVe ever given you, right here on Randolph. Skin out of here and find me that cab-driver—the one who mentioned time-travel to you. He's uncomfortably close to the truth; closer than you were in one category.

"Find him, and bring him to me. The Service is about to take in a new raw recruit!"

illuminated the rear of the house were gone. Moving silently I crept near, parting bushes to look into the garden.

The spherical vessel rested on turf behind the house, but the power that sustained it had been turned off, leaving it a fragile tracery of spidery girders almost as thin as wire, vulnerable now that the lines of force forming the hull had been collapsed. Two green vaporous shapes moved inside the vessel, visible through the tracery of its sides. I grew completely still, watching.

Two, I thought. Only two. I had expected that there would be three forms in the vessel.

After a long time the vaporous shapes slowly left the machine and crossed the turf towards the house. They were of diffused outline, slightly luminous in the gathering dark, tall as a man. Only when they were gone from view round the corner of the house did I step out from the bushes towards the ship that had come so far.

Its tracery of fragile members buckled under the blows of the spanner brought from the car, bending and folding into a tangle of jointed wire. Within moments it was destroyed beyond even the skill of its owners to repair. Silence returned. A few stars, immeasurably remote worlds, had begun to show in the heavens. I looked up, searching for bright Sirius from where I knew the vessel had come. But drifting cloud obscured that section of the night sky.

A green shape came round the corner of the house and stopped. I sensed its surprise, quickly followed by antagonism and fury. Glowing it came across the turf, its speed increasing to catch me.

I turned on my heels and ran, slipping through the bushes to the road. The saloon was not far. I dragged open the door, jumped in . . . and not until half the valley lay behind did I stop, looking back.

The two green shapes were searching round the house. For a long time they passed in and out among the bushes like mysterious pillars of green light, then they returned to the house, were lost from view. My agitation began to subside. I told myself that things had worked out well on the whole, that as much had been accomplished as could be expected. Obviously they had not believed their coming was anticipated, must now be regretting having left their vessel unguarded.

I drove slowly back towards the house. It was unfortunate that there had been no time to bring a weapon—or at least one of such a type as would be effective against the beings from the spheroid. There was every reason why their physical make-up should be familiar to me. They could control matter, but were not matter themselves. A life-form totally dissimilar to any known on Earth, they were sentient, highly intelligent, yet composed of molecules as insubstantial as those of the air. My sworn duty was to destroy them. Theirs was to eliminate me.

An opening in the bushes permitted a view of the rear of the house. The broken vessel was gone, but whether hidden away with the hope of repair or concealed because its presence would arouse suspicion, could not be decided. The house was silent and I crept round it.

Two men had just emerged and were walking quickly away down the road. One was a trifle more than average height, the other an inch or two below. They were of average build, quite undistinguished. To my trained eye they appeared not as individuals, but as types.

A good disguise, I thought. They had speedily adopted the appearance of average types of the life-forms among which they would now move. That offered concealment, yet opportunity for unlimited activity. There was not a man on Earth who would not swear each was a human, just like himself.

I went round the house quickly, looking inside through each window. No light showed, nor was there any movement. Satisfied, I went back to the car. Apparently the vessel had brought two only, despite supposition to the contrary.

The brilliant headlights soon picked out the two figures walking quickly down towards the bottom of the valley. I slowed, reaching back to lock the saloon doors on the inside, and stopped near them, my face in the shadow. The slightly taller figure came to my window, and I put it down an inch.

"We'd like a lift on into town," he said.

They did it well, I thought. Very well—had studied everything down to the slight local accent, and adopted it automatically. Everyone would swear the two were exactly what they appeared to be.

"I don't recognise you," I said. "You strangers hereabouts?" The figure hesitated, nodding, one hand already on the doorhandle, trying to open it.

"We're salesmen for a big business concern," he said. "A cab was to pick us up, but must have mistaken our instructions. So we thought we'd walk on as it's only a mile or so. But we'd appreciate that lift. .."

"Sorry—got four friends to pick up just down the road." I said and accelerated and let in the clutch. The little man had remained in front of me, and he did not move. They were like that, I thought —they knew there was no danger, and sometimes forgot, especially at the beginning....

The wing of the saloon passed through him. When I looked back both were walking quickly on after me.

I sped for town. They had not suspected and I had learned enough to feel safe in going on. Eliminating them was now the problem. No form of physical violence could succeed. Poison was out—they would not eat. Gassing was impossible—they did not breathe though they could simulate chest movements when necessary to complete their disguise. They were virtually ageless, and did not reckon time by any standard used on Earth. By conscious will they could form the molecules making up their substance into any shape they wished, simulating an outline which would provide protection in the environment they inhabited.

The proprietor of the next town's only hotel greeted me with smiles, and I saw that he remembered my week's stay and large tips.

"I'm expecting a couple of friends," I told him. "Commercial travelers here for a deal. You might give me a ring when they come in."

He beamed. "I will see to it personally." "Good," I said.

I went towards the stairs, and paused, looking back. "Oh, don't say I asked after them. I want to look in on them as a surprise-get it?"

"Certainly, Mr. Smith, certainly," he said.

Smith, I thought. But it was as good a name as any ... In my job one seldom used one's own name.

Alone in my room, I reviewed the situation. The newcomers had arrived as expected and I had traced them. That there were only two, instead of the three anticipated, was the only error but it simplified matters. Two would be easier to deal with and my knowledge of them was complete. They must not be allowed to become lost amid Earth's teeming millions or they would become a secret, ever-present and certainly-active menace. My job was to follow and eliminate them at the earliest possible moment.

Presently the bell rang on my door. I got up, crossed to it and then remembered I had not switched on the light. It would look odd to be seen there without it.

I depressed the switch and opened the door. "Yes?"

"Your friends are just in," the manager said. "They've booked until midday tomorrow."

"You're sure it's them?" I asked.

"I think so, sir—a Mr. Dulice, a bit above average height, booked for himself and his friend . . ."

"That'll be them," I agreed. Dulice, I thought. It was as good a name as Diesnar and the latter sounded odd by Earth standards. I wondered if the manager had noticed the light come on under the crack of the door. "I was dozing," I said. Best to make sure. "Thanks. Needn't mention me to them. Maybe I'll leave it until tomorrow."

"Their room is Number Thirteen, end of the corridor," he said. "Thanks. Good night."

He left and I wondered what he would do if he knew what the occupants of Room 13 were. Not respectable Mr. Dulice and companion but Diesnar and Iago, nonphysical entities playing their usual game of imitation—a game that had been perfected by millions of generations of evolutionary selection.

The room clock showed two hours until midnight. That gave about seven hours in all, until dawn. I had known that my visit to Room 13 would certainly not be delayed until then despite my assurance to the contrary. Instead the hours of darkness would see much activity.

I unlocked a trunk and took out a light metal box, which a second key fitted. The weapon inside was not recognisable as such by Earth standards but might have passed for an antique pedestal of bronze, ending in a cup in which a carved crystal rested. But it was not a pedestal and not bronze—was instead the product of much scientific research and inestimably valuable. I doubted whether half a dozen such instruments existed in the cosmos. Those that did were in safe keeping.

With it in a pocket I went out and walked silently to Room 13. A faint light burned in the hall stairway below, but the hotel was quiet. I recalled that the manager had said something about being short-staffed. The bronzen object fitted snugly in one hand and my fingers came upon a lever which could be depressed. Holding it I tapped. Silence followed. I tapped again. The knob turned and the door opened.

"I have a message/' I said evenly. The door opened fully and I went in, moving quickly to the right along the wall, my left hand extended back towards the door and on the lighting switch.

"You've forgotten the light," I said.

The switch clicked under my pressure. A glance showed me Dulice, alias Diesnar, was gone. The other—the smaller and weaker —stared at me.

"I was not expecting anyone," he murmured. "You've made some error . . ."

I examined him without speaking. His features were so near average, his dress and appearance so near the normal, that no person in all the world would have given him a second glance.

"You do it very well," I said.

His astonishment, dismay and terror could be sensed. He did not show it—an appearance of terror would have to be simulated consciously and would serve no useful purpose. Hence it was absent. But his bland expression was not all I had to go by.

"Surely—you think me someone else?" he said softly.

He was moving slowly back. I quickly closed the door and stood with my back to it.

"No," I said. "No, not someone else—Iago."

It took him a moment to integrate and recognise the Earth oral vibrations forming his true name. But I saw that he had done so and knew me now and why I had come.

"Better keep still," I said. "Where's-Mr. Dulice?"

The silence was so long. I thought he was not going to speak. His face shone in the light. His lips almost seemed to smile.

"Gone," he said at last.

"Obviously. And where?"

"That you can find out."

"It would save trouble if you—told me," I murmured. I took the bronze pedestal from my pocket. He saw it. His eyes fixed on the carved crystal, and I sensed his terror anew. It was stronger, this time—the terror of a being faced with death.

"Why should I tell you?" he asked evenly.

"Because, if you do not I shall kill you."

He shrugged. It was well done. "I do not fear death."

"Odd," I said. "I do."

My fingers tightened slightly on the lever which controlled the compact, immeasurably complicated apparatus inside the hollow plinth.

"You came far enough," I said, "to this planet. You might have escaped more easily if you'd landed near a large city, though I can guess you wanted to avoid observation. This time your effort to appear quite average was a mistake. However, where is Diesnar?"

The eyes looking back at me were cool, but I sensed and knew the tenor and decision in the other's heart.

"That's for you—to find," he breathed.

I pressed the lever. It was no use waiting. The crystal hummed and sang, ringing like taut wires in the wind, and I closed my eyes, not wanting to see Iago. I wished him no harm, personally. Might even have liked him in some ways, despite his weakness. He was different from Diesnar, the leader, who was strong enough for both.

I opened my eyes in time to see the last wisps of green mist shred away into nothing and dissipate on the air. A few moments passed and a knock came on the door, I opened it.

"Yes?"

The manager appeared apologetic. "I was just retiring, sir—did you ring? I was passing . . ."

"No," I said. "We don't want anything." I put the pedestal in my pocket—the crystal had cooled quickly. "Thanks all the same. Oh— do you know where Mr. Dulice went?"

The manager shook his head. "I haven't seen him come down, sir. I've been at the reception desk—we're short-staffed, though I've got a new man to take over."

I went back to my room. The annihilation of Iago gave me no elation. I had not supposed him difficult to deal with but his companion would be very different. Diesnar was clever and a foe anyone might justly fear.

I locked the piezo-electric crystal and waveform generator away in its metal case and stood by the window, the light out so that no revealing shadow fell upon the glass. Wind-driven clouds were passing a weak moon and the little town was asleep. I knew Mr. Dulice would not be asleep but watching somewhere...

With infinite caution I opened the window and went out upon the iron fire-escape, listening. An alley lay below, lit by a single lamp where it met an adjoining street. At the dim end of the alley, scarcely discernible from the shadows, stood a man. I withdrew and went down into the hall, where a youth dozed behind a lit desk. I did not give him a second glance.

"Just going out to get some books from my car," I said.

The streets were as near deserted as did not matter. The alley was like a well, stretching way into complete blackness. I followed the one wall, knowing risks were greatest in the section under the lamp. But risks had to be taken. Agents who uphold law and order are not chosen from the timid.

The lamp behind, the gloom ahead was complete. Clouds had banked against the moon so that even the high rooftops flanking the alley could not be seen against the sky. A car passed along the road, sending down after me a brief humming. I sensed that my enemy was very near, hating me and probably already aware that Iago was dead. There could be no half-measures in this hunt. My instructions were to annihilate them. Guessing that, Mr. Dulice's reactions were readily predictable.

The wall at my back, the bricks rough under my hands, I edged on into the blackness, listening often, and with every sense strung to its highest point of receptivity. I sensed that the figure anyone would take for an ordinary commercial traveller, Mr. Dulice, was nearer. If the moon came up it was as Mr. Dulice that he would be visible.

That was how the imitative adaptability of my quarry worked— he had become an average representative of the creatures among whom he sought to hide. That process was largely instinctive, the outcome of an ancestry where survival had depended upon the perfect imitation of other life-forms. Those whose imitative processes had been less than perfect had on the whole survived less well. That was how evolution worked and Mr. Dulice was at the tail end of a long evolutionary period and his imitation of an average human life-form was excellent.

The tiny sound of something brushing stones froze me against the wall. I realised that I should have brought the resonant disintegrator. The knowledge of my error ran through me like a cold fear. In this job those who made errors seldom had the opportunity to repeat them—instead they died . . . But that little pedestal-shaped weapon was special. I had adopted the habit of locking it away to guard against its loss. Accidents could happen—and that pedestal had to be checked in when my task was finished. Better that I never return at all than return without it.

Diesnar would deduce that I carried it, I decided. By playing on that belief I could keep my advantage.

"Mr. Dulice/' I whispered.

Neither of us would want anyone else in the town to know we were other than we appeared. He would not want a howling mob chasing him, even though they could not harm him. As for myself I preferred secrecy.

No reply came. A gap in the moving cloud let a weak moonray glow momentarily into the alley. Directly opposite me, his back to the wall, was Dulice. We could have touched hands by reaching out.

The moonlight went. Somewhere in the distance a whistle sounded and wheels on rails. That would be the 2 a.m. electric-train passing south, I thought. I had not known it was already quite so late.

"Mr. Dulice," I said quietly, "I have killed your companion . . ."

His terror could be sensed, so strong was the emotion. Had he been a real man his breathing would have sounded heavily.

"There have been times when we allowed one of you to live," I said evenly. That was true—but only a long time ago when new arrivals such as Diesnar had been less well equipped. "Would you guarantee to put in our hands all the information you possess of your companions, their names and plans?"

Came a scarcely audible rustle, then silence. It seemed apparent that Mr. Dulice expected immediate annihilation. I guessed that his terror was so extreme he had for the moment lost the power to use the pseudo-larynx which was now part of his make-up.

"Come," I said. "I expect an answer—in the circumstances."

"You underestimate me . . ."

The words were a whisper—and from high up on my left. I moved out into the alley and saw his shadow on the iron fire-escape, ascending rapidly. I ran to the ladder, climbing. He went through the window into my room. When I reached the window the door had just closed. The metal box containing the pedestal was gone.

We only made mistakes like that once, I thought, running for the door. The corridor was empty—so were the stairs and hall. The youth was frankly asleep now, snoring. I passed him and emerged into the street.

Diesnar would be waiting somewhere. He would prefer I did not live for while I lived he was listed among the hunted.

A clock struck loudly. I crossed the street and watched the hotel for a moment. The building was dark except for the glass above the entrance door. Mr. Dulice might not try to open the metal box but merely hide it. Either way, he now had a ponderous advantage—that of knowing the apparatus was not in my possession.

A man was a long way down the street at a corner, watching, and began walking towards me. He was very slightly over average height—just such a man as one might meet a thousand times in a thousand cities of the Earth.

I withdrew round the nearest corner and looked back. The man was following—the distance between us had decreased. Our roles had changed, I thought. Mr. Dulice had become the hunter, I the hunted. It was a role he would adopt readily, one well suited to his character.

The buildings thinned a little as I went eastwards through the town. Every time I looked back my follower was there. He wanted secrecy as much as I—would play the game the way I led until very near the end.

Waste lots slipped behind and a viaduct bridge. I went off it onto turf. At my back was a high wire fence—below it a bank sloping down to the railway. No one would disturb us here at this hour. The nearest lamp was far away, the moonlight intermittent, the nearest buildings away down the line.

Mr. Dulice stopped a few paces away. "I didn't come across the light-years of space to have my plans interrupted by meddlers," he said.

I wondered whether he held the resonator. Turned on me it could prove equally fatal.

"You cannot be allowed to settle on this planet/' I pointed out, watching him keenly. "Succinctly you're a bad lot, Mr. Dulice."

"I made my way," he said.

I knew then that he had not got the resonator—probably had been unable to open the box. Had he, he would not have talked but acted, and his action would have ended my part of the case. Now he came forward so that we were two paces apart.

"You know I shall have to kill you," he said.

"Of course—provided you have the chance."

He inclined his head. "I make my own chances."

We watched each other. In a way, we were evenly matched—now. Possibly his strength exceeded mine. From experience I knew that one of them could summon up great physical power when survival depended on it. Not the power of nerves and muscles of ordinary flesh but that of the interaction orbits of the molecules making up his form, that strength could be none the less nearly irresistible.

"You've often hunted us," he said. "It's a habit which should stop . . ."

"I'm paid for my work," I said, never looking from him.

He was watching for an opening. Suddenly—abruptly—it would be over, for one of us.

Then he moved—so did I. My hands clasped round one arm above the elbow and one leg by the knee, gripping with all my strength. He came up in my grasp like an empty, hollow dummy, struggling. He realised at that moment too that I had not fled this way without purpose.

He screamed as I flung him down towards the electrified rails. The cry echoed to the sky even as he descended. It was not a cry of terror but triumph.

"We were three! There's Piert!"

Then he touched the electrified rails. A flash glowed abruptly between earth and sky. He was almost as conductive as solid metal, I thought. Nothing of Mr. Dulice remained—only a wisp of thin green vapor drifting up on the night air and dispersing.

Piert, I thought. Piert, the leader—I should have known! But he had not been seen nor visible to follow. I had traced the two only. Such a plan was like Piert. He would go off alone—might now be lost in some populous city. Or again he might be near. Piert was the kind who stuck around to see things out—in his own way . . .

I turned from the fence quickly, eyes searching the road below and the expanse of turf, half expecting Piert to be there, waiting for me. Were he it would end his way. Piert was more than the equal of the two disposed of . . . worse, could have followed me while I had not suspected his presence . . .

A group of men was coming towards me, shouting. Those in the lead began to run, waving their arms.

"It was murder!" one cried.

They had seen me throw Dulice down and I ran. This was not the time for difficult explanations. As an agent one has to make one's own way out of difficulties. When the difficulties were of this type, an avoiding action was called for. Furthermore, while I argued Piert would act.

The hotel was quiet, the youth gone, possibly to get tea or coffee. I hurried to the room Mr. Dulice had hired and searched quickly. The metal box was not there. I went to my own room and traced back the way he must have gone, watching for likely hiding-places. There seemed to be none—or those I saw were too obvious for a mind of Mr. Dulice's calibre to adopt.

I went out of the hotel. Dulice had appeared to go left and the road was almost bare of hiding-places until the next corner. Beyond the corner was a railed garden, small and sunk below street level. At the bottom of the steps was a metal box, shiny and new. I descended, brought it up, and unlocked it. The resonator safe in my pocket, I hesitated, then locked the box and returned it to its previous position. Piert was the type who would be aware of developments. He might know it was there, return to reassure himself or carry it off.

With everything I possessed on Earth stowed in my case I hurried out of the hotel, wondering if already too much time had been wasted. It would be wise to move on. Voices sounded along the street and three workmen came into view.

"That's him!" one shouted, pointing at me.

They had been quick in tracing me—almost too quick. The other way along the street others were coming, a torch bobbing in their leader's hands. Behind in the alley would be others. I wondered whether it was luck or whether Piert was present and had already acted.

I put down my case, waiting. The railwaymen were confident because of their numbers, yet hesitated to lay hands on me.

"We saw him throw the man down the embankment," one said to another. "It was attempted murder, clear as daylight."

I tensed my skin against their grasp but they only surrounded me, increasingly hesitant.

"Look," I said, "I'm an ordinary man. I ran—who wouldn't with a pack like you after him? If you think there's been murder done, then go back and look for the body!"

"It's a plan to get rid of us," one said.

I laughed. "If you think so, some go back and some stay."

"You're trying to leave town," another pointed out.

"So what? Who wouldn't, after being chased like a thief?"

They were silent, looking at each other. The enthusiasm of the first rush that had carried them after me was subsiding—some were beginning to doubt the truth of what they had seen.

"Perhaps we made a mistake . . ." one said.

"No. He threw him down, clear as daylight."

"It's a job for the authorities to look into," a third suggested.

I did not want that. The wheels of authority turn slowly and Piert would be hundreds of miles away by the time it was decided there was indeed no body.

"He's an ordinary looking kind of cove," the first man said. "Maybe it was all an—an illusion—"

Another man had come down the street behind them, and stood on the perimeter of the circle in shadow.

"That's your saloon in the open-air park down the road," he shot at me over their heads.

It was. I had bought it as the world could prove. I nodded. Something in the timber of the voice—something lacking—chilled me, but I could not see him clearly over the surrounding heads.

The newcomer gave an exclamation. "He admits it! That's why you'll not find a body! I stayed behind, going down to see if the man was alive. He was dead. There's no body now." He pointed at me accusingly. "He came back, threw the body in his car and took it away. I didn't try to stop him—he had a gun. He's dumped both in the river in my opinion. It was quick work—but he had time to do it."

The workmen looked at the speaker. "Yes, I did notice this chap stay behind," one said.

Another nodded. "There'd be time to nip down to the bridge—"

I was afraid, then. Terribly afraid. They had lost an exact sense of the time that had passed. Worse, it might have been possible for me to have taken a body down to the river. Time had flown while I had been searching for the pedestal.

"It's all lies," I said. "I never had a gun."

"That's for a judge and jury to decide," they said, and pressed closely round me.

We walked noisily through the town. I was surrounded, and shaken. This was the kind of thing no agent likes to happen. We like secrecy. We expect no outside aid—know indeed, that there will be none forthcoming—and the situation was ugly. There was enough proof against me to keep me tied up so long that Piert could be ten thousand miles away and then it would take half a lifetime to find him.

The workmen told each other they had seen me do it, gaining confidence. "I still think there's been some mistake," one objected.

They silenced him. The mistake had been mine, coupled with bad luck that sent the late gang off work at that very moment when Dulice had pitched down on to the live rails.

They pressed closer as we neared the police station. "Where's that man who saw him take the body?" one asked. They needed to reassure themselves now.

"I'm here," the voice said.

It was slightly flat, yet somehow absolutely normal.

"Ah, you saw him," the man said, satisfied. "You'll have to tell the police. You're new here, eh?"

"I was going to the station to see if there were any late trains stopping." The newcomer was behind me, beyond the fringe of the crowd.

"No expresses stop here all night," someone said.

There was silence, then one said, "You'll need to give evidence. We didn't see him come back. What you saw is important. What's your name?"

"Peart," the man said. "Samuel Peart. I was at the hotel."

I knew then that Piert had engineered it and lied to convict me and wanted me to know. That was like him. He must have the satisfaction of knowing that I knew, thus doubling his own triumph. In that was his revenge for Iago and Diesnar and for all the others of his type I had hunted down.

"You're a stranger here?" one asked again.

"Yes."

He put the human sound of triumph into his voice, knowing I should hear it and understand and thus hate tenfold my defeat.

It was awkward. We agents like things to be kept quiet. We do not like a town stirred to awareness of our presence and actions. But things had gone too far. At that moment only a dozen workmen possessed the fringe of this knowledge, excluding Piert and myself. Of their number one doubted. The others were still so surprised they needed to reassure each other.

I halted and turned around. The newcomer was the youth of the hotel. "I didn't have time to take the body away, Mr. Peart," I said evenly. "But I did have time to find—and open—the box Mr. Dulice took."

It meant nothing to the workmen. For a second I savored the terror which instantly replaced Piert's satisfaction and which could be sensed with a feeling of almost physical impact. He had been clever, getting a job at the hotel. Then I pressed the lever of the pedestal.

Piert's outline wobbled, shrank inwards, and he dissipated away into faint green vapor which drifted and vanished like cigarette smoke on the evening air.

"Strewth!" a workman breathed.

I walked through them and ran. My feet made no sound. I heard their shouts as I reached my saloon but lost them as I drove for the valley. It had been an untidy case, I thought, but the workmen would end up doubting their own eyes.

I lifted my vessel, a mere lattice structure of girders thin as wire, from the water, set it on the bank and put up the force screens. My human shape, replica of the life-forms amid which I had moved, began to vanish. I glided into the vessel, set now for the Dog Star.

We police from Sirius do not like outlaws to prey upon unsuspecting worlds, however remote.

"I think so. I don't know anything about it; it belongs to a friend of mine, who loaned it to me. I think the action's German, or Czech; the rest of it's a custom job, by some West Coast gunmaker. It's chambered for some ultra-velocity wildcat load."

The rifle passed from hand to hand; the three men examined it in turn, commenting admiringly.

"You find anything, Mr. Lee?" the sergeant asked, handing it back.

"Not a trace." The man called Lee slung the rifle and began to dump the ashes from his pipe. "I was along the top of this ridge for about a mile on either side of the gap, and down the other side as far as Hindman's Run; I didn't find any tracks, or any indication of where it had made a kill."

The game protector nodded, turning to Sergeant Haines.

"There's no use us going any farther," he said. "Ten to one, it followed that line of woods back of Strawmyer's, and crossed over to the other ridge. I think our best bet would be the hollow at the head of Lowrie's Run. What do you think?"

The sergeant agreed. The man called Richard Lee began to refill his pipe methodically.

"I think I shall stay here for a while, but I believe you're right. Lowrie's Run, or across Lowrie's Gap into Coon Valley," he said.

After Parker and the State policemen had gone, the man whom they had addressed as Richard Lee returned to his log and sat smoking, his rifle across his knees. From time to time, he glanced at his wrist watch and raised his head to listen. At length, faint in the distance, he heard the sound of a motor starting.

Instantly, he was on his feet. From the end of the hollow log on which he had been sitting, he produced a canvas musette-bag. Walking briskly to a patch of damp ground beside the little stream, he leaned the rifle against a tree and opened the bag. First, he took out a pair of gloves of some greenish, rubberlike substance, and put them on, drawing the long gauntlets up over his coat sleeves. Then he produced a bottle and unscrewed the cap. Being careful to avoid splashing his clothes, he went about, pouring a clear liquid upon the ground in several places. Where he poured, white vapors rose, and twigs and grass crumbled into brownish dust. After he had replaced the cap and returned the bottle to the bag, he waited for a few minutes, then took a spatula from the musette and dug where he had poured the fluid, prying loose four black, irregular-shaped lumps of matter, which he carried to the running water and washed carefully, before wrapping them and putting them in the bag, along with the gloves. Then he slung bag and rifle and started down the trail to where he had parked the jeep.

Half an hour later, after driving through the little farming village of Rutter's Fort, he pulled into the barnyard of a rundown farm and backed through the open doors of the barn. He closed the double doors behind him, and barred them from within. Then he went to the rear wall of the barn, which was much closer to the front than the outside dimensions of the barn would have indicated.

He took from his pocket a black object like an automatic pencil. Hunting over the rough plank wall, he found a small hole and inserted the pointed end of the pseudo-pencil, pressing on the other end. For an instant, nothing happened. Then a ten-foot-square section of the wall receded two feet and slid noiselessly to one side. The section which had slid inward had been built of three-inch steel, masked by a thin covering of boards; the wall around it was two-foot concrete, similarly camouflaged. He stepped quickly inside.

Fumbling at the right side of the opening, he found a switch and flicked it. Instantly, the massive steel plate slid back into place with a soft, oily click. As it did, lights came on within the hidden room, disclosing a great semiglobe of some fine metallic mesh, thirty feet in diameter and fifteen in height. There was a sliding door at one side of this; the man called Richard Lee opened and entered through it, closing it behind him. Then he turned to the center of the hollow dome, where an armchair was placed in front of a small desk below a large instrument panel. The gauges and dials on the panel, and the levers and switches and buttons on the desk control board, were all lettered and numbered with characters not of the Roman alphabet or the Arabic notation, and, within instant reach of the occupant of the chair, a pistollike weapon lay on the desk. It had a conventional index-finger trigger and a hand-fit grip, but, instead of a tubular barrel, two slender parallel metal rods extended about four inches forward of the receiver, joined together at what would correspond to the muzzle by a streamlined knob of some light blue ceramic or plastic substance.

The man with the handsome immobile face deposited his rifle and musette on the floor beside the chair and sat down. First, he picked up the pistollike weapon and checked it, and then he examined the many instruments on the panel in front of him. Finally, he flicked a switch on the control board.

At once, a small humming began, from some point overhead. It wavered and shrilled and mounted in intensity, and then fell to a steady monotone. The dome about him flickered with a queer, cold iridescence, and slowly vanished. The hidden room vanished, and he was looking into the shadowy interior of a deserted barn. The barn vanished; blue sky appeared above, streaked with wisps of high cirrus cloud. The autumn landscape flickered unreally. Buildings appeared and vanished, and other buildings came and went in a twinkling. All around him, half-seen shapes moved briefly and disappeared.

Once, the figure of a man appeared, inside the circle of the dome. He had an angry, brutal face, and he wore a black tunic piped with silver, and black breeches, and polished black boots, and there was an insignia, composed of a cross and thunderbolt, on his cap. He held an automatic pistol in his hand.

Instantly, the man at the desk snatched up his own weapon and thumbed off the safety, but before he could lift and aim it, the intruder stumbled and passed outside the force-field which surrounded the chair and instruments.

For a while, there were fires raging outside, and for a while, the man at the desk was surrounded by a great hall, with a high, vaulted ceiling, through which figures flitted and vanished. For a while, there were vistas of deep forests, always set in the same background of mountains and always under the same blue cirrus-laced sky. There was an interval of flickering blue-white light, of unbearable intensity. Then the man at the desk was surrounded by the interior of vast industrial works. The moving figures around him slowed, and became more distinct. Now the dome grew visible, coruscating with many-colored lights and then the humming died and the dome became a cold and inert mesh of fine white metal. A green light above flashed on and off slowly.

He stabbed a button and flipped a switch, then got to his feet, picking up his rifle and musette and fumbling under his shirt for a small mesh bag, from which he took an inch-wide disk of blue plastic. Unlocking a container on the instrument panel, he removed a small roll of solidograph-film, which he stowed in his bag. Then he slid open the door and emerged into his own dimension of space-time.

Outside was a wide hallway, with a pale green floor, paler green walls, and a ceiling of greenish off-white. A big hole had been cut to accommodate the dome, and across the hallway a desk had been set up, and at it sat a clerk in a pale blue tunic, who was just taking the audio-plugs of a music-box out of his ears. A couple of policemen in green uniforms, with ultrasonic paralyzers dangling by thongs from their left wrists and holstered sigma-ray needlers like the one on the desk inside the dome, were kidding with some girls in vivid orange and scarlet and green smocks.

"Here comes your boss-man/' one of the girls told the cops, as he approached. They both turned and saluted casually. The man who had lately been using the name of Richard Lee responded to their greeting and went to the desk. The policemen grasped their paralyzers, drew their needlers, and hurried into the dome.

Taking the disk of blue plastic from his packet, he handed it to the clerk at the desk, who dropped it into a slot in the voder in front of him. Instantly, a mechanical voice responded:

"Verkan Vail, blue-seal noble, hereditary Mavrad of Nerros. Special Chief's Assistant, Paratime Police, special assignment. Subject to no orders below those of Tortha Karf, Chief of Paratime Police. To be given all courtesies and co-operation within the Paratime Transposition Code and the Police Powers Code. Further particulars?"

The clerk pressed the "no"-button. The blue sigil fell out the release-slot and was handed back to its bearer, who was drawing up his left sleeve.

"You'll want to be sure I'm your Verkan Vail, I suppose?" he said, extending his arm.

"Yes, quite, sir."

The clerk touched his arm with a small instrument which swabbed it with antiseptic, drew a minute blood-sample, and medicated the needle prick, all in one almost painless operation. He put the blood-drop on a slide and inserted it at one side of a comparison microscope, nodding. It showed the same distinctive permanent colloid pattern as the sample he had ready for comparison; the colloid pattern given in infancy by injection to the man in front of him, to set him apart from all the myriad other Verkan Vails on every other probability-line of paratime. "Right, sir," the clerk nodded.

The two policemen came out of the dome, their needlers hol-stered and their vigilance relaxed. They were lighting cigarettes as they emerged.

"It's all right, sir," one of them said. "You didn't bring anything in with you, this trip."

The other cop chuckled. "Remember that Fifth Level wild-man who came in on the freight conveyor at Jandar last month?" he asked.

If he was hoping that some of the girls would want to know what wild-man, it was a vain hope. With a blue-seal mavrad around, what chance did a couple of ordinary coppers have?

Verkan Vail turned to the clerk. "I want a strato-rocket and pilot for Dhergabar right away. Call Dhergabar Paratime Police Field and give them my ETA; have an air-taxi meet me, and have the chief notified that I'm coming in. Extraordinary report. Keep a guard over the conveyor; I think I'm going to need it again, soon." He turned to the little redhead. "Want to show me the way out of here to the rocket field?" he asked.

Outside, on the open landing field, Verkan Vail glanced up at the sky, then looked at his watch. It had been twenty minutes since he had backed the jeep into the barn on that distant other time-line; the same delicate lines of white cirrus were etched across the blue above. The constancy of the weather, even across two hundred thousand parayears of perpendicular time, never failed to impress him. The long curve of the mountains was the same, and they were mottled with the same autumn colors, but where the little village of Rutter's Fort stood on that other line of probability, the white towers of an apartment-city rose—the living quarters of the plant personnel.

The rocket that was to take him to headquarters was being hoisted with a crane and lowered into the firing-stand, and he walked briskly toward it, his rifle and musette slung. A boyish-looking pilot was on the platform, opening the door of the rocket; he stood aside for Verkan Vail to enter, then followed and closed it, dogging it shut while his passenger stowed his bag and rifle and strapped himself into a seat.

"Dhergabar Commercial Terminal, sir?" the pilot asked, taking the adjoining seat at the controls.

"Paratime Police Field, back of the Paratime Administration Building."

"Right, sir. Twenty seconds to blast, when you're ready." "Ready now." Verkan Vail relaxed, counting seconds subconsciously.

The rocket trembled, and Verkan Vail felt himself being pushed gently back against the upholstery. The seats, and the pilot's instrument panel in front of them, swung on gimbals, and the finger of the indicator swept slowly over a ninety-degree arc as the rocket rose and leveled. By then, the high cirrus clouds Verkan Vail had watched from the field were far below; they were well into the stratosphere.

There would be nothing to do now for the three hours in which the rocket sped northward across the pole and southward to Dhergabar; the navigation was entirely in the electronic hands of the robot controls. Verkan Vail got out his pipe and lit it; the pilot lit a cigarette.

"That's an odd pipe, sir," the pilot said. "Out-time item?"

"Yes, Fourth Probability Level; typical of the whole paratime belt I was working in." Verkan Vail handed it over for inspection. "The bowl's natural brier-root; the stem's a sort of plastic made from the sap of certain tropical trees. The little white dot is the maker's trademark; it's made of elephant tusk."

"Sounds pretty crude to me, sir." The pilot handed it back.. "Nice workmanship, though. Looks like good machine production."

"Yes. The sector I was on is really quite advanced, for an electrochemical civilization. That weapon I brought back with me —that solid-missile projector—is typical of most Fourth Level culture. Moving parts machined to the closest tolerances, and interchangeable with similar parts of all similar weapons. The missile is a small bolt of cupro-alloy coated lead, propelled by expanding gases from the ignition of some nitro-cellulose compound. Most of their scientific advance occurred within the past century, and most of that in the past forty years. Of course, the life-expectancy on that level is only about seventy years."

"Humph! I'm seventy-eight, last birthday/' the boyish-looking pilot snorted. "Their medical science must be mostly witchcraft!"

"Until quite recently it was," Verkan Vail agreed. "Same story there as in everything else—rapid advancement in the past few decades, after thousands of years of cultural inertia."

"You know, sir, I don't really understand this paratime stuff," the pilot confessed. "I know that all time is totally present, and that every moment has its own past-future line of event-sequence, and that all events in space-time occur according to maximum probability, but I just don't get this alternate probability stuff at all. If something exists, it's because it's the maximum-probability effect of prior causes; why does anything else exist on any other time-line?"

Verkan Vail blew smoke at the air-renovator. A lecture on paratime theory would nicely fill in the three-hour interval until the landing at Dhergabar. At least, this kid was asking intelligent questions.

"Well, you know the principle of time-passage, I suppose?" he began.

"Yes, of course; Rhogom's Doctrine. The basis of most of our psychical science. We exist perpetually at all moments within our life-span; our extraphysical ego component passes from the ego existing at one moment to the ego existing at the next. During unconsciousness, the EPC is 'time-free'; it may detach, and connect at some other moment, with the ego existing at that time-point. That's how we precog. We take an autohypno and recover memories brought back from the future moment and buried in the subconscious mind."

"That's right," Verkan Vail told him. "And even without the autohypno, a lot of precognitive matter leaks out of the subconscious and into the conscious mind, usually in distorted forms, or else inspires 'instinctive' acts, the motivation for which is not brought to the level of consciousness. For instance, suppose you're walking along North Promenade in Dhergabar, and you come to the Martian Palace Caf6, and you go in for a drink, and meet some girl, and strike up an acquaintance with her. This chance acquaintance develops into marriage and a year later you are killed in a rocket crash leaving her a widow."

"Just about that happened to a friend of mine not long ago," the pilot said. "Go on, sir."

"Well, in the microsecond or so before you die—or afterward, for that matter, because we know that the extraphysical component survives physical destruction—your EPC slips back a couple of years, and re-connects at some point pastward of your first meeting with this girl, and carries with it memories of everything up to the moment of detachment, all of which are indelibly recorded in your subconscious mind. So, when you re-experience the event of standing outside the Martian Palace with a thirst, you go on to the Starway, or Nhergal's, or some other bar. In both cases, on both time-lines, you follow the line of maximum probability; in the second case, your subconscious future memories are an added causal factor."

"And when I back-slip, after I've been needled, I generate a new time-line? Is that it?"

Verkan Vail made a small sound of impatience. "No such thing!" he exclaimed. "It's semantically inadmissible to talk about the total presence of time with one breath and about generating new time-lines with the next. All time-lines are totally present, in perpetual co-existence. The theory is that the EPC passes from one moment, on one time-line, to the next moment on the next line, so that the true passage of the EPC from moment to moment is a two-dimensional diagonal. So, in the case we're using, the event of your going into the Martian Palace exists on one time-line, and the event of your passing along to the Starway exists on another, but both are events in real existence.

"Now, what we do in paratime transposition is to build up a hypertemporal field to include the time-line we want to reach, and then shift over to it. Same point in the plenum; same point in primary time—plus primary time elapsed during mechanical and electronic lag in the relays—but a different line of secondary time."

"Then why don't we have past-future time travel on our own time-line?" the pilot wanted to know.

That was a question every paratimer has to answer every time he talks paratime to the laity. Verkan Vail had been expecting it; he answered patiently.

"The Ghaldron-Hesthor field-generator is like every other mechanism; it can operate only in the area of primary time in which it exists. It can transpose to any other time-line, and carry with it anything inside its field, but it can't go outside its own temporal area of existence, any more than a bullet from that rifle can hit the target a week before it's fired/' Verkan Vail pointed out. "Anything inside the field is supposed to be unaffected by anything outside. Supposed to be is the way to put it; it doesn't always work. Once in a while, something pretty nasty gets picked up in transit." He thought briefly of the man in the black tunic. "That's why we have armed guards at terminals."

"Suppose you pick up a blast from a nucleonic bomb," the pilot asked, "or something red-hot, or radioactive?"

"We have a monument, at Paratime Police Headquarters, in Dhergabar, bearing the names of our own personnel who didn't make it back. It's a large monument; over the past ten thousand years it's been inscribed with quite a few names."

"You can have it; I'll stick to rockets!" the pilot replied. "Tell me another thing though. What's all this about levels, and sectors, and belts? What's the difference?"

"Purely arbitrary terms. There are five main probability levels, derived from the five possible outcomes of the attempt to colonize this planet, seventy-five thousand years ago. We're on the First Level—complete success, and colony fully established. The Fifth Level is the probability of complete failure—no human population established on this planet, and indigenous quasi-human life evolved indigenously. On the Fourth Level, the colonists evidently met with some disaster and lost all memory of their extraterrestrial origin, as well as all extraterrestrial culture. As far as they know, they are an indigenous race; they have a long pre-history of stone-age savagery.

"Sectors are areas of paratime on any level in which the prevalent culture has a common origin and common characteristics. They are divided more or less arbitrarily into sub-sectors. Belts are areas within sub-sectors where conditions are the result of recent alternate probabilities. For instance, I've just come from the Europo-Ameri-can Sector of the Fourth Level, an area of about ten thousand parayears in depth, in which the dominant civilization developed on the North-West Continent of the Major Land Mass, and spread from there to the Minor Land Mass. The line on which I was operating is also part of a sub-sector of about three thousand parayears' depth, and a belt developing from one of several probable outcomes of a war concluded about three elapsed years ago. On that time-line, the field at the Hagraban Synthetics Works, where we took off, is part of an abandoned farm; on the site of Hagraban City is a little farming village. Those things are there, right now, both in primary time and in the plenum. They are about two hundred and fifty thousand parayears perpendicular to each other, and each is of the same general order of reality."

The red light overhead flashed on. The pilot looked into his visor and put his hands to the manual controls, in case of failure of the robot controls. The rocket landed smoothly, however; there was a slight jar as it was grappled by the crane and hoisted upright, the seats turning in their gimbals. Pilot and passenger unstrapped themselves and hurried through the refrigerated outlet and away from the glowing-hot rocket.

An air-taxi, emblazoned with the device of the Paratime Police, was waiting. Verkan Vail said good-by to the rocket-pilot and took his seat beside the pilot of the aircab; the latter lifted his vehicle above the building level and then set it down on the landing-stage of the Paratime Police Building in a long, side-swooping glide. An express elevator took Verkan Vail down to one of the middle stages, where he showed his sigil to the guard outside the door of Tortha Karf's office and was admitted at once.

The Paratime Police chief rose from behind his semicircular desk, with its array of keyboards and viewing-screens and communicators. He was a big man, well past his two hundredth year; his hair was iron-gray and thinning in front, he had begun to grow thick at the waist, and his calm features bore the lines of middle age. He wore the dark-green uniform of the Paratime Police.

"Well, Vail," he greeted. "Everything secure?"

"Not exactly, sir." Verkan Vail came around the desk, deposited his rifle and bag on the floor, and sat down in one of the spare chairs. "I'll have to go back again."

"So?" His chief lit a cigarette and waited.

"I traced Gavran Sarn." Verkan Vail got out his pipe and began to fill it. "But that's only the beginning. I have to trace something else. Gavran Sarn exceeded his Paratime permit, and took one of his pets along. A Venusian nighthound."

Tortha Karfs expression did not alter; it merely grew more intense. He used one of the short, semantically ugly terms which serve, in place of profanity, as the emotional release of a race that has forgotten all taboos and terminologies.

"You're sure of this, of course." It was less a question than a statement.

Verkan Vail bent and took cloth-wrapped objects from his bag, unwrapping them and laying them on the desk. They were casts in hard black plastic of the footprints of some large, three-toed animal.

"What do these look like, sir?" he asked.

Tortha Karf fingered them and nodded. Then he became as visibly angry as a man of his civilization and culture-level ever permitted himself.

"What does that fool think we have a Paratime Code for?" he demanded. "It's entirely illegal to transpose any extraterrestrial animal or object to any time-line on which space-travel is unknown. I don't care if he is a green-seal thavrad; he'll face charges, when he gets back, for this!"

"He was a green-seal thavrad," Verkan Vail corrected. "And he won't be coming back."

"I hope you didn't have to deal summarily with him," Tortha Karf said. "With his title, and social position, and his family's political importance, that might make difficulties. Not that it wouldn't be all right with me, of course, but we never seem to be able to make either the Management or the public realize the extremities to which we are forced at times." He sighed. "We probably never shall."

Verkan Vail smiled faintly. "Oh, no, sir; nothing like that. He was dead before I transposed to that time-line. He was killed when he wrecked a self-propelled vehicle he was using. One of those Fourth Level automobiles. I posed as a relative and tried to claim his body for the burial-ceremony observed on that cultural level, but was told that it had been completely destroyed by fire when the fuel tank of this automobile burned. I was given certain of his effects which had passed through the fire; I found his sigil concealed inside what appeared to be a cigarette case." He took a green disk from the bag and laid it on the desk. "There's no question; Gavran Sarn died in the wreck of that automobile."

"And the nighthound?"

"It was in the car with him, but it escaped. You know how fast those things are. I found that track"—he indicated one of the black casts—"in some dried mud near the scene of the wreck. As you see, the cast is slightly defective. The others were fresh this morning, when I made them." "And what have you done so far?"

"I rented an old farm near the scene of the wreck, and installed my field-generator there. It runs through to the Hagraban Synthetics Works, about a hundred miles east of Thalna-Jarvizar. I have my this-line terminal at the durable plastics factory; handled that on a local police-power writ. Since then I've been hunting for the night-hound. I think I can find it, but I'll need some special equipment, and a hypno-mech indoctrination. That's why I came back."

"Has it been attracting any attention?" Tortha Karf asked anxiously.

"Killing cattle in the locality; causing considerable excitement. Fortunately, it's a locality of forested mountains and valley farms, rather than a built-up industrial district. Local police and wild-game protection officers are concerned; all the farmers excited, and going armed. The theory is that it's either a wildcat of some sort, or a maniac armed with a cutlass. Either theory would conform more or less to the nature of its depredations. Nobody has actually seen it."

"That's good!" Tortha Karf was relieved. "Well, you'll have to go and bring it out, or kill it and obliterate the body. You know why as well as I do."

"Certainly, sir," Verkan Vail replied. "In a primitive culture, things like this would be assigned supernatural explanations, and embedded in the locally accepted religion. But this culture, while nominally religious, is highly rationalistic in practice. Typical lag-effect, characteristic of all expanding cultures. And this Europo-American Sector really has an expanding culture. A hundred and fifty years ago, the inhabitants of this particular time-line didn't even know how to apply steam power; now they've begun to release nuclear energy, in a few crude forms."

Tortha Karf whistled, softly. "That's quite a jump. There's a sector that'll be in for trouble in the next few centuries."

"That is realized locally, sir." Verkan Vail concentrated on relighting his pipe for a moment, then continued: "I would predict space-travel on that sector within the next century. Maybe the next half-century, at least to the Moon. And the art of taxidermy is very highly developed. Now, suppose some farmer shoots that thing; what would he do with it, sir?"

Tortha Karf grunted. "Nice logic, Vail. On a most uncomfortable possibility. He'd have it mounted, and it'd be put in a museum, somewhere. And as soon as the first spaceship reaches Venus, and they find those things in a wild state, they'll have the mounted specimen identified."

"Exactly. And then, instead of beating their brains about where their specimen came from, they'll begin asking when it came from. They're quite capable of such reasoning even now."

"A hundred years isn't a particularly long time," Tortha Karf considered. "I'll be retired, then, but you'll have my job, and it'll be your headache. You'd better get this cleaned up, now, while it can be handled. What are you going to do?"

"I'm not sure, now, sir. I want a hypno-mech indoctrination, first," Verkan Vail gestured toward the communicator on the desk. "May I?" he asked.

"Certainly." Tortha Karf slid the instrument across the desk. "Anything you want."

"Thank you, sir." Verkan Vail snapped on the code-index, found the symbol he wanted, and then punched it on the keyboard. "Special Chief's Assistant Verkan Vail," he identified himself. "Speaking from office of Tortha Karf, Chief Paratime Police. I want a complete hypno-mech on Venusian nighthounds, emphasis on wild state, special emphasis domesticated nighthounds reverted to wild state in terrestrial surroundings, extra-special emphasis hunting techniques applicable to same. The word 'nighthound' will do for trigger-symbol." He turned to Tortha Karf. "Can I take it here?"

Tortha Karf nodded, pointing to a row of booths along the far wall of the office.

"Make set-up for wired transmission; I'll take it here."

"Very well, sir; in fifteen minutes," a voice replied out of the communicator.

Verkan Vail slid the communicator back. "By the way, sir; I had a hitchhiker, on the way back. Carried him about a hundred or so parayears; picked him up about three hundred parayears after leaving my other-line terminal. Nasty-looking fellow, in a black uniform; looked like one of these private-army storm troopers you find all through that sector. Armed, and hostile. I thought I'd have to ray him, but he blundered outside the field almost at once. I have a record, if you'd care to see it."

"Yes, put it on." Tortha Karf gestured toward the solidograph-projector. "It's set for miniature reproduction here on the desk; that be all right?"

Verkan Vail nodded, getting out the film and loading it into the projector. When he pressed a button, a dome of radiance appeared on the desk top, two feet in width and a foot in height. In the middle of this appeared a small solidograph image of the interior of the conveyor, showing the desk, and the control board, and the figure of Verkan Vail seated at it. The little figure of the storm trooper appeared, pistol in hand. The little Verkan Vail snatched up his tiny needier; the storm trooper moved into one side of the dome and vanished.

Verkan Vail flipped a switch and cut out the image.

"Yes. I don't know what causes that, but it happens, now and then," Tortha Karf said. "Usually at the beginning of a transposition. I remember, when I was just a kid, about a hundred and fifty years ago—a hundred and thirty-nine, to be exact—I picked up a fellow on the Fourth Level, just about where you're operating, and dragged him a couple of hundred parayears. I went back to find him and return him to his own time-line, but before I could locate him, he'd been arrested by the local authorities as a suspicious character, and got himself shot trying to escape. I felt badly about that, but—" Tortha Karf shrugged. "Anything else happen on the trip?"

"I ran through a belt of intermittent nucleonic bombing on the Second Level." Verkan Vail mentioned an approximate para-time location.

"Aaagh! That Khiftan civilization—by courtesy so called!" Tortha Karf pulled a wry face. "I suppose the intra-family enmities of the Hvadka Dynasty have reached critical mass again. They'll fool around till they blast themselves back to the stone age."

"Intellectually, they're about there, now. I had to operate in that sector, once— Oh, yes, another thing, sir. This rifle." Verkan Vail picked it up, emptied the magazine and handed it to his superior. "The supplies office slipped up on this; it's not appropriate to my line of operation. It's a lovely rifle, but it's about two

ho space police

hundred percent in advance of existing arms design on my line. It excited the curiosity of a couple of police officers and a game-protector, who should be familiar with the weapons of their own time-line. I evaded by disclaiming ownership or intimate knowledge, and they seemed satisfied, but it worried me."

"Yes. That was made in our duplicating shops, here in Dherga-bar." Tortha Karf carried it to a photographic bench, behind his desk. "I'll have it checked, while you're taking your hypno-mech. Want to exchange it for something authentic?"

"Why, no, sir. It's been identified to me, and I'd excite less suspicion with it than I would if I abandoned it and mysteriously acquired another rifle. I just wanted a check, and Supplies warned to be more careful in future."

Tortha Karf nodded approvingly. The young Mavrad of Nerros was thinking as a paratimer should.

"What's the designation of your line, again?"

Verkan Vail told him. It was a short numerical term of six places, but it expressed a number of the order of ten to the fortieth power, exact to the last digit. Tortha Karf repeated it into his stenomemograph, with explanatory comment.

"There seems to be quite a few things going wrong, in that area," he said. "Let's see, now."

He punched the designation on a keyboard; instantly, it appeared on a translucent screen in front of him. He punched another combination, and, at the top of the screen, under the number, there appeared:

EVENTS, PAST ELAPSED FIVE YEARS.

He punched again; below this line appeared the sub-heading:

EVENTS INVOLVING PARATIME TRANSPOSITION.

Another code-combination added a third line:

(ATTRACTING PUBLIC NOTICE AMONG INHABITANTS.)

He pressed the "start"-button; the headings vanished, to be replaced by page after page of print, succeeding one another on the screen as the two men read. They told strange and apparently disconnected stories—of unexplained fires and explosions; of people vanishing without trace; of unaccountable disasters to aircraft. There were many stories of an epidemic of mysterious disk-shaped objects seen in the sky, singly or in numbers. To each account was appended one or more reference-numbers. Sometimes Tortha Karf or Verkan Vail would punch one of these, and read, on an adjoining screen, the explanatory matter referred to.

Finally Tortha Karf leaned back and lit a fresh cigarette.

"Yes, indeed, Vail; very definitely we will have to take action in the matter of the runaway nighthound of the late Gavran Sarn," he said. "I'd forgotten that that was the time-line onto which the Ardrath expedition launched those antigrav disks. If this extraterrestrial monstrosity turns up, on the heels of that 'Flying Saucer' business, everybody above the order of intelligence of a cretin will suspect some connection."

"What really happened, in the Ardrath matter?" Verkan Vail inquired. "I was on the Third Level, on that Luvarian Empire operation, at the time."

"That's right; you missed that. Well, it was one of these joint-operation things. The Paratime Commission and the Space Patrol were experimenting with a new technique for throwing a spaceship into paratime. They used the cruiser Ardrath, Kalzarn Jann commanding. Went into space about halfway to the Moon and took up orbit, keeping on the sunlit side of the planet to avoid being observed. That was all right. But then, Captain Kalzarn ordered away a flight of antigrav disks, fully manned, to take pictures, and finally authorized a landing in the western mountain range, Northern Continent, Minor Land-Mass. That's when the trouble started."

He flipped the run-back switch, till he had recovered the page he wanted. Verkan Vail read of a Fourth Level aviator, in his little airscrew-drive craft, sighting nine high-flying saucerlike objects.

"That was how it began," Tortha Karf told him. "Before long, as other incidents of the same sort occurred, our people on that line began sending back to know what was going on. Naturally, from the different descriptions of these 'saucers,' they recognized the objects as antigrav landing-disks from a spaceship. So I went to the Commission and raised atomic blazes about it, and the

Ardrarh was ordered to confine operations to the lower areas of the Fifth Level. Then our people on that time-line went to work with corrective action. Here"

He wiped the screen and then began punching combinations. Page after page appeared, bearing accounts of people who had claimed to have seen the mysterious disks, and each report was more fantastic than the last.

"The standard smother-out technique," Verkan Vail grinned. "I only heard a little talk about the 'Flying Saucers', and all of that was in joke. In that order of culture, you can always discredit one true story by setting up ten others, palpably false, parallel to it— Wasn't that the time-line the Tharmax Trading Corporation almost lost their paratime license on?"

"That's right; it was! They bought up all the cigarettes, and caused a conspicuous shortage, after Fourth Level cigarettes had been introduced on this line and had become popular. They should have spread their purchases over a number of lines, and kept them within the local supply-demand frame. And they also got into trouble with the local government for selling unrationed petrol and automobile tires. We had to send in a special-operations group, and they came closer to having to engage in out-time local politics than I care to think of." Tortha Karf quoted a line from a currently popular song about the sorrows of a policeman's life. "We're jugglers, Vail; trying to keep our traders and sociological observers and tourists and plain idiots like the late Gavran Sam out of trouble; trying to prevent panics and disturbances and dislocations of local economy as a result of our operations; trying to keep out of out-time politics—and, at all times, at all costs and hazards, by all means, guarding the secret of paratime transposition. Sometimes I wish Ghaldron Karf and Hesthor Ghrom had strangled in their cradles!"

Verkan Vail shook his head. "No, chief," he said. "You don't mean that; not really," he said. "We've been paratiming for the past ten thousand years. When the Ghaldron-Hesthor trans-temporal field was discovered, our ancestors had pretty well exhausted the resources of this planet. We had a world population of half a billion, and it was all they could do to keep alive. After we began paratime transposition, our population climbed to ten billion, and there it stayed for the last eight thousand years. Just enough of us to enjoy our planet and the other planets of the system to the fullest; enough of everything for everybody that nobody needs fight anybody for anything. We've tapped the resources of those other worlds on other time-lines, a little here, a little there, and not enough to really hurt anybody. We've left our mark in a few places—the Dakota Badlands, and the Gobi, on the Fourth Level, for instance—but we've done no great damage to any of them."

"Except the time they blew up half the Southern Island Continent, over about five hundred parayears on the Third Level," Tortha Karf mentioned.

"Regrettable accident, to be sure," Verkan Vail conceded. "And look how much we've learned from the experiences of those other time-lines. During the Crisis, after the Fourth Interplanetary War, we might have adopted Palnar Sarn's 'Dictatorship of the Chosen' scheme, if we hadn't seen what an exactly similar scheme had done to the Jak-Hakka Civilization, on the Second Level. When Palnar Sam was told about that, he went into paratime to see for himself, and when he returned, he renounced his proposal in horror."

Tortha Karf nodded. He wouldn't be making any mistake in turning his post over to the Mavrad of Nerros on his retirement.

"Yes, Vail; I know," he said. "But when you've been at this desk as long as I have, you'll have a sour moment or two, now and then, too."

A blue light flashed over one of the booths across the room. Verkan Vail got to his feet, removing his coat and hanging it on the back of his chair, and crossed the room, rolling up his left shirt sleeve. There was a relaxer-chair in the booth, with a blue plastic helmet above it. He glanced at the indicator-screen to make sure he was getting the indoctrination he called for, and then sat down in the chair and lowered the helmet over his head, inserting the ear plugs and fastening the chin strap. Then he touched his left arm with an injector which was lying on the arm of the chair, and at the same time flipped the starter switch.

Soft, slow music began to chant out of the earphones. The insidious fingers of the drug blocked off his senses, one by one. The music diminished, and the words of the hypnotic formula lulled him to sleep.

He woke, hearing the lively strains of dance music. For a while, he lay relaxed. Then he snapped off the switch, took out the ear plugs, removed the helmet and rose to his feet. Deep in his subconscious mind was the entire body of knowledge about the Venusian nighthound. He mentally pronounced the word, and at once it began flooding into his conscious mind. He knew the animal's evolutionary history, its anatomy, its characteristics, its dietary and reproductive habits, how it hunted, how it fought its enemies, how it eluded pursuit, and how best it could be tracked down and killed. He nodded. Already, a plan for dealing with Gavran Sarn's renegade pet was taking shape in his mind.

He picked a plastic cup from the dispenser, filled it from a cooler-tap with amber-colored spiced wine, and drank, tossing the cup into the disposal-bin. He placed a fresh injector on the arm of the chair, ready for the next user of the booth. Then he emerged, glancing at his Fourth Level wrist watch and mentally translating to the First Level time-scale. Three hours had passed; there had been more to learn about his quarry than he had expected.

Tortha Karf was sitting behind his desk, smoking a cigarette. It seemed as though he had not moved since Verkan Vail had left him, though the special agent knew that he had dined, attended several conferences, and done many other things.

"I checked up on your hitchhiker, Vail," the chief said. "We won't bother about him. He's a member of something called the Christian Avengers—one of those typical Europo-American race-and-religious hate groups. He belongs in a belt that is the outcome of the Hitler victory of 1940, whatever that was. Something unpleasant, I daresay. We don't owe him anything; people of that sort should be stepped on, like cockroaches. And he won't make any more trouble on the line where you dropped him than they have there already. It's in a belt of complete social and political anarchy; somebody probably shot him as soon as he emerged, because he wasn't wearing the right sort of a uniform."

"And did you find out about my rifle?" Verkan Vail asked.

"Oh, yes. It's a reproduction of something that's called a Sharp's Model '37,235 Ultraspeed-Express. Made on an adjoining paratime belt by a company that went out of business sixty-seven years ago, elapsed time, on your line of operation. What made the difference was the Second War Between The States. I don't know what that was, either—I'm not too well up on Fourth Level history —but whatever, your line of operation didn't have it. Probably just as well for them, though they very likely had something else, as bad or worse. I put in a complaint to Supplies about it, and got you some more ammunition and reloading tools. Now, tell me what you're going to do about this nighthound business."

Tortha Karf was silent for a while, after Verkan Vail had finished.

"You're taking some awful chances, Vail," he said, at length. "The way you plan doing it, the advantages will all be with the nighthound. Those things can see as well at night as you can in daylight. I suppose you know that, though; you're the nighthound specialist, now."

"Yes. But they're accustomed to the Venus hotland marshes; it's been dry weather for the last two weeks, all over the northeastern section of the Northern Continent. I'll be able to hear it, long before it gets close to me. And I'll be wearing an electric headlamp. When I snap that on, it'll be dazzled for a moment."

"Well, as I said, you're the nighthound specialist. There's the communicator; order anything you need." He lit a fresh cigarette from the end of the old one before crushing it out. "But be careful, Vail. It took me close to forty years to make a paratimer out of you; I don't want to have to repeat the process with somebody else before I can retire."

The grass was wet as Verkan Vail—who reminded himself that here he was called Richard Lee—crossed the yard from the farmhouse to the ramshackle barn, in the early autumn darkness. It had been raining that morning when the strato-rocket from Dherga-bar had landed him at the Hagraban Synthetics Works, on the First Level; unaffected by the probabilities of human history, the same rain had been coming down on the old Kinchwalter farm, near Rutter's Fort, on the Fourth Level. And it had persisted all day, in a slow, deliberate drizzle.

He didn't like that. The woods would be wet, muffling his quarry's footsteps, and canceling his only advantage over the night-prowler he hunted. He had no idea, however, of postponing the hunt. If anything, the rain had made it all the more imperative that the nighthound be killed at once. At this season, a falling temperature would speedily follow. The nighthound, a creature of the hot Venus marshes, would suffer from the cold, and, taught by years of domestication to find warmth among human habitations, it would invade some isolated farmhouse, or, worse, one of the little valley villages. If it were not killed tonight, the incident he had come to prevent would certainly occur.

Going to the barn, he spread an old horse blanket on the seat of the jeep, laid his rifle on it, and then backed the jeep outside. Then he took off his coat, removing his pipe and tobacco from the pockets, and spread it on the wet grass. He unwrapped a package and took out a small plastic spray-gun he had brought with him from the First Level, aiming it at the coat and pressing the trigger until it blew itself empty. A sickening, rancid fetor tainted the air—the scent of the giant poison-roach of Venus, the one creature for which the nighthound bore an inborn, implacable hatred. It was because of this compulsive urge to attack and kill the deadly poison-roach that the first human settlers on Venus, long millennia ago, had domesticated the ugly and savage nighthound. He remembered that the Gavran family derived their title from their vast Venus hotlands estates; that Gavran Sam, the man who had brought this thing to the Fourth Level, had been born on the inner planet. When Verkan Vail donned that coat, he would become his own living bait for the murderous fury of the creature he sought. At the moment, mastering his queasiness and putting on the coat, he objected less to that danger than to the hideous stench of the scent, to obtain which a valuable specimen had been sacrificed at the Dhergabar Museum of Extraterrestrial Zoology, the evening before.

Carrying the wrapper and the spray-gun to an outside fireplace, he snapped his lighter to them and tossed them in. They were highly inflammable, blazing up and vanishing in a moment. He tested the electric headlamp on the front of his cap; checked his rifle; drew the heavy revolver, an authentic product of his line of operation, and flipped the cylinder out and in again. Then he got into the jeep and drove away.

For half an hour, he drove quickly along the valley roads. Now and then, he passed farmhouses, and dogs, puzzled and angered by the alien scent his coat bore, barked furiously. At length, he turned into a back road, and from this to the barely discernible trace of an old log road. The rain had stopped, and, in order to be ready to fire in any direction at any time, he had removed the top of the jeep. Now he had to crouch below the windshield to avoid overhanging branches. Once three deer—a buck and two does-stopped in front of him and stared for a moment, then bounded away with a flutter of white tails.

He was driving slowly now, laying behind him a reeking trail of scent. There had been another stock-killing, the night before, while he had been on the First Level. The locality of this latest depredation had confirmed his estimate of the beast's probable movements, and indicated where it might be prowling tonight. He was certain that it was somewhere near; sooner or later, it would pick up the scent.

Finally, he stopped, snapping out his lights. He had chosen this spot carefully, while studying the Geological Survey map that afternoon; he was on the grade of an old railroad line, now abandoned and its track long removed, which had served the logging operations of fifty years ago. On one side, the mountain slanted sharply upward; on the other, it fell away sharply. If the nighthound were below him, it would have to climb that forty-five-degree slope, and could not avoid dislodging loose stones, or otherwise making a noise. He would get out on that side; if the nighthound were above him, the jeep would protect him when it charged. He got to the ground, thumbing off the safety of his rifle, and an instant later he knew that he had made a mistake which could easily cost him his life; a mistake from which neither his comprehensive logic nor his hypnotically acquired knowledge of the beast's habits had saved him.

As he stepped to the ground, facing toward the front of the jeep, he heard a low, whining cry behind him, and a rush of padded feet. He whirled, snapping on the headlamp with his left hand and thrusting out his rifle pistol-wise in his right. For a split second, he saw the charging animal, its long, lizardlike head split in a toothy grin, its talon-tipped fore-paws extended.

He fired, and the bullet went wild. The next instant, the rifle was knocked from his hand. Instinctively, he flung up his left arm to shield his eyes. Claws raked his left arm and shoulder, something struck him heavily along the left side, and his cap-light went out as he dropped and rolled under the jeep, drawing in his legs and fumbling under his coat for the revolver.

In that instant, he knew what had gone wrong. His plan had been entirely too much of a success. The nighthound had winded him as he had driven up the old railroad-grade, and had followed. Its best running speed had been just good enough to keep it a hundred or so feet behind the jeep, and the motor-noise had covered the padding of its feet. In the few moments between stopping the little car and getting out, the nighthound had been able to close the distance and spring upon him.

It was characteristic of First-Level mentality that Verkan Vail wasted no moments on self-reproach or panic. While he was still rolling under his jeep, his mind had been busy with plans to retrieve the situation. Something touched the heel of one boot, and he froze his leg into immobility, at the same time trying to get the big Smith & Wesson free. The shoulder-holster, he found, was badly torn, though made of the heaviest skirting-leather, and the spring which retained the weapon in place had been wrenched and bent until he needed both hands to draw. The eight-inch slashing-claw of the nighthound's right intermediary limb had raked him; only the instinctive motion of throwing up his arm, and the fact that he wore the revolver in a shoulder-holster, had saved his life.

The nighthound was prowling around the jeep, whining frantically. It was badly confused. It could see quite well, even in the close darkness of the starless night; its eyes were of a nature capable of perceiving infrared radiations as light. There were plenty of these; the jeep's engine, lately running on four-wheel drive, was quite hot. Had he been standing alone, especially on this raw, chilly night, Verkan Vall's own body-heat would have lighted him up like a jack-o'-lantern. Now, however, the hot engine above him masked his own radiations. Moreover, the poison-roach scent on his coat was coming up through the floor board and mingling with the scent on the seat, yet the nighthound couldn't find the two-and-a-half foot insectlike thing that should have been producing it. Verkan Vail lay motionless, wondering how long the next move would be in coming. Then he heard a thud above him, followed by a furious tearing as the nighthound ripped the blanket and began rending at the seat cushion.

"Hope it gets a paw-full of seat-springs," Verkan Vail commented mentally. He had already found a stone about the size of his two fists, and another slightly smaller, and had put one in each of the side pockets of the coat. Now he slipped his revolver into his waist-belt and writhed out of the coat, shedding the ruined shoulder-holster at the same time. Wriggling on the flat of his back, he squirmed between the rear wheels, until he was able to sit up, behind the jeep. Then, swinging the weighted coat, he flung it forward, over the nighthound and the jeep itself, at the same time drawing his revolver.

Immediately, the nighthound, lured by the sudden movement of the principal source of the scent, jumped out of the jeep and bounded after the coat, and there was considerable noise in the brush on the lower side of the railroad grade. At once, Verkan Vail swarmed into the jeep and snapped on the lights.

His stratagem had succeeded beautifully. The stinking coat had landed on the top of a small bush, about ten feet in front of the jeep and ten feet from the ground. The nighthound, erect on its haunches, was reaching out with its front paws to drag it down, and slashing angrily at it with its single-clawed intermediary limbs. Its back was to Verkan Vail.

His sights clearly defined by the lights in front of him, the paratimer centered them on the base of the creature's spine, just above its secondary shoulders, and carefully squeezed the trigger. The big .357 Magnum bucked in his hand and belched flame and sound—if only these Fourth Level weapons weren't so confoundedly boisterous!—and the nighthound screamed and fell. Recock-ing the revolver, Verkan Vail waited for an instant, then nodded in satisfaction. The beast's spine had been smashed, and its hind quarters, and even its intermediary fighting limbs had been paralyzed. He aimed carefully for a second shot and fired into the base of the thing's skull. It quivered and died.

Getting a flashlight, he found his rifle, sticking muzzle-down in the mud a little behind and to the right of the jeep, and swore briefly in the local Fourth Level idiom, for Verkan Vail was a man who loved good weapons, be they sigma-ray needlers, neutron-disruption blasters, or the solid-missile projectors of the lower levels. By this time, he was feeling considerable pain from the claw-wounds he had received. He peeled off his shirt and tossed it over the hood of the jeep. Tortha Karf had advised him to carry a needier, or a blaster, or a neurostat-gun, but Verkan Vail had been unwilling to take such arms onto the Fourth Level. In event of mishap to himself, it would be all too easy for such a weapon to fall into the hands of someone able to deduce from its scientific principles too far in advance of the general Fourth Level culture. But there had been one First Level item which he had permitted himself, mainly because, suitably packaged, it was not readily identifiable as such. Digging a respectable Fourth-Level leatherette case from under the seat, he opened it and took out a pint bottle with a red poison-label, and a towel. Saturating the towel with the contents of the bottle, he rubbed every inch of his torso with it, so as not to miss even the smallest break made in his skin by the septic claws of the nighthound. Whenever the lotion-soaked towel touched raw skin, a pain like the burn of a hot iron shot through him; before he was through, he was in agony. Satisfied that he had disinfected every wound, he dropped the towel and clung weakly to the side of the jeep. He grunted out a string of English oaths, and capped them with an obscene Spanish blasphemy he had picked up among the Fourth Level inhabitants of his island home of Nerros, to the south, and a thundering curse in the name of Mogga, Fire-God of Dool, in a Third Level tongue. He mentioned Fasif, Great God of Khift, in a manner which would have got him an acid-bath if the Khiftan priests had heard him. He alluded to the baroque amatory practices of the Third Level Illyalla people, and soothed himself in the classical Dar-Halma tongue with one of those rambling genealogical insults favored in the Indo-Turanian Sector of the Fourth Level.

By this time, the pain had subsided to an over-all smarting itch. He'd have to bear with that until his work was finished and he could enjoy a hot bath. He got another bottle out of the first-aid kit—a flat pint, labeled "Old Overholt," containing a locally-manufactured specific for inward and subjective wounds—and medicated himself copiously from it, corking it and slipping it into his hip pocket against future need. He gathered up the ruined shoulder-holster and threw it under the back seat. He put on his shirt. Then he went and dragged the dead nighthound onto the grade by its stumpy tail.

It was an ugly thing, weighing close to two hundred pounds, with powerfully muscled hind legs which furnished the bulk of its motive-power, and sturdy three-clawed front legs. Its secondary limbs, about a third of the way back from its front shoulders, were long and slender; normally, they were carried folded closely against the body, and each was armed with a single curving claw. The revolver-bullet had gone in at the base of the skull and emerged under the jaw; the head was relatively undamaged. Verkan Vail was glad of that; he wanted that head for the trophy-room of his home on Nerros. Grunting and straining, he got the thing into the back of the jeep, and flung his almost shredded tweed coat over it.

A last look around assured him that he had left nothing unaccountable or suspicious. The brush was broken where the night-hound had been tearing at the coat; a bear might have done that. There were splashes of the viscid stuff the thing had used for blood, but they wouldn't be there long. Terrestrial rodents liked nighthound blood, and the woods were full of mice. He climbed in under the wheel, backed, turned, and drove away.

Inside the paratime-transposition dome, Verkan Vail turned from the body of the nighthound, which he had just dragged in, and considered the inert form of another animal—a stump-tailed, tuft-eared, tawny Canada lynx. That particular animal had already made two paratime transpositions; captured in the vast wilderness of Fifth Level North America, it had been taken to the First Level and placed in the Dhergabar Zoological Gardens, and then, requisitioned on the authority of Tortha Karf, it had been brought to the Fourth Level by Verkan Vail. It was almost at the end of all its travels.

Verkan Vail prodded the supine animal with the toe of his boot; it twitched slightly. Its feet were cross-bound with straps, but when he saw that the narcotic was wearing off, Verkan Vail snatched a syringe, parted the fur at the base of its neck, and gave it an injection. After a moment, he picked it up in his arms and carried it out to the jeep.

"All right, pussy cat," he said, placing it under the rear seat, "this is the one-way ride. The way you're doped up, it won't hurt a bit."

He went back and rummaged in the debris of the long-deserted barn. He picked up a hoe, and discarded it as too light. An old plowshare was too unhandy. He considered a grate-bar from a heating furnace, and then he found the poleax lying among a pile of worm-eaten boards. Its handle had been shortened, at some time, to about twelve inches, converting it into a heavy hatchet. He weighed it, and tried it on a block of wood, and then, making sure that the secret door was closed, he went out again and drove off.

An hour later, he returned. Opening the secret door, he carried the ruined shoulder-holster, and the straps that had bound the bobcat's feet, and the ax, now splotched with blood and tawny cat-hairs, into the dome. Then he closed the secret room, and took a long drink from the bottle on his hip.

The job was done. He would take a hot bath, and sleep in the farmhouse till noon, and then he would return to the First Level. Maybe Tortha Karf would want him to come back here for a while. The situation on this time-line was far from satisfactory, even if the crisis threatened by Gavran Sarn's renegade pet had been averted. The presence of a chief's assistant might be desirable.

At least, he had a right to expect a short vacation. The claw-wounds were still smarting vexatiously. A hot bath, and a night's sleep— He took another drink, lit his pipe, picked up his rifle and started across the yard to the house.

Private Zinkowski cradled the telephone and got up from the desk, stretching. He left the orderly room and walked across the hall to the recreation room, where the rest of the boys were loafing. Sergeant Haines, in a languid gin-rummy game with Corporal Conner, a sheriff's deputy, and a mechanic from the service station down the road, looked up.

"Well, Sarge, I think we can write off those stock-killings," the private said.

"Yeah?" The sergeant's interest quickened.

"Yeah. I think the whatzit's had it. I just got a buzz from the railroad cops at Logansport. It seems a track-walker found a dead bobcat on the Logan River branch, about a mile or so below MMY signal tower. Looks like it tangled with that night freight up-river, and came off second best. It was near chopped to hamburger."

"MMY signal tower; that's right below Yoder's Crossing," the sergeant considered. "The Strawmyer farm night-before-last, the Amrine farm last night— Yeah, that would be about right."

"That'll suit Steve Parker; bobcats aren't protected, so it's not his trouble. And they're not a violation of State law, so it's none of our worry," Conner said. "Your deal, isn't it, Sarge?" ised Sam Kane, the AP man at Logansport, that I'd let him in

"Yeah. Wait a minute." The sergeant got to his feet. "I prom-on anything new." He got up and started for the phone. "Phantom Killer!" He blew an impolite noise.

"Well, it was a lot of excitement while it lasted," the deputy sheriff said, "Just like that Flying Saucer thing."

we were, sitting on a powder magazine, the few sane ones among us at the mercy of the brainless yuts giving each other hotfeet, and now suddenly some watchful intelligence, like a careful parent, has snatched the matches away."

"I'm going to miss our car," his wife sighed.

"I shan't," Bonner said positively. "There were too many cars, too many airplanes, too much speed. Man's machines evolved faster than he. We weren't built to cover miles in split minutes. Now we can slow down and catch up, consolidate our gains, live at a more natural pace, take time to think and really live. I say, it's a cheap price to pay."

And:

"The fact of disarmament itself," Professor Salton wrote in his diary, "is of secondary significance, and must have been adjudged so by the raiders themselves. Had they been chiefly intent on demilitarizing the planet, they would not logically have confined themselves to the targets they chose. The logic of complete demilitarization would have included the dispersal of armies in the field, and the destruction of all heavy industry which might contribute to the manufacture of munitions other than chemical and nuclear explosives. It is significant that stores of poison gas and biological warfare centers were not attacked.

"The inference can therefore be drawn that the raiders were socially sophisticated enough, and sufficiently well informed, to recognize the deep imbalance in our culture between the physical and social sciences.

"Their primary concern was to right this imbalance."

The professor turned a page and sat for a moment with poised pen, seeing not the blank sheet before him, but the panorama of western history, developing in tracings of ever more complex scope from the first few crabbed scribblings of the Sumerians.

"The focus of the main stream of human thought and inquiry," he wrote, "proceeds across the broad canvas of the plenum not in a steady progression, but in complicated pendulumlike sweeps from extreme to extreme—Hegelian thesis and antithesis, except that the final result is never a simple balancing, the synthesis results rather from the shading in of all areas between the opposite poles of thought until the distinction is lost and it all becomes one. This pendulum has multi-dimensional articulation, so that the trace is never a simple linear function, it never covers exactly the same area twice. Its movement is a complex function of all the things men have known or thought about since the beginning of time.

"The European Renaissance came as a reaction to the sterile perfectionism of Augustinian idealism. Because its impetus derived from an extreme of preoccupation with human behavior and morals, it not only swung wildly to the opposite extreme of rigidly objective experimentalism, but it spent its major force in the field of physical science. This was no accident, it was an inevitable outgrowth of the spirit of the times and the antecedents of our culture.

"We have now worked around the periphery of physical knowledge till we have again reached the pole of intuitive rationalism, where the universe melts into a confusing amorphism only scholars can feel at home in. Men of inquiring and independent minds must inevitably recoil into a simpler atmosphere where sight and touch again have meaning.

"The next swing should have directed us back to a concern with human motivation and activity.

"There were several indications that this trend was indeed developing.

"Men were wondering seriously why they thought like men, in a world engineered for the comfort of their animal bodies; as five hundred years earlier they had wondered why men had bodies, if only the soul were important. The development of the physical sciences had subtly loosened the hold of superstition on the minds of men, so that if they were unwilling to follow, they at least tolerated, students who classified the cherished opinions of themselves and others as phenomena in the physical universe, and called all the physical universe a valid field for objective inquiry. Scattered engineers and clinicians here and there were beginning to establish functional relations between pride and pay scales, human fellowship and production records, social status and sexual mores. The alchemistic mind-doctors were seeking the philosopher's stone which would transmute the dross of our individual foibles into shining gold—but stumbling here and there on factual discoveries scientists might later turn to good account. Perhaps Korzybski had written the 'Novum Organum' of a new Renaissance. And the germs of new mathematics that could handle the manifold variables were sprouting. The time was ready for a Newton.

"But it came too late. It needed fifty or a hundred years to get its growth, and with the helium bomb the world no longer had that time left.

"So the Raiders came. In effect, they moved the clock of our conquest of the physical world back a hundred years. Before they came, we had passed the peak of the gasoline age and were moving into the atomic age. When they left, we were back in the age of steam.

"Undoubtedly, in the years to come, men will again discover energy sources as powerful as those they lost, but it will take time, perhaps not as long as the original hundred years, but still a breathing spell. And in that time the science of human behavior will have its chance. By the time we are ready to fly to the stars again, or have the power to blast whole armies out of existence, we will have means of controlling ourselves so that this power is used with cunning foresight for the good of man, rather than suicidally, like an idiot child playing with a machine gun.

"This is the best thing that could have happened to men."

And:

A writer who had dedicated the best years of his life to a crusade against the pointless stupidities and petty unthinking cruelties of his fellow men, at two bits a word, was putting the finishing touches on a rush article.

"Pride," he wrote, "goeth before a fall—and men who thought they had tamed all nature, and were looking for new worlds to loot in the stars, have suddenly learned they have a master. The simple-minded barbarians who strutted valorously with the power of thousands of horses at their command have seen their most prized works crumble like sand castles before the tide.

"It was a lesson men sorely needed, the simple lesson of humility.

"In my own mind, for the first time since Hiroshima, is peace and good will and comfortable assurance that me and mine will live out our normal span in a world of men chastened and rendered less cocksure by this experience.

"I say, God bless the raiders—"

There were, of course, some who were not quite so sure— On a hillside in Asia some two months after the raiders had come, Sergeant Albert Baker sat in the bright summer sun watching through glasses the mouth of a low pass. A cloud of dust rose there which came quickly down into the valley. Sparkles of light from burnished lance-tips flashed from the cloud. A Mongol swordsman with horsetails tied to his cap cantered out ahead and reined up to look around.

Baker's lips drew back in a snarl. This was the enemy. To them, the inhibitor had meant nothing. They threw their guns away, sharpened their lances, and whooped down upon the gun crews, tankers, and machine-gunners who clubbed useless carbines and threw rocks. The first few weeks had been massacre. After that the Americans recovered somewhat from their shock, began to reorganize and pick up edged weapons, to fight their way back to the sea. They were outnumbered and outmaneuvered, they could not in a few days learn a type of warfare devoid of firepower and mechanized supply, and the retreat was mostly a rout.

During that time, only men who moved fast and learned quickly survived. Baker was only nineteen, but he had come all the way, in this fighting he was an old hand, a veteran who knew all the tricks. He could hardly remember what it felt like to ride in a truck, sleep on a full belly, or command weapons that killed in great bursts of flame or sheets of lead. The tools he knew were knife and spear, arbalest and sword. His enemy was not a plane or a tank, it was the flat-faced horseman with sword or lance.

The Americans now stood with their backs to the sea, waiting for evacuation complicated by lack of Diesel- or gasoline-powered landing craft. Their situation was not bad, really, there were not very many of them left to evacuate, most were dead in the hills and plains of the interior; and to some extent supply had caught up with them here, they ate more often and they had a weapon to at least harass the horsemen.

The leading squadrons were well into the valley now, the point abreast of Baker. He moved his magneto box around between his knees and squatted over it, his glasses on the man standing on a spiny ridge at the lower end of the valley. Presently the man signaled, and Baker pressed the plunger. In the valley below, a thin vapor began to creep out from all sides toward the horsemen in the center. Baker carefully checked his sector with his glasses. All cylinders had fired—they almost had to, poison gas was cheap in the United States but dear here where the cylinders were brought up on men's backs, and they had been spread thin.

"All right," he said finally, "let's get out of here before those gooks spot us."

His men needed no urging, they had been uncomfortably aware of their exposed position for some time. They picked up their weapons and moved off at a swift walk along the hillside. There was a small gully they must cross, and here they donned masks before they scrambled down. The bank on the other side was steep, they needed to boost each other up to make it, and they were not all up when half a troop of the enemy, red-eyed and wheezing, came stampeding up out of the valley at them.

Baker saw them coming only a few hundred yards away, with his little force split, half on the bank and half below. He dropped his arbalest to cock it and shouted a warning.

There were three pikes in the party, twelve-foot shafts with heavy, wicked points of razor-ground steel armor scrap. The men had been using these to climb the bank, they snatched them away now and swung out to set them with drilled precision. The other men in the gully had captured swords and bayoneted M-i's, except for Baker and one other with arbalests of jeep spring-leaves and airplane cable mounted on M-i stocks. One man, a swordsman, was hanging on the edge of the bank by his elbows, on the verge of hoisting himself over, he twisted his head to look over his shoulder, hesitated a moment, and then slid back down to join them. Baker was glad to see him come, there was another arbalest on the bank, that was a good place for him, but the swordsmen and spearmen up there were useless. Still he could not order them back down, this looked like a death trap. Their left flank was anchored on the bank, but their right hung in the air. He grabbed two spearmen and swung them around to give some protection, but there were just not enough of them to cover it adequately. He and the other arbalestier stepped in behind the pikemen and spearmen, who had dropped to their knees, and Baker slipped in a quarrel.

The enemy point swerved in at them, settling his lance, and at five yards Baker shot the horse in the throat. The other arbalestier took the second. A swordsman flashed by on the right and swung viciously at Baker, who parried with the stock of his weapon. At the same moment, from the corner of his eye he saw a horse caught on two of the pikes and one of his spearmen leaping out, yelling, over the pikemen and struggling horses to bayonet its rider. After that there was only dust and confusion and flashing steel and yelling men, and then sudden quiet. It took some minutes for Baker to realize the clash was over and he still alive—actually the enemy had not been anxious to press their charge home or turn his flank, they had only been trying to get out of the valley as quickly as possible and the platoon had been in the way.

Still, it had not been fun, the brief flurry had cost them men. Baker cursed the enemy and the raiders both, thinking how much difference even one stinking Browning would have made—

After twenty years, the inhibitor against high-pressure chemical reaction lost its effectiveness and needed to be re-seeded. It was a routine task for one cruiser, there was no real reason for the former task commander, now deputy fleet admiral, to go along. At the moment, however, things were quiet and Galactic Security labored under an economy budget. The admiral needed the flight-time, and besides he was curious. He held a peculiar affection for Earth, the action of twenty years before had been his first independent task command, and still stood in his mind as a perfectly planned and executed job.

The civilian observer from the Department of Minorities and Backward Peoples went along because the Department wanted a check and he had asked for the assignment. He, too, was curious; this had been an unorthodox and controversial experiment from the start, and he was still unconvinced of its overall desirability.

They came in over the pole on almost the same course they had flown twenty years before, and the admiral was first to notice the change.

"No radar," he said, watching the instruments.

Where before a whole continent had quivered and reacted with alert savagery to their appearance, they now coasted alone through the bright sky, apparently unheeded and unknown to men. It made the admiral vaguely uneasy.

The seeding was to be done at two hundred thousand, in a crisscross pattern which would take several hours, and the Department observer wanted to go down in the tender and make some checks at a lower altitude. The admiral decided to go with him.

They glided down to five thousand feet before applying power, careless of who might see the disk-shaped flier drifting overhead; there was no particular reason to avoid observation now, this planet had already known them.

Over the northern United States, there was superficially little change, the admiral had little difficulty in orienting himself by the photo-charts made more than twenty years before, railroads and highways still cut in straight lines across the plains checker-boarded by wheatfields. Not till they came over the lakes region did they begin to notice significant differences. Here, small villages spotted crossroads where they had not appeared on the old charts, and cities had shrunk and drawn in upon themselves. Once again, the United States was a predominantly rural nation.

In the days immediately after the raid, there had been little change in those cities not directly affected. There were deaths from radiation sickness and poisoning as the debris of the raid sifted through the atmosphere, and film badges and gas masks became a part of the everyday costume of those who could afford them; automobiles rusted where they stood and there were minor inconveniences; but the streetcars still ran, electric signs flashed, and the plumbing worked. In those first days, aside from the blasted areas, the farms and suburbs were hardest hit. Life there had tied itself tightly to the internal-combustion engine, to tractors and trucks and aircraft and Diesel engines.

There were not very many crops planted or harvested in North America that year.

As summer wore on, the cities also began to feel the pinch. Distribution was difficult without trucks, highlands and reservoirs needed helicopters and power boats for maintenance. Prices rose and inconveniences multiplied.

By fall, in the poorer sections, people were starving.

By the next spring, the population of the United States was less than sixty million and the machinery of civilization rusted unattended while people scrabbled for food. The bones of Paul Bonner and his pretty wife lay in a roadside ditch, with spring rains melting the ice and flesh from them.

That summer was bad too, but the seeds of resurgence were sprouting. The federal gold hoard came out of its vaults to buy food men would not sell for paper, and when the hard yellow coin began to circulate people forgot their despair and their wits sharpened and they looked about for opportunity. Old stern-wheelers slid off the banks and creaked out of sloughs to push tons of Argentine beef and horses and grain up the inland waters from New Orleans. Independent train crews hauled loads for speculators out from St. Louis and Cincinnati and Kansas City. People drifted back to the cities to build steam tractors.

In another year the trains were running on schedules of a sort and a few turbine-powered automobiles and trucks were on the highways.

Five years after the raid, the country was back on its feet, but it was not the same country. Cultures, like individuals, discard patterns of behavior associated with defeat and cherish jealously those associated with gratification. The trauma of sudden, almost mortal, disaster is apt to intensify these reactions to the point of mania.

From five thousand feet, the country now looked green and prosperous, even the scars of Brookhaven were growing over. The admiral studied the peacefully pastoral scene, the bustling but not overcrowded cities, with approval.

From five thousand feet, he could not see the scavenger-gnawed skeletons still tangled in obscure briar patches, nor the scars and bitterness and hatred still tangled in people's hearts. If he saw, he did not particularly note the little groups of hard-faced observers here and there who studied his craft through binoculars and carefully filmed its every move.

The Department observer could not see them either, but he was better versed in social phenomena than the military man, and he was not so sure.

"Let's see what Europe looks like," he said.

In Asia, after the debacle, the Americans evacuated about twelve thousand troops to Japan. Most of these, being veteran and reliable, were brought back to restore order when the domestic military establishment fell apart. Now again there were detachments in the Philippines and the Pacific Islands, and in Malaya to protect the growing rubber demand, but the mainland of Asia was left to the warlords and khans.

In Europe, defeat had not been so disastrous. The enemy there were almost as heavily mechanized as the NATO nations, and as discomfited to find themselves suddenly disarmed. Also, they experienced internal troubles from those of their own peoples who had never taken kindly to statism. These troubles were compounded by the fact that the dissident elements were mainly just those who clung to and were most adept with yataghan and knife, bow and lance, horse and camel; many a Muscovite commissar fumbled uselessly with his pistol while Finnish knife or Montenegrin dagger or Ukrainian scythe bit into him.

Still, the enemy had numbers, and under the urge of famine he swept across Europe, looting and burning and killing to the Rhine, sending isolated raiding parties as far as the Pyrenees, then decomposed from internal stresses. His troops frittered away and disappeared, but Europe lacked the energy to recover. When the first great wave of horsemen from the steppes came, the only organized opposition they met was from the scattered American garrisons along the Rhine, and they foraged to the channel, so that in middle Europe hardly stone stood on stone and one might go for miles without seeing a living man.

Here, the admiral could see the skulls even from the air. In Potsdamer-Platz, they were piled in the neat Asiatic habit into a pyramid over fifty feet high.

They swung back across Bavaria then, and along the Rhine, staring wordlessly at the desolation below, livened only by the occasional disorderly gaggle of squat dark riders with their trains of loot. The admiral tugged uneasily at his collar and glanced sidelong at the civilian, but the latter said nothing, and then the admiral suddenly brightened. Away across the Rhine his trained eye had caught a hint of order, a flash of steel. He tapped the pilot's arm and pointed, and they swung down over a marching column of men, coming with burnished arms and steady step and even formation along a highway to cut behind a swarm of the savages.

Colonel Albert Baker pulled his horse off to the side and reined around to watch his regiment come up into the battle-line. They were rugged and tough, veterans with a sprinkling of husky recruits from midwestern prairies and Norman farms and Scotch hills, the fastest marching infantry since Grant's, and, with allowances for fire-power, perhaps the deadliest. Still, this was the time they were vulnerable, the next few minutes while they maneuvered directly from the column of march into the line. The colonel did not like it, but he was working on Evaluation's clockwork schedule, and there was nothing much he could do about it. The forward elements of his flanking archers began to drift out onto the plain, and he debated whether to throw them forward as a screen, slowing down his disposition but making a tactically sounder maneuver. Just then a squadron of dragoons jingled past at a trot, and he breathed easier. Corps had promised the cavalry screen, but he distrusted cavalry, they were always skittering off somewhere else when you needed them most, and he had not really believed they would show up.

The 103rd was next in the line, his right flank would rest on them, and he watched now as they moved into position smartly, and with drums beating to set the step his regiment swung out onto When they were clear the colonel raised his hand, bugles screamed, the plain and up into line. Standard-bearers ran forward and dressed and set guidons, squads and companies wheeled and marked time and countermarched, dust rose and swirled in choking clouds, lieutenants and sergeants back-pedaled anxiously and shouted hoarse commands and blew on whistles. The pattern began to fill in. Lines grew out of seeming chaos and weaved back and forth, dressing, and then the regiment was blocked solidly in its place, left flank on the river and right on the 103rd. The colonel eased himself in his saddle and lit a cigar, turning to survey the field as a whole.

For the first time since he had got his orders, he began to see how the battle would shape up. They had cut the hordes off from their train, he saw, far down the valley in his rear women and children, cook fires and wagons and pack animals tangled in a frightened mess. The enemy were strung up the valley, sucked up there probably by skirmishing cavalry, but pausing now to look back at the infantry who had come in behind them. It had been a tricky maneuver, but it had worked, and the enemy now must either fight or run. They would fight, the colonel knew, the horsemen would never leave their women and loot without a battle. He waited with cold confidence, knowing the light cavalry did not exist that could break a division of drilled heavy infantry solidly anchored with protected flanks.

He eased his right leg and studied his own men again. They were at ease now, their places marked by their weapons, some sitting, smoking or chewing field rations, breathing easy and in good shape. To their rear there was a sudden clatter as the batteries of steam centrifugals and mortars galloped up. Must be about time for things to start, the colonel thought sourly, it would be a miracle if artillery was actually spaded in and fired up by the time action joined. He trotted slowly back to his command post and joined his staff.

The horde made up its mind, bunched and began to drift back down the valley. Half a dozen blimps came up over the hills to the right and scattered napalm and spreading blobs of gas on the enemy, and suddenly they picked up speed and started coming like an avalanche, spread out over a half mile front, a wall of dust two hundred feet high surging along with them. The infantry were on their feet now, nervously stamping out butts, opening lanes for the dragoons to stream back through. Behind, there was a whine as the turbine-driven centrifugals came up to speed.

Baker spoke to his bugler. The bugle sang and the lines stiffened and solidified. Company officers ran back and forth dressing the front, and then suddenly the pikemen dropped and set their pikes and raised their shields. What had been an orderly array of men in infantry blue battle dress was now a solid line of glittering steel, reaching from river to cliffs on the far side, backed solidly by the lines of archers and swordsmen, file closers and mobile reserve, a heavy infantry division in line of battle. It made a grim, imposing sight. In the unnoticed flier overhead, the admiral almost fell out of his seat in his excitement, the fighting he knew was nothing like this, but he liked it.

The colonel was alert but unimpressed, he had seen it many times before, and he knew the rest would not be so pretty. He gauged the distance to the enemy, and spoke to his bugler again. The archers stepped out between the pikes and took their stand, leisurely setting their arrows in the ground in preparation for rapid fire. They were the elite, a pikeman or arbalestier could be trained in a few months but an archer needed to grow up with a longbow in his hands to use it effectively, and the colonel guarded them jealously, not because he loved them but because he couldn't get along without them. He wondered now, as he had often before, if the arbalest would ever be technically improved to the point of being a completely satisfactory missile weapon for light infantry.

The first ranks of oncoming horsemen were five hundred yards out now, and the mortars popped for the first time and sent a flood of lazy bombs arching overhead to burst and spread blazing napalm. The shouts of officers calling the range came dimly above the general racket, and then the first volley from the archers rose and fell in a cloud and slugs from the centrifugals began to whistle overhead, playing like hydraulic blasts on the onrushing enemy, eroding them away in patches and swathes. The archers were firing at will now, the air was solid with their shafts, it seemed impossible that horse or man could come through that hail and the sickening plop of the fire-bombs. Still they came, and there rose an answering swarm of arrows from their short stiff bows to rattle on the in-fantry's upraised shields. The archers skipped nimbly back into their ranks, and from between the now unobscured pikes the flamethrowers spat clouds and flame.

On Baker's front, the enemy broke, they dashed up against the pikes and recoiled, unable to force the flaming wall with its sharp steel core. Neither could they turn and face the gas cloud rolling threateningly in their rear, they raced in tangled streams back and forth parallel to the front, seeking a weak spot, while arbalestiers and centrifugals and flame-throwers poured fire relentlessly into them.

The 103rd was not having such good luck. Their front was broken in two places, and one serious melee developed into a momentary break-through. Baker alerted part of his reserve to help if necessary, but they closed up without aid and the cavalry in the rear finished off the few enemy who did come through.

The battle was over now, the rest slaughter. Baker turned his attention again to his own front, watching with cold appreciation the death his regiment was dealing.

The enemy was seeking only escape. Some tried to swim the river, where Baker's archers picked them off at leisure. Some scrambled up the cliffs on the other side, where they made equally good targets, and some drove recklessly back into the gas cloud to

142 space police

strangle. Very few got away. The mass thinned, and then there were only isolated riders racing madly past, and then nothing but a slowly settling cloud of dust, with an occasional limping figure drawing a flurry of fire, riderless horses stampeding aimlessly.

Baker looked at his watch. It was somewhat under two hours since he had ordered his men into action; less than two hours to annihilate a dozen hordes that had harried whole provinces for years—a good day's work.

The admiral settled back into his seat and drew a deep breath.

"Well," he said somewhat inadequately, "I'm afraid we didn't do such a good job of stopping war on this planet."

"We certainly lowered the population level that was worrying you Malthusians, though," the observer said. "That little tiff down there," he waved his hand, "must have helped by five or six thou-» sand."

He rubbed wearily at his face. "No, it's no good," he said heavily. "We never should have permitted this experiment. You shoot-em-up boys are always too anxious to civilize people by gunfire. I am going to recommend that the Department question Security's stand in this matter at the next Council meeting, and urge we review the whole history of our contact with these people. It may not be too late to do something constructive yet."

"Now wait a minute," the admiral said stubbornly. "This may not have gone just according to plan, but it wasn't our plan, you long-hairs were the people who developed this theory that if we could block off the natives' physical expansion they'd be forced to develop a peaceful civilization; all Security did was to implement that plan. And there is some improvement. They may still be killing each other, but at least they aren't using mass weapons any more, it's man to man, between warriors. They aren't blowing up whole cities, women and children, the sick and peaceful along with the belligerent—"

The stretcher-bearers were working through the ranks now, picking up the dead and wounded, but they did not bother with the enemy. The dragoons were taking care of them. They were out front again, picking their way gingerly between the burning areas where the bombs had dropped, thrusting and hacking here and there as they found wounded, catching horses, dismounting to pick up an especially interesting bit of loot.

Let them have it, the colonel thought, what he wanted was the wagon train in the rear. There would be the real loot, women and stores and gold and all the stripped wealth of this land fine-combed again and again by the raiders. The colonel fought for his rank and his retirement and vaguer, higher, imponderables he felt but could not have put a name to, but his men fought for loot. There was no rotation in this army, only death or crippling wounds, retirement perhaps for a few who were lucky, at the end of a hard life of constant battle. They needed the occasional fierce satisfactions of looted gold and wine, unopposed slaughter and destruction, to balance the hard discipline of their daily life. The colonel knew this, he did not begrudge them their fun, although for disciplinary reasons he liked to take his in quieter form. So now he sat, forgetting the battle already, estimating his chances, plotting cunningly how his regiment should be first to fall upon the camp.

He suddenly noticed some of the men looking up, and pointing, and he, too, looked up and for the first time saw the Galactic observation flier, hanging motionless over the battlefield. His mind went back twenty years, to the gully in Korea, to the hundred thousand men who had left their bones to whiten in that retreat, to his mother and father and brothers and sisters, who had lived near Oak Ridge before the raiders came, in an area still posted as radioactive.

He studied the flier carefully.

"You, too, boy," he thought, "Just wait a while, we'll get to you yet, we haven't forgotten—"

Professor Salton was writing in his diary—

"In retrospect," he wrote, "it is obvious that the effect of the raiders upon Terrestrial development was much more complex than at first appeared. They halted the explosive burgeoning of physical power available to man, and forced him to direct his energies in other directions. They gave man time and impetus to develop the social sciences he had forgotten in the sudden unfolding of physical power. But they altered his basic orientation.

"Before the raid, men lived in a world in which they were supreme, and had only each other to fear. The abrupt brutality of the raid, emphasized by its aftermath of famine and disruption, sharply reminded them that they were small fry in a shark-swarming, hostile universe, apt at any moment to be gulped up.

"Five hundred years earlier, they might have withdrawn into a shell of protective humility and prayer. A hundred years later, they might have understood the workings of their own minds well enough to preserve a balance. As it was, they reacted instinctively, but in the pattern of an aggressive culture, aggressively.

"Since physical science had failed them, they cast it aside and snatched up the newer, subtler tools of thought and life. The new learning that might have taught men to live with each other was ground and sharpened for hostile uses.

"The millennium of peace, which seemed so close, has again been postponed—'

And:

"Colonel Baker," the general said, "I'd like you to meet Major Pellati. He's the man who set up your targets for you this afternoon, the chief of our corps evaluation staff."

"Well, you did a good job on that, major," the colonel said. "Everything folded together like a peddler's pack. I don't think a hundred of those devils got away."

"We didn't intend for very many to get away." The major looked around distastefully. "You like this racket?" he asked abruptly.

It was somewhat noisy. Division headquarters had been set up in an old building, a monolithic concrete relic of the atomic age, as indestructible without explosives as a mountain, and the junior officers had promptly organized a party.

At one end of the plank bar twenty company officers were harmonizing "Dinah." Half the band were following Baker's band leader in the "Tennessee Waltz" while the other half played something unidentifiable but certainly not the "Tennessee Waltz." As a finishing touch, three Marine observers within arm's length of Baker and Pellati were defiantly bellowing "Zamboanga." It was quite a party.

"Why, yes," Baker said, "it is a little noisy."

With common consent, they picked up a bottle of Calvados from the bar and sought quieter surroundings. "Oops," Pellati said at the first door they tried and backed hurriedly out. "Occupied," he said briefly. They wandered down a long hall and found an alcove housing an ex-window, now ventilated agreeably by the fresh evening air. They sat down on the window ledge with the bottle between them.

"Yes, sir, that was a nice action," Baker said. Something that had been lurking in the back of his mind all day came to the fore. "Were you in Korea?" he asked.

"I was at Inchon. That's where we first used von Neumann's mathematics to evaluate a large-scale operation. Worked pretty good."

"That was before my time. I got there just in time to be right in the middle when the raid hit and the gooks climbed all over us. That's what I was thinking about; this afternoon, I was thinking, 'Boy, I'll bet this leams you buggers a good lesson, I've been saving this twenty years for you.'"

He sucked gently at the bottle. "Did you say you were in Evaluation at Inchon?" he asked suddenly. "Didn't know they had anything like that then."

"Well, it was pretty crude stuff," the major said. "Experimental. Half mathematics and half good guessing."

"It still looks like magic to me."

"It isn't. Tactics isn't an art any more, or even science. It's just engineering. If your intelligence is good, and you know what you've got to work with, all you have to do is work up the equations. With those savages we were fighting today, you don't even have to make allowances for independent thought, they don't think, just react like machines. Once you know the basic pattern of that reaction, you can just about predict every move they'll make for the next six months. Then it's just a question of being in the right place at the right time."

"Did you see that raider flier this afternoon?" he asked abruptly.

Baker nodded.

"Those are the ones we'll have to sweat for," the major said.

"Well," Baker said piously, "I hope to live to see the day, but I don't know; they've got a pretty big edge on us in weapons—"

"Weapons don't mean a thing, colonel. Disparity in armament is simply one of the factors to which we assign weights in the tactical and strategic equations." He took a cigar from his pocket and lit it carefully, staring cross-eyed down his long nose.

"Twenty years ago, we put our faith in gadgets—radar and guns and engines and nuclear explosives—and you remember what happened. We learned our lesson. There's always somebody with bigger and better stuff. So now we learn to use what we do have with maximum effect, and stick to simple weapons we know won't fail us. Our hole card is the infantryman walking on his own two legs with good solid steel in his hands.

"We can't lose, because we don't depend on tools, we depend on knowing what people are going to do with tools, and adapt our own action to the circumstances. With the Latin Americans we used a combination of force and economic and moral action. With the British, we used economic and political means. With these gooks, we use force at the moment, it's cheaper to kill them than to educate them. I don't know just what we'll use with the Raiders, but we'll take them, don't ever doubt that, all in good time, after we've cleaned our own house and have this planet organized.

"I worked on the initial evaluation, right after the raid, we had plenty of material to work up, and we learned enough even then to show they had weaknesses. Our biggest unit is still working on it, every time somebody comes up with a new refinement they work it down a little finer, every time we get new data it goes into the mill. The pictures we got of that fellow this afternoon are on the way back already. That's what we want now, little things, which side the pilot sits on, what part of the battle interested them, anything to fill in the picture.

"Some day, they'll land, get close enough for us to get our hands on them, and we'll be ready for them."

The major took the cigar out of his mouth and spat.

The watch chief socio-technician was monitoring reports by radio-fax, television, and voice; and keeping up a running fire of commentary for the evaluators and calculators who were screening the material and feeding it into the machines.

"Raider landing as predicted," he said, "near major urban center —Chicago. Bless Bess, what a ship, big as the Queen Mary—"

Machines clicked and chattered and hummed smoothly.

"Plan Sugar-fourteen, modification three on basis current information, just initiated."

"Somebody's dragging their feet," one of the calculators said. "I just cranked out modification five, and mod-4 was acknowledged by Field control at 2113."

"Log it," the watch chief advised. "They'll try to bounce it on us, they're always wrong but they keep hoping."

"Mod-4 coming up," he added. "Only three and a half minutes late, they're outdoing themselves today. That's old Fatso running to the ship instead of walking— Which stupid knothead took my coffee cup?"

On a balcony overlooking the control center, the commanding officer was explaining the operation to some high brass.

"Well, I can see you have a nice operation here," a general said. "Very smooth. But what I don't understand is how you Evaluation people are so sure the Raiders don't have something equivalent to our own Strategic and Tactical Evaluation. If they do, what are we going to do then?"

"They can't have," the CO said positively. "Remember, we've been evaluating these people for fifty years.

"In order to have STE, you have to have a basic science of human motivation. And they don't have it. The Raid itself is our basic evidence for that. There's no indication that they had anything whatever to gain from the raid, they did it to save us from self-destruction.

"A race that can destroy half a planet's population, forcibly impose its will on an alien race, not for the legitimate aim of self-preservation but because it wants to play God, can't possibly understand even the first rudiments of social control. That type of thinking is authoritarian, symptomatic of egotistic atomism.

"No, we'll take them all right. We have to. The universe isn't safe with people like that running loose, living in an insane world of subjective surrealism, but acting on men who live and die in the real world of objective events.

"They're like idiot children playing with a machine gun."

7. A special type of officer to do a special job—the job of teaching a recruit of the Frontier Patrol everything a fledgling constable should know—that was Keno Martin. With him a man learned the hard way for he was a veteran who could not be matched—as George Moffat discovered.

L. RON HUBBARD

^Tough^Old^Man

The young officer named George Moffat was inspired, natty and brilliant that day he stepped down from the tramp space-can to the desolate plains of Ooglach. Fresh from the Training Center of the Frontier Patrol in Chicago, on Earth, newly commissioned a constable in the service, the universe was definitely the exclusive property of Mr. Moffat.

With the orders and admonitions of his senior captain—eighteen light years away—George Moffat confronted the task with joy. Nothing could depress him—not even the shoddy log buildings which made up Meteorville, his home for the next two years—if he lasted.

But he'd last. Constable Moffat was as certain of that as he was of his own name. He'd last!

"This is a training assignment," he had been told by the senior captain. "For the next two years you will work with Old Keno Martin, the senior constable in the service. When you've learned the hard way you can either replace him as the senior constable or have a good assignment of your own. It all depends on you.

"You'll find Old Keno a pretty hard man to match. I've never met him myself. He came to us as an inheritance from Ooglach when we took it over—he'd been their peace officer for fifteen years and we sent him a commission sight unseen. He's been a constable now for twenty years and he's pretty set in his ways. I guess."

Moffat had known very well what he was being told. The Frontier Patrol always sent a man to the God-forgotten ends of nowhere under instruction for his first two years of service. The harder the assignment the greater the compliment to the recruit. That he had drawn Old Keno Martin was compliment beyond the highest adulation.

"Good Lord!" his running mate Druid had told him, "Old Keno is more of a legend than a man. You know what's happened to the only three recruits sent to him for training? He wore them out and did them in. Every one of them came back and turned in his resignation. George, I wish you luck. By golly you'll need it!"

Constable Moffat, stepping through the frozen mud of the main street of Meteorville, wasn't daunted even now. The multi-colored icy wastes, the obvious savageness and antagonism of the inhabitants who glowered at him as he passed in his horizon blue and gold, the sagging temperature that registered thirty below at high noon, neither could these daunt him.

Resigned, did they? Well, he was George Moffat and no old broken-down untrained ex-peace-officer-made-constable was going to show him up. Old Keno was going to be retired when they found a replacement for him. George Moffat, strong and young, full of morale and training, already considered Old Keno as good as replaced.

He gloried in the obvious fact that the patrol was hated here. Ooglach, furthest outpost of Earth's commerce, held more than its share of escaped criminals. The men who watched him from windows and walks would meet his cool gaze. He became more and more conscious of what he was and where he was until the problem of Old Keno dwindled to nothing.

A man had to be hard in the patrol. The instructors at school were fond of saying that. He had to be able to endure until endurance seemed his ordinary lot in life. He had to be able to shoot faster and more accurately than any human could be expected to shoot, and he had to be able to thrive under conditions which would kill an unconditioned man. George Moffat could do all these things. Question was, at his age could Old Keno?

Constable George Moffat entered the low building which boasted the battered sign: Fiontiei Constabulary, Ooglach. He entered and at first glance felt pity for the man he was to relieve.

Old Keno Martin, in a patched blue uniform shirt, sat at a rough plank desk. He was scribbling painfully with a pen which kept tripping in the rough official paper and scattering small blots. It was aching cold in the room and the ashes of the fireplace were dead.

He was a spare man of uncertain age, George observed, and he had no more idea of how to keep and wear a uniform than he probably had about grand opera. A battered gray hat sat over his eyes, two blasters were belted about his waist, both on one side, one lower than the other.

The squadroom was bare, without ornament or comforts, the only wall decoration being a mildewed copy of the Constitution of the United States. Some cartridge boxes and several rifles lay upon a shelf, some report books on the desk. This, observed Moffat with a slightly curled lip, was law and order on Ooglach!

Old Keno looked up. He saw the horizon blue and gold and stood.

"I," said Moffat, "have just been ordered up from base." He handed his sheaf of official papers and identification over and Old Keno took them and scanned them with distinterest.

To George it seemed that his attitude clearly said, "Here's another one of them to be broken and sent on his way. A boot kid, badly trained and conceited in the bargain." But then, thinking again, George wasn't sure that that was Old Keno's attitude. The man, he knew suddenly, was going to be very hard to predict.

Old Keno offered his hand and then a chair. "I'm Keno Martin. I'll have the boy stir up the fire for you if you're cold. Newcomers find it chilly here in Meteorville."

Old Keno returned to his reports while George Moffat, seeing no sign of the boy mentioned, glanced yearningly at the dead fireplace. Suddenly George realized what he was doing. The lot of a constable was endurance. If Old Keno, knowing he was coming, had already started the program of hazing, George was ready.

Grimly he refused the warmth for himself and concentrated on Old Keno.

"I understand/' said Keno after a while, "that if you measure up I'm to be retired from service." "Well—" began George.

"Wouldn't know what to do with myself," said Old Keno decidedly. "But that's no bar to your measuring up. If you can you can and that's all there is to it. I won't stand in your way."

Young George said to himself that he doubted it. The temperature must be twenty below in this room. Inside his gloves his hands felt blue and frostbitten. "I'll bet you won't," George told himself.

"Matter of fact," said Old Keno, "I'm kind of glad you're here. The general run of crime is always fairly heavy and this morning it got heavier. It will be good to have help on this job. I've been kind of hoping they'd send me an assistant—"

"I'll bet you have," said George to himself.

"That could really take it, of course," continued Old Keno. "Ooglach is a funny place. Hot as the devil in some places, cold in others. Requires versatility. You know why this place is important?"

"Well, I-"

"This planet is a meteor deposit. About fifteen or twenty million meteors a day fall into its atmosphere but that isn't a patch on what it used to get before the atmosphere formed as it is. Its face is studded with the things and there are holes all over the place.

"We ship several hundred billion dollars worth of industrial diamonds from here every year. Naturally we have to mine the bulk of them out of old meteors and that keeps a miner population around—which is always a tough one. Some of those stones are gem stones. They're a United States monopoly and it's our job to see that they don't get lifted. We frown on all illegal export—especially when it begins with murder."

Moffat perked up. He forgot about the cold room. This was what he had been training for. He was very conscious of his superiority in such cases. The latest methods of crime detection had been built into him as second nature. His young body had been trained to accomplish the most strenuous manhunts. Mentally he was well balanced, physically he was at his peak. He knew it and he was anxious to prove it.

"You've got some idea of who is doing this?" said Moffat.

"Well, shouldn't be too hard. Of course there's plenty of tough gents on Ooglach who wouldn't stop at anything—but the point is they're cowed. My angle is—the people who did this must be new. They murdered a mine guard up at Crater seven hundred forty-three and emptied the safe of a month's haul. That would be about thirty-five million dollars in gems.

"Any man who had been around here any time would have known better. That means the gents who did it probably came in their own spaceship. It's probably parked beyond the radar detection sphere—somewhere to the south. No, it wasn't local talent."

Moffat almost smiled. Old Keno's faith in himself seemed monstrous to him. He looked with interest at the old constable and realized with a start that all his own studies in criminology and physiognomy had not fitted him to make an accurate estimate of Keno Martin's true character. The man was illusive.

"So, if it's all the same to you," said Keno, "we'll just put together a kit and take out of here for the mine. I just got this report half an hour ago and I stopped here long enough to write this dispatch for my boy to take to that space-can you came in. I want this data relayed to other planets, though of course we'll probably get these people a long time before they get away. You all ready to go?"

For a moment Moffat was dismayed. He had considered himself fit and ready, and yet he knew that his long trip on the tramp had wearied him enormously. You don't sleep and eat well on a tramp, and how welcome would be a few hours of rest! But he banished all thought of it. Keno would know he was tired. This was just another way of wearing him down.

"I'm ready," he said. "Just tell your boy to bring my case from the ship. I feel fine."

"Good," said Old Keno. He opened the back door and yelled in some remarkable gibberish at the shed. Then he took down from a shelf several boxes of cartridges, looked to the loads in his guns and handed a rifle to Moffat.

Old Keno waited patiently at the door until a slab-faced native brought a high-speed tractor around front and then, after placing the cartridges in the cab, Old Keno mounted up.

"Wait a minute/' said Moffat. "I don't see any food. How long are we going to be gone?"

The old constable looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry about that. My mind was just so busy with other things. Bring out a case of rations from the kitchen."

Moffat smiled to himself. This campaign was so obvious. He brought the rations and threw them into the back of the cab and then, eyes on the old constable, mounted up in his turn.

Suddenly he was assailed with a doubt. Maybe it was just senility that had made Old Keno forget. A man wouldn't go tearing off into any trackless waste without food just to show up a new recruit. Hmm—maybe headquarters had its reasons for wanting to replace this man,

"Where's your coat?" said Moffat, eyeing the patched sleeves of Old Keno's uniform shirt.

"That's so," said the old constable, looking oddly at Moffat. "I forgot that too, I guess." He bawled at the boy, who brought up a heavy service mackinaw. But Old Keno did not put it on. He laid it across the back of the seat and addressed himself to the controls.

The revving motor sent great plumes of white snow spiraling upwards. Several curious folks came into the street to look. Moffat glanced at the old constable and felt a genuine wave of pity. "Poor Old Keno," he thought.

The yellow sky lay hard against the blinding plain. In the far distance a range of hundred-thousand-foot peaks reached forever skyward, white and orange in their perpetual covering of frost. The tractor sped across the wastes at two hundred miles per hour, skimming the hummocks, its hydraulic seats riding easy while the treads bucked, spun and roared. A high fog of snow particles was left behind them and the cold which had been intense at the beginning began to turn Moffat's blood to ice crystals in his veins.

At last he surrendered. "Isn't there a heater in this thing?" he said.

Old Keno flushed. "I'm sorry, I've got so much on my mind I didn't even think of it." And he reached down to throw a button on the panel, which brought an immediate trickle of faintly warm air into the cab, raising the interior temperature from a minus fifty to a mere minus twenty.

had expected for a minute that anyone was going to eat any of them. Theoretically when one took off the lid heat was instantaneously generated through all the food. Moffat broke the cover and for the next ten seconds—but no more—the mass was warm. Before he could get the first mouthful between his teeth the savage cold had frozen it through.

He started to complain and then he looked at the stolid Keno. Frozen rations were nothing to the old man—he was munching mechanically on the food. "Well," thought Moffat, "if he can take it I can." And he reached into an inner pocket with his clumsy glove and brought out a chocolate bar, which flew into splinters each time he took a bite from it.

"You'd better let me drive/' said Moffat. "You'll need some of your strength later on. We don't want to get tired out."

He intended this as a vengeful reference to Old Keno's age. But the senior constable paid no attention whatever.

"I said you'd better let me drive for awhile/' said young Moffat.

"You sure you can handle this thing?" said Old Keno. "We were taught all types of vehicles in school/' said Moffat a little savagely.

"Well/' said Old Keno doubtfully, "I suppose we've got more time than we really need. And we've been making pretty good speed. You might as well start learning now as ever." He set the automatic control on the tractor and when it reached a level stretch, during which the control could operate, they swiftly switched.

Moffat may have been bitterly cold outside but he was burning within. So the old man thought they'd lose speed if he drove, did he? Well, since when did youth take any lessons from age on that subject.

The dark was very thick and the floodlights were piercingly bright on the track ahead. The multicolored cliffs and valley of ice fled past them. Moffat found that it was extremely difficult to trace the track accurately. More than once Old Keno had to tap him sharply to keep him from straying.

Each time Old Keno tapped young Moffat seethed anew. There sat the old fool in his patched blue shirt, not caring any more about this cold than he did about rations. Obviously the old man was out to show him up, to make a fool out of him, to break his spirit. Obviously Keno expected to send him back to headquarters with his resignation written and ready to be turned in. Well, that would never happen.

The tractor roared and whined. Young Moffat let it out to two hundred and ninety miles an hour. At this speed the ice hummocks were a blur and even more often now Old Keno had to tap him to keep him on the track.

"Pretty soon," said Old Keno, "we'll start down. The snow level at this time of the year stops at about twenty-three thousand feet. You'll find Ooglach's got a lot in the way of drops and rises. There isn't any sea level, properly speaking.

"We've got three seas but from the lowest to the highest there's an eighteen-thousand-foot difference in elevation. I'd hate to think of what would happen if they ever got connected.

"It's two hundred and ninety thousand feet from the lowest point on this planet to the highest. Nature scraped her up some when she was built. I guess she wasn't rightly intended for men. This plateau we're on is the most comfortable spot you'll discover."

Moffat listened with some disbelief. The old man was just trying to scare him away.

"The low valleys are all scorchers," Keno continued, "and the one where I think our friends are hanging out will be running about a hundred and fifty degrees now that the sun has set."

Young Moffat glanced sideways at him. "Warm, huh?"

"Well, it isn't so bad once you get used to it," said Old Keno. "By the way you'll want to start looking sharp now. We'll have to turn off these lights. If we show them as we come over the top edge into the valley they'll have plenty of time to get away in their space-can. D'ye mind?" he said.

Young Moffat thought savagely that if Old Keno could drive in the dark, as he had immediately after sundown, he certainly could. He reached down and threw the light switch.

Instantly, as a reaction, the whole world was black to him. He lost his sense of direction utterly. He was light-blinded and yet hurtling forward over uneven terrain at tremendous speed. He did not know whether he was turning to right or left and felt certain that he was about to shoot on a tangent from his course. In a panic young Moffat grabbed at the light panel but he was too late.

He felt the tractor start to turn. He felt Old Keno's savage pull at the levers which might avert the disaster. Then there was a terrifying crash and a roar, a splintering of glass, the scream of a dismembered motor and the dying whine of treads running down to a slow clatter.

Young Moffat picked himself up off an ice hummock two hundred feet from the scene of the wreck. He was dazed and bleeding. One of his gloves was missing and one of his boots was ripped all the way down the side, exposing his flesh to the killing winds of the night. For a moment he could not tell ground from stars. A few planets of his own invention were spinning giddily in space.

After a bit he located the direction of the wreck by the sound of dripping fuel. He crawled back to it fearfully. He thought perhaps Old Keno lay dead within it. Moffat saw his own track in the luminous snow and found that he had plowed straight through a feathery snowbank, which alone had saved him.

Two feet above or below the course he had taken would have brought him into disastrous collision with enormous lumps of ice.

He fumbled over the area and at last located the dark crushed blob of the wreck. All his resentment for Keno was gone now. He knew that this was his own fault. He felt that if the old man were dead he could never forgive himself. He should have known he would not be able to drive at that speed with the lights out.

"Where are you?" he shouted into the cab, fumbling through the torn upholstery.

With a sob he slid in through the broken windshield and felt along the upended floor for Old Keno's body. But it was not there.

Young Moffat scuttled crabwise out of the fuming wreckage and began to look through the debris for a pocket torch.

"Well, I'm mighty glad to find that you're all right, son."

Moffat leaped upright as though he'd been shot.

"I walked on down the line," said Old Keno. "We're within about two hundred yards of the edge there and we would have been starting down soon anyway. So we ain't lost much time."

Moffat threw the torch he had found to the ground before him. If Old Keno had only been reproving or solicitous—if he had shown something, anything, but the calm cool detachment of a man who, immediately after a wreck, would walk on a little further just to see how things were—

"I might have been killed," said young Moffat.

"Oh no," said Old Keno. "On my way up to the rim I looked at you there in the snow and saw that you were all right."

The inferred superiority of this was almost more than Moffat could stand. He was rising to a point of fury.

"Well, you'd better not stand there," said Keno, the wind tugging at his thin shirt. "You're liable to get cold. Come along."

Moffat fumbled through the drift and found his glove. Then he turned to trudge after Keno. As he cooled he found that something terrible and devastating had happened to his ego.

He had always considered himself so competent. And he had always felt that older men were used up and worn out. Now he found that a man who must be well over sixty easily had the edge on him both in poise and in endurance. The cool rationality of the fellow had gnawed at young Moffat's ego until its borders were frayed.

Sunk now in his own estimation to the level of a schoolboy who is subject to tantrums, young Moffat followed in Keno's tracks and presently came up with the old man.

If he had expected an end to travail because they were to go downhill into a valley Moffat was mistaken. One of Ooglach's moons, yellow and gibbous, had begun to rise. By its light the enormous crater before them, thirty thousand feet deep, lay like the entrance to the infernal regions.

Its black sides were rough and jagged and precipitous. At twenty-three thousand feet one could see, by looking across several miles to the other side, where the snow level ended. Below that clung a handful of trees, ghostly now in the brilliant moonlight.

Young Moffat stared at the precipice before him. There was a track down it which angled off at a steep grade, cut probably by some mining survey expedition. But Keno was not considering such a path.

"We've lost quite a lot of time," said Old Keno. "We'll have to make up for it one way or the other. Let's pitch off here and scramble on down the sidewall. It's only about thirty thousand feet and the jumps are pretty easy.

"I've been here before. I didn't take this side but I don't expect we'll run into a lot of trouble. Now—you keep close to me and don't go losing your hold on anything and falling because we don't want to mess this up again tonight."

Young Moffat took the implied criticism haggardly. Old Keno slid forward over the ice and started to drop down from crevice to crevice with a swift agility which would have done credit to an orangutan.

Young Moffat started out eagerly enough but in a very few minutes he discovered how bruised and shaken he had been by the wreck. And Old Keno, who must have been just as bruised, was stretching out a lead on him which was in itself a blunt criticism.

Harassed and scrambling, young Moffat tried his best to keep up. He slid from one block of ice to the next, scraped his shins on pinnacles, cut his hands on ledges and, as the drop increased, time after time hung perilously to a crumbling chunk of basalt over eternity. He needed all his strength to get across each gap. And his foot hurt where his boot was torn.

Old Keno, far far below and evidently having no trouble, constantly widened the gap. Young Moffat's lungs were aching. If he had been too cold before he was too hot now. His uniform was shortly in ribbons and by the time he had gone down three thousand feet he gladly abandoned the jacket forever. He used only one sleeve of it to bind up a shin which really could have used a few stitches put in by a competent doctor.

He was getting weaker as the swings and leaps took more and more heavy toll of him. He began to look down and ahead through a reddish haze which each time told him that the gap was getting wider and that Old Keno was having no trouble.

An hour later he came up, an aching, half-sobbing wreck. He hit against a soft form. He could not even see the old man. He slumped down on a boulder.

"Well, I'm glad you caught up to me," said Old Keno. "Now let's get moving. I took a look down into the valley and got the space-can spotted down there. They got a little fire lighted. Don't drop so far behind again."

Young Moffat cleared his gaze and looked at Old Keno. "That man," thought Moffat, "is going to kill me yet."

After all this terribly arduous mountaineering through the dark, over crevasses and down pinnacles and chimneys, swinging by razor-sharp outcrops to crumbling ledges, Old Keno Martin didn't even have the grace or politeness to be short of breath. In the moonlight he was still his neat somewhat faded self.

Beaten through and through, his conception of himself so thoroughly shot that only a miracle performed by himself could ever bring it back to life, young Moffat did his best to follow.

Thirty thousand feet is a long way down! And the difficulties of the descent made it also a long way around. Time after time Old Keno waited for him. Never a word of encouragement, never a word of comment on the difficulties of the descent—Old Keno was neither short of breath nor apparently tired of limb.

Hours later, when they at last came to the bottom of that scorching hell, Moffat supposed that he had at least passed through the worst of it. His breath was sobbing in and out of him. His body was a rack of pain. The only thing that had kept him going this long was the knowledge that the worst was almost over. Certainly he had no more to experience. But he was wrong!

As Old Keno had said, it was a hundred and fifty degrees here in this crater. The sand was baking hot. He reached his hand up to his eyes and swept away some of the perspiration which was blinding him. His lips were thickened by dehydration.

The night was so hot and so dry that it pulled the moisture out of a man with a physical force, cracking his skin and drying his eyes until it was torture to keep them open longer than a minute at a time.

"Don't walk forward," said Keno, "there's a two-thousand-foot drop about twenty feet in front of us."

Moffat, stumbling forward, hadn't even realized he had caught up with Keno again. He was startled by the voice and he backed up a few steps. He concentrated his eyes on the spot Keno indicated and at last he saw the dark chasm. Gingerly he approached the edge.

He felt that he was looking into the very bowels of the planet although he could see nothing but blackness. He sensed the awesome depth of it. He stepped back cautiously, afraid that if he made a sudden movement he might fall headlong over the edge. The heat waves coming up from that black hole made him dizzy and his legs felt as though they might slip out from under him at any second. He turned back to Keno.

"We're within a quarter mile of them/' said Old Keno. "I doubt if they got wind of us. It's a heck of a long ways back there to the ridge and they probably figured we was a meteorite like I thought they would. If they saw our crash at all, that is. That crew can't have been here more than ten or twenty minutes but they got a fire goin' already. Smell it?"

Moffat sniffed at the wind in vain. He could not discover the least odor of woodsmoke. Just breathing this air was enough to sear the lungs and burn scars on the throat without trying to smell anything in the bargain. He looked wonderingly at the old constable.

"They'll be boiling some fresh meat they got back at the mine," said Old Keno. "It wouldn't keep long down here and they probably haven't any galley in their space-can. I figured I'd smell woodsmoke when I got here the second I noticed that a haunch of baysteer had been ripped from the drying racks outside the guard's shack at the mine."

Trained arduously, given the highest grades in detection, the young constable felt insensibly lessened again. He was failing every test. He had missed an important clue. Hurriedly he changed the subject. "How'd they cross this gap?" he asked.

"Oh, they're on this side of it all right," said Old Keno. "I saw their last tracks back there about a quarter of a mile. They turned off to the left and we're likely to find them about a quarter of a mile up the way. You'd better shed those boots. They'll make an awful racket if we hit hard rock."

Again he felt like a small boy being told to do the most simple and obvious things. He shed the boots and was instantly aware of new difficulty. His feet were in ribbons from the terrible climb down and were chilblained by the shift in temperature as well. And now they had to contact sand which could have roasted eggs.

With the first steps he felt his feet beginning to blister and tears shot into his eyes from the pain. But Old Keno had also shed his boots and was striding easily forward, oblivious of this new agony. The old man, thought Moffat, would have walked through walls of fire with only an impatient backward glance to see if Moffat was coming.

"Are we close?" said Moffat at last and the words came out like rough pebbles, so achingly dry had his mouth become. Each gasp of air was like swallowing the plume on a blowtorch.

"No need to talk low," said Old Keno. "The wind's from them to us. They're camped by a running stream anyway and they can't hear above it. It'll be thirty degrees cooler where they are. This valley is like that. Hear it?"

Moffat couldn't but Old Keno was talking again, pointing to a tiny pinpoint, which was their fire, and the gleam, which was the space-can, beside it.

"Cover all three from this side with your rifle. Don't shoot unless you have to. I'll circle and approach from the water side and challenge them. Don't plug me by mistake now!"

The disrespect in this made Constable Moffat wince. But he took station as requested. Lying across a frying hot rock with the night air broiling him, he laid the searing stock of the rifle against his cheek. He trained as ordered on the party about the fire.

He almost didn't care about what happened to himself any more. He knew that the rock was burning him. He knew that the rifle barrel was raising a welt on his cheek. He felt some slight relief that his now-bleeding feet were off the ground. But he just didn't seem to care. There was the job to be done and that was all that mattered.

His body had been so beaten that his mind couldn't or wouldn't look at anything but the immediate present. All the concentration and will of his being was centered on this task. He would accomplish his purpose if it were the last purpose he would ever serve.

The three men in front of the fire were laughing, oblivious of any pursuit, certain in their security at least for the next few hours. Before dawn they would be out of the atmosphere and beyond reach. They had a big kettle in which they were boiling baybeef. From time to time one of them would pass another some particularly choice bit.

For an interminable while, it seemed to him (although in reality it was less than three minutes) Moffat waited. At length he heard Old Keno's voice.

"Keep yer hands clear, gents. I'm comin' in!" The three about the fire huddled, immobile as statues, clearly limned by the leaping flames. Thirty paces beyond them, into the circle of radiance, stepped Old Keno. His hands were swinging free, no weapon trained.

"I'll have to trouble you boys to come back and take your medicine/' said Old Keno. "It ain't so much the diamonds, it's that guard. Human bein's come high up here."

"Frontier Police!" gasped the leader, starting to his feet. And then he realized what this meant—sure hanging!

"I wouldn't do anything foolish!" said Old Keno flatly.

The man wore a weapon, low and strapped down. "We're not bein' took. I reckon if you're a condemned enough fool to come after us all by yourself—"

The leader's hand, silhouetted in the firelight, flashed too fast to be followed.

There was a blend of roars, four shots! And then it was done.

Moffat had seen something he was never likely to forget. All three men had been on their feet. Old Keno's hands had been entirely free from his guns. The leader had drawn first and the other two had started to fire.

But Old Keno's left hand had stabbed across his body and his right had gone straight down and his three shots were like one blow. The leader's bullet went whining off on some lonesome errand amongst the rocks. Three men were dying there, three men had been shot before the leader had squeezed trigger.

And Constable Moffat's frozen, cut and blistered finger had tried to close to back up the play and Constable Moffat had not been able to fire! He stayed where he was, semi-paralyzed with the shock of what he had seen—three men shot in something like an eighth of a second.

The leader went down. Another man dropped into the fire. The third stood where he was, propped against a rock, eyes wide open and the firelight shining in them—stone dead.

Moffat looked at his hand. He had not even been able to squeeze trigger. He, champion shot of the school, had not even been able to fire at his first live target when his companion was in danger!

On the verge of tears Moffat came up from cover and walked toward the dying blaze. Old Keno was bending over to retrieve their loot.

Moffat stepped into the ring of light. And then, of a sudden, a strange sensation came to him. It was like a yell inside his head. It was like an automatic switch being thrown. He knew he was in danger!

With the speed of a stabbed cat young Moffat dropped to a knee, spinning on it toward the space-can, drawing a rifle bead as he turned. He had not heard anything. But there stood a fat Asiatic in the passageway port, rifle leveled at Old Keno, about to shoot. He never got a chance.

Young Moffat fired from the hip and the bullet caught the fat one in the chest. His weapon exploded into the night. And then without looking at that target Moffat saw the second.

Under the shadow of the space-can a man had come up, his arms full of firewood. This was falling now, halfway to the ground, and a gun was in his grip, aimed at Old Keno. The gun blazed. Moffat fired and the fifth man went down.

But he was not alone. Old Keno, the infallible never-missing always-beforehand Senior Constable of Ooglach, was flat on his face in the sand, motionless, victim of his own overconfidence.

Coming quickly to the space-can port young Moffat scanned the interior with his flash. There were five tumbled and evil smelling bunks here. He glanced back to the fire, counting noses to make sure. Then he scouted wide, looking for strange tracks, and in a moment knew that they had the entire outfit. Not until then did he come back to Old Keno and there he knelt, turning the ancient patrolman over.

To see the wound and its extent it was necessary to remove Old Keno's shirt, for the bullet had apparently lightly creased his back.

It was cooler here by the side of the stream which, a few feet further plumed two thousand feet into a chasm and which chilled the air in this cup. Young Moffat felt himself relaxing, beat up as he was. Old Keno missing such an obvious thing!

He took off the patched blue shirt and then rolled Keno to his face, fumbling for the wound. It was light, it was on the surface-Suddenly Moffat stared. He came halfway to his feet and still stared. He took out his pocket flash and knelt eagerly beside the fallen man. His brows knit and then began to ease. Sudden laughter sprang from his lips, rose up the scale toward hysteria and turned aside into an honest bellow. What he had endured for this! What he had endured!

Young Constable Moffat sat down in the sand and held his sides. He laughed until his shoulders shook, until his breathing pounded, until his sides caved from labored wheezing. He laughed until the

pation. "Now this wouldn't just possibly be another hot lead on U-i, would it?"

"No, no! Nothing like that!" the Co-ordinator said soothingly. In his mental file the little man was listed as "Zone Agent Iliff, Zone Thirty-six Oh-six; unrestricted utility; try not to irritate—" There was a good deal more of it, including the notation:

"U-i: The Agent's failure-shock regarding this subject has been developed over the past twelve-year period into a settled fear-fix of prime-motive proportions. The Agent may now be intrusted with the conclusion of this case, whenever the opportunity is presented."

That was no paradox to the Co-ordinator who, as Chief of the Department of Galactic Zones, was Iliff's immediate superior. He knew the peculiar qualities of his agents—and how to make the most economical use of them, while they lasted.

"It's my own opinion," he offered cheerily, "that U-i has been dead for years! Though I'll admit Correlation doesn't agree with me there."

"Correlation's often right," Iliff remarked, still watchfully. He added, "U-i appeared excessively healthy the last time I got near him!"

"Well, that was twelve standard years ago," the Co-ordinator murmured. "If he were still around, he'd have taken a bite out of us before this—a big bite! Just to tell us he doesn't think the Galaxy is quite wide enough for him and the Confederacy both. He's not the type to lie low longer than he has to." He paused. "Or do you think you might have shaken some of his supremacy ideas out of him that last time?"

"Not likely," said Iliff. The voice that came from the transmitter, the thought that carried it, were equally impassive. "He booby-trapped me good! To him it wouldn't even have seemed like a fight"

The Co-ordinator shrugged. "Well, there you are! Anyway, this isn't that kind of job at all. It's actually a rather simple assignment."

Iliff winced.

"No, I mean it! What this job takes is mostly tact—always one of your strongest points, Iliff."

The statement was not entirely true; but the Agent ignored it and the Co-ordinator went on serenely: ". . . so I've homed you full information on the case. Your ship should pick it up in an hour, but you might have questions; so here it is, in brief:

"Two weeks ago, the Bureau of Interstellar Crime sends an operative to a planet called Gull in Seventeen Eighty-two—that's a mono-planet system near Lycanno, just a bit off your present route. You been through that neighborhood before?"

Iliff blinked yellow eyes and produced a memory. "We went through Lycanno once. Seventeen or eighteen Habitables; population A-Class Human; Class D politics— How far is Gull from there?"

"Eighteen hours cruising speed, or a little less—but you're closer to it than that right now. This operative was to make positive identification of some ex-spacer called Tahmey, who'd been reported there, and dispose of him. Routine interstellar stuff, but—twenty-four hours ago, the operative sends back a message that she finds positive identification impossible . . . and that she wants a Zone Agent!"

He looked expectantly at Iliff. Both of them knew perfectly well that the execution of a retired piratical spacer was no part of a Zone Agent's job—furthermore, that every Interstellar operative was aware of the fact; and, finally, that such a request should have induced the Bureau to recall its operative for an immediate mental overhaul and several months' vacation before he or she could be risked on another job.

"Give," Iliff suggested patiently.

"The difference," the Co-ordinator explained, "is that the operative is one of our Lannai trainees!" "I see," said the Agent.

He did. The Lannai were high type humanoids and the first people of their classification to be invited to join the Vegan Confederacy—till then open only to Homo sapiens and the interesting variety of mutant branches of that old Terrestrial stock.

The invitation had been sponsored, against formidable opposition, by the Department of Galactic Zones, with the obvious intention of having the same privilege extended later to as many humanoids and other nonhuman races as could meet the Confederacy's general standards.

As usual, the Department's motive was practical enough. Its king-sized job was to keep the eighteen thousand individual civiliza-

Hons so far registered in its Zones out of as much dangerous trouble as it could, while nudging them unobtrusively, whenever the occasion was offered, just a little farther into the path of righteousness and order.

It was slow, dangerous, carefully unspectacular work, since it violated in fact and in spirit every galactic treaty of nonintervention the Confederacy had ever signed. Worst of all, it was work for which the Department was, of necessity, monstrously understaffed.

The more political systems, races and civilizations it could draw directly into the Confederacy, the fewer it would have to keep under that desperately sketchy kind of supervision. Regulations of membership in Vega's super-system were interpreted broadly, but even so they pretty well precluded any dangerous degree of deviation from the ideals that Vega championed.

And if, as a further consequence, Galactic Zones could then draw freely on the often startling abilities and talents of non-human peoples to aid in its titanic project-The Department figuratively licked its chops.

The opposition was sufficiently rooted in old racial emotions to be extremely bitter and strong. The Traditionalists, working chiefly through the Confederacy's Department of Cultures, wanted no dealings with any race which could not trace its lineage back through the long centuries to Terra itself. Nonhumans had played a significant part in the century-long savage struggles that weakened and finally shattered the first human Galactic Empire.

That mankind, as usual, had asked for it and that its grimmest and most powerful enemies were to be found nowadays among those who could and did claim the same distant Earth-parentage did not noticeably weaken the old argument, which to date had automatically excluded any other stock from membership. In the High Council of the Confederacy, the Department of Cultures, backed by a conservative majority of the Confederacy's members, had, naturally enough, tremendous influence.

Galactic Zones, however—though not one citizen in fifty thousand knew of its existence, and though its arguments could not be openly advanced—had a trifle more.

So the Lannai were in—on probation.

"As you may have surmised," the Third Co-ordinator said glumly, "the Lannai haven't exactly been breaking their necks trying to get in with us, either. In fact, their government's had to work for the alliance against almost the same degree of popular disapproval; though on the whole they seem to be a rather more reasonable sort of people than we are. Highly developed natural telepaths, you know—that always seems to make folks a little easier to get along with."

"What's this one doing in Interstellar?" Iliff inquired.

"We've placed a few Lannai in almost every department of the government by now—not, of course, in Galactic Zones! The idea is to prove, to our people and theirs, that Lannai and humans can work for the same goal, share responsibilities, and so on. To prove generally that we're natural allies."

"Has it been proved?"

"Too early to say. They're bright enough and, of course, the ones they sent us were hand-picked and anxious to make good. This Interstellar operative looked like one of the best. She's a kind of relative of the fifth ranking Lannai ruler. That's what would make it bad if it turned out she'd blown up under stress! For one thing, their pride could be hurt enough to make them bolt the alliance. But our Traditionalists certainly would be bound to hear about it, and," the Coordinator concluded heatedly, "the Coordinator of Cultures would be rising to his big feet again on the subject in Council!"

"An awkward situation, sir," Iliff sympathized, "demanding a great deal of tact. But then you have that!"

"I've got it," agreed the Coordinator, "but I'd prefer not to have to use it so much. So if you can find some way of handling that little affair on Gull discreetly— Incidentally, since you'll be just a short run then from Lycanno, there's an undesirable political trend reported building up there! They've dropped from D to H-Class politics inside of a decade. You'll find the local Agent's notes on the matter waiting for you on Gull. Perhaps you might as well skip over and fix it."

"All right," said Iliff coldly. "I won't be needed back in my own Zone for another hundred hours. Not urgently."

"Lab's got a new mind-lock for you to test," the Coordinator went on briskly. "You'll find that on Gull, too."

There was a slight pause.

"You remember, don't you," the Agent inquired gently then, as if speaking to an erring child, "what happened the last time I gave one of those gadgets a field test on a high-powered brain?"

"Yes, of course! But if this one woiks/^f the Co-ordinator pointed out, almost wistfully, "we've got something we really do need. And until I know it does work, under ultimate stresses, I can't give it general distribution. I've picked a hundred of you to try it out." He sighed. "Theoretically, it will hold a mind of any conceivable potential within that mind's own shields, under any conceivable stress, and still permit almost normal investigation. It's been checked to the limit," he concluded encouragingly, "under lab conditions—"

"They all were," Iliff recollected, without noticeable enthusiasm. "Well, I'll see what turns up."

"That's fine!" The Co-ordinator brightened visibly. He added, "we wouldn't, of course, want you to take any unnecessary risks—"

For perhaps half a minute after the visualization tank of his telepath transmitter had faded back to its normal translucent and faintly luminous green, Iliff continued to stare into it.

Back on Jeltad, the capital planet of the Confederacy, fourteen thousand light-years away, the Co-ordinator's attention was turning to some other infinitesimal-seeming but significant crisis in the Department's monstrous periphery. The chances were he would not think of Iliff again, or of Zone Seventeen Eighty-two, until IlifFs final mission report came in—or failed to come in within the period already allotted it by the Department's automatic monitors.

In either event, the brain screened by the Co-ordinator's conversational inanities would revert once more to that specific problem then, for as many unhurried seconds, minutes or, it might be, hours as it required. It was one of the three or four human brains in the galaxy for which Zone Agent Iliff had ever felt anything remotely approaching genuine respect.

"How far are we from Gull now?" he said without turning his head.

A voice seemed to form itself in the air a trifle above and behind him.

"A little over eight hours, cruising speed—"

"As soon as I get the reports off that pigeon from Jeltad, step it up so we get there in four," Iliff said. "I think I'll be ready about that time."

"The pigeon just arrived/' the voice replied. It was not loud, but it was a curiously big voice with something of the overtones of an enormous bronze gong in it. It was also oddly like a cavernous amplification of IlifFs own type of speech.

The Agent turned to a screen on his left, in which a torpedolike twenty-foot tube of metal had appeared, seemingly suspended in space and spinning slowly about its axis. Actually, it was some five miles from the ship—which was as close as it was healthy to get to a homing pigeon at the end of its voyage—and following it at the ship's exact rate of speed, though it was driven by nothing except an irresistible urge to get to its "roost," the pattern of which had been stamped in its molecules. The roost was on IlifFs ship, but the pigeon would never get there. No one knew just what sort of sub-dimensions it flashed through on its way to its objective or what changes were wrought on it before it reappeared, but early experiments with the gadget had involved some highly destructive explosions at its first contact with any solid matter in normal space.

So now it was held by barrier at a safe distance while its contents were duplicated within the ship. Then something lethal flickered from the ship to the pigeon and touched it; and it vanished with no outward indication of violence.

For a time, Iliff became immersed in the dossiers provided both by Interstellar and his own department. The ship approached and presently drove through the boundaries of Zone Seventeen Eighty-two, and the big voice murmured: "Three hours to Gull."

"All right," Iliff said, still absently. "Let's eat."

Nearly another hour passed before he spoke again. "Send her this. Narrow-beam telepath—Gull itself should be close enough, I think. If you can get it through—"

He stood up, yawned, stretched and bent, and straightened again.

"You know," he remarked suddenly, "I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the old girl wasn't so wacky, after all. What I mean is," he explained, "she really might need a Zone Agent!"

"Is it going to be another unpredictable mission?" the voice inquired.

"Aren't they always—when the man picks them for us? What was that?"

There was a moment's silence. Then the voice told him, "She's got your message. She'll be expecting you."

"Fast!" Iliff said approvingly. "Now listen. On Gull, we shall be old Trader Casselmath with his stock of exotic and expensive perfumes. So get yourself messed up for the part—but don't spill any of the stuff, this time!"

The suspect's name was Deel. For the past ten years he had been a respected—and respectable—citizen and merchant of the mono-planet System of Gull. He was supposed to have come there from his birthplace, Number Four of the neighboring System of Lycanno.

But the microstructural plates the operative made of him proved he was the pirate Tahmey who, very probably, had once been a middling big shot among the ill-famed Ghant Spacers. The Bureau of Interstellar Crime had him on record; and it was a dogma of criminology that microstructural identification was final and absolute—that the telltale patterns could not be duplicated, concealed, or altered to any major degree without killing the organism.

The operative's people, however, were telepaths, and she was an adept, trained in the widest and most intensive use of the faculty. For a Lannai it was natural to check skeptically, in her own manner, the mechanical devices of another race.

If she had not been an expert she would have been caught then, on her first approach. The mind she attempted to tap was guarded.

By whom or what was a question she did not attempt to answer immediately. There were several of these watchdogs, of varying degrees of ability. Her thought faded away from the edge of their watchfulness before their attention was drawn to it. It slid past them and insinuated itself deftly through the crude electronic thought-shields used by Tahmey. Such shields were a popular commercial article, designed to protect men with only an average degree of mental training against the ordinary telepathic prowler and entirely effective for that purpose. Against her manner of intrusion they were of no use at all.

But it was a shock to discover then that she was in no way within the mind of Tahmey! This was, in literal fact, the mind of the man named Deel—for the past ten years a citizen of Gull, before that of the neighboring System of Lycanno.

The fact was, to her at least, quite as indisputable as the micro-structural evidence that contradicted it. This was not some clumsily linked mass of artificial memory tracts and habit traces, but a living, matured mental personality. It showed few signs of even as much psychosurgery as would be normal in a man of Deel's age and circumstances.

But if it was Deel, why should anyone keep a prosperous, reasonably honest and totally insignificant planeteer under telepathic surveillance? She considered investigating the unknown watchers, but the aura of cold, implacable alertness she had sensed in her accidental near-contact with them warned her not to force her luck too far.

"After all," she explained apologetically, "I had no way of estimating their potential."

"No," Iliff agreed, "you hadn't. But I don't think that was what stopped you."

The Lannai operative looked at him steadily for a moment. Her name was Pagadan and, though no more human than a jellyfish, she was to human eyes an exquisitely designed creature. It was rather startling to realize that her Interstellar dossier described her as a combat-type mind—which implied a certain ruthlessness, at the very least—and also that she had been sent to Gull to act, among other things, as an executioner.

"Now what did you mean by that?" she inquired, on a note of friendly wonder.

"I meant," Iliff said carefully, "that I'd now like to hear all the little details you didn't choose to tell Interstellar. Let's start with your trip to Lycannol"

"Oh, I see!" Pagadan said. "Yes, I went to Lycanno, of course—" She smiled suddenly and became with that, he thought, extraordinarily beautiful, though the huge silvery eyes with their squared black irises, which widened or narrowed flickeringly with every change of mood or shift of light, did not conform exactly to any standard human ideal. No more did her hair, a silver-shimmering fluffy crest of something like feathers—but the general effect, Iliff decided, remained somehow that of a remarkably attractive human woman in permanent fancy dress.

"You're a clever little man, Zone Agent," she said thoughtfully. "I believe I might as well be frank with you. If I'd reported everything I know about this case—though for reasons I shall tell you I really found out very little—the Bureau would almost certainly have recalled me. They show a maddening determination to see that I shall come to no harm while working for them." She looked at him doubtfully. "You understand that, simply because I'm a Lannai, I'm an object of political importance just now?" Iliff nodded.

"Very well. I discovered in Lycanno that the case was a little more than I could handle alone!" She shivered slightly, the black irises flaring wide with what was probably reminiscent fright.

"But I did not want to be recalled. My people," she said a little coldly, "will accept the proposed alliance only if they are to share in your enterprises and responsibilities. They do not wish to be shielded or protected, and it would have a poor effect on them if they learned that we, their first representatives among you, had been relieved of our duties whenever they threatened to involve us in personal danger!"

"I see," Iliff said seriously, remembering that she was royalty of a sort, or the Lannai equivalent of it. He shook his head. "The Bureau," he said, "must have quite a time with you!"

Pagadan stared and laughed. "No doubt they find me a little difficult at times. Still, I do know how to take orders! But in this case it seemed more important to make sure I was not going to be protected again than to appear reasonable and co-operative. So I made use, for the first time, of my special status in the Bureau and insisted that a Zone Agent be sent here. However, I can assure you that the case has developed into an undertaking that actually will require a Zone Agent's peculiar abilities and equipment!"

"Well," Iliff shrugged, "it worked and here I am, abilities, equipment and all. What was it you found on Lycanno?"

There was considerable evidence to show that, during the years Tahmey was on record as having been about his criminal activities in space, the man named Deel was living quietly on the fourth planet of the Lycanno System, rarely even venturing beyond its atmospheric limits because of a pronounced and distressing liability to the psychosis of space-fear,

Pagadan gathered this evidence partly from official records, partly and in much greater detail from the unconscious memories of some two hundred people who had been more or less intimately connected with Deel. The investigation appeared to establish his previous existence in Lycanno beyond all reasonable doubt. It did nothing to explain why it should have become merged fantastically with the physical appearance of the pirate Tahmey.

This Deel was remembered as a big, blond, healthy man, good-natured and shrewd, the various details of his features and personality blurred or exaggerated by the untrained perceptions of those who remembered him. The description, particularly after this lapse of time, could have fitted Tahmey just as well—or just as loosely.

It was as far as she could go along that line. Officialdom was lax in Lycanno, and the precise identification of individual citizens by microstructural images or the like was not practiced. Deel had been born there, matured there, become reasonably successful. Then his business was destroyed by an offended competitor, and it was indicated to him that he would not be permitted to re-establish himself in the System.

He had business connections on Gull; and after undergoing a lengthy and expensive conditioning period against the effects of space-fear, he ventured to make the short trip, and was presently working himself back to a position comfortably near the top on Gull.

That was all. Except that—somewhere along the line—his overall physical resemblance to Tahmey had shifted into absolute physical identity . . .

"I realize, of course, that the duplication of a living personality in another body is considered almost as impossible as the existence of a microstructural double. But it does seem that Tahmey-Deel has to be one or the other!"

"Or," Iliff grunted, "something we haven't thought of yet. This is beginning to look more and more like one of those cases I'd like to forget. Well, what did you do?"

"If there was a biopsychologist in the Lycanno System who had secretly developed a method of personality transfer in some form or other, he was very probably a man of considerable eminence in that line of work. I began to screen the minds of persons likely to know of such a man."

"Did you find him?"

She shook her head and grimaced uncomfortably. "He found me —at least, I think we can assume it was he! I assembled some promising leads, a half dozen names in all, and then—I find this difficult to describe—from one moment to another I knew I was being ..« sought... by another mind. By a mind of quite extraordinary power, which seemed fully aware of my purpose, of the means I was employing—in fact, of everything except my exact whereabouts at the moment. It was intended to shock me into revealing that—simply by showing me, with that jolting abruptness, how very close I stood to being caught!" "And you didn't reveal yourself?"

"No," she laughed nervously. "But I went 'akaba' instead! I was under it for three days and well on my way back to Gull when I came out of it—as a passenger on a commercial ship! Apparently, I had abandoned my own ship on Lycanno and conducted my escape faultlessly and without hesitation. Successfully, at any rate— But I remember nothing, of course!"

"That was a quite a Brain chasing you then!" Iliff nodded slowly. The akaba condition was a disconcerting defensive trick which had been played on him on occasion by members of other telepathic races. The faculty was common to most of them; completely involuntary, and affected the pursuer more or less as if he had been closing in on a glow of mental light and suddenly saw that light vanish without a trace.

The Departmental Lab's theory was that under the stress of a psychic attack which was about to overwhelm the individual tele-path, a kind of racial Overmind took over automatically and conducted its member-mind's escape from the emergency, if that was at all possible, with complete mechanical efficiency before restoring it to awareness of itself. It was only a theory since the Overmind, if it existed, left no slightest traces of its work—except the brief void of one of the very few forms of complete and irreparable amnesia known. For some reason, as mysterious as the rest of it, the Overmind never intervened if the threatened telepath had been physically located by the pursuer.

They stared at each other thoughtfully for a moment, then smiled at the same instant.

"Do you believe now," Pagadan challenged, "that this task is worthy of the efforts of a Vegan Zone Agent and his shipload of specialists?"

"I've been afraid of that right along," Iliff said without enthusiasm. "But look, you seem to know a lot more about Galactic Zones than you're really supposed to. Like that business about our shipload of specialists—that kind of information is to be distributed only 'at or above Zone Agent levels/ Where did you pick it up?"

"On Jeltad—above Zone Agent levels," Pagadan replied undisturbed. "Quite a bit above, as a matter of fact! The occasion was social. And now that I've put you in your place when do you intend to investigate Deel? I've become casually acquainted with him and could arrange a meeting at almost any time."

Iliff rubbed his chin. "Well, as to that," he said, "Trader Casselmath dropped in to see a few of Deel's business associates immediately after landing today. They were quite fascinated by the samples of perfume he offered them—he does carry an excellent line of the stuff, you know, though rather high-priced. So Deel turned up too, finally. You'll be interested to hear he's using a new kind of mind-shield now/'

She was not surprised. "They were warned, naturally, from Lycanno. The mentality there knew I had been investigating Deel."

"Well, it shows the Brain wasn't able to identify you too closely, because they're waiting for you to pick up your research at this end again! The shield was hair-triggered to give off some kind of alarm. Old Casselmath couldn't be expected to recognize that, of course! He took a poke at it, innocently enough—just trying to find out how far Deel and company could be swindled."

She leaned forward, eyes gleaming black with excitement. "What happened?"

Iliff shrugged. "Nothing at all obvious. But somebody did come around almost immediately to look Casselmath over. In fact, they pulled his simple mind pretty well wide open, though the old boy never noticed it. Then they knew he was harmless and went away."

Pagadan frowned faintly.

"No," Iliff said, "it wasn't the Brain! These were stooges, though clever ones—probably the same that were on guard when you probed Tahmey-Deel the first time. But they've been alerted now, and I don't think we could do any more investigating around Deel without being spotted. After your experience on Lycanno, it seems pretty likely that the answers are all there, anyway."

She nodded slowly. "That's what I think. So we go to Lycanno!"

Iliff shook his head. "Just one of us goes," he corrected her. And before her flash of resentment could be voiced he added smoothly, "That's for my own safety as much as for yours. The Brain must have worked out a fairly exact pattern of your surface mentality by now; you couldn't get anywhere near him without being discovered. If we're together, that means I'm discovered, too!"

She thought it over, shrugged very humanly and admitted, "I suppose you're right. What am I to do?"

"You're to keep a discreet watch—a very discreet watch—on Deel and his guardians! How Deel manages to be Tahmey, or part of him. at the same time is something the Brain's going to have to explain to us; and if he has a guilty conscience, as he probably has, he may decide to let the evidence disappear. In that case, try to keep a line on where they take Deel—but don't, under any circumstances, take any direct action until I get back from Lycanno."

The black-and-silver eyes studied him curiously. "Isn't that likely to be quite a while?" Pagadan inquired—with such nice control that he almost overlooked the fact that this politically important nonhuman hothead was getting angry again.

"From what we know now of the Brain, he sounds like one of

our tougher citizens," he admitted. "Well, yes____ I might be gone

all of two days!"

There was a moment of rather tense silence. Then Iliff murmured approvingly:

"See now! I just knew you could brake down on that little old temperament!"

The Lannai released her breath. "I only hope you're half as good as you think," she said weakly. "But I am almost ready to believe you will do it in two days."

"Oh, I will," Iliff assured her, "with my shipload of specialists." He stood up and looked down at her unsmiling. "So now if you'll give me the information you gathered on those top biopsycholo-gists in Lycanno, I'll be starting."

She nodded amiably. "There are two things I should like to ask you though, before you go. The one is—why have you been trying to probe through my mind-shields all evening?"

"It's a good thing to find out as much as you can about the people you meet in this business," Iliff said without embarrassment. "So many of them aren't really nice. But your shields are remarkably tough. I got hardly any information at all."

Tou got nothing!" she said flatly, startled into contradiction.

"Oh, yes. Just a little—when you were giving me that lecture about the Lannai being a proud people and not willing to be protected, and all that. For a moment there you were off guard—"

He brought the captured thought slowly from his mind: the picture of a quiet, dawnlit city—seas of sloping, ivory-tinted roofs, and towers slender against a flaming sky.

"That is Lar-Sancaya the Beautiful—my city, my home-planet," Pagadan said. "Yes, that was my thought. I remember it now!" She laughed. "You are a clever little man, Zone Agent! What information was in that for you?"

Iliff shrugged. He still showed the form of old Casselmath, the fat, unscrupulous little Terran trader whose wanderings through the galaxy coincided so often with the disappearance of undesirable but hitherto invulnerable citizens, with the inexplicable diversion of belligerent political trends, and the quiet toppling of venal governments. A space-wise, cynical, greedy but somehow ridiculous figure. Very few people ever took Casselmath seriously.

"Well, for one thing that the Lannai are patriots," he said gloomily. "That makes them potentially dangerous, of course. On the whole, Fm rather glad you're on our side."

She grinned cheerfully. "So am I—on the whole. But now, if you'll forgive a touch of malice, which you've quite definitely earned, I'd like the answer to my second question. And that is— what sent that little shock through your nerves when I referred to Tahmey's probable connection with the Ghant Spacers a while ago?"

Old Casselmath rubbed the side of his misformed nose reflectively.

"It's a long, sad story," he said. "But if you want to know-some years back, I set out to nail down the boss of that outfit, the great U-i, no less! That was just after the Confederacy managed to break up the Ghant fleet, you remember— Well, I finally thought I'd got close enough to him to try a delicate probe at his mind—ugh!"

"I gather you bounced!"

"Not nearly fast enough to suit me. The big jerk knew I was after him all the time, and he'd set up a mind-trap for me. Mechanical and highly powered! I had to be helped out of it, and then I was psychoed for six months before I was fit to go back to work.

"That was a long time ago," Casselmath concluded sadly. "But when it comes to U-i, or the Ghant Spacers, or anything at all connected with them, I've just never been the same since!"

Pagadan studied her shining nails and smiled sweetly.

"Zone Agent Iliff, I shall bring you the records you want—and you may then run along! From now on, of course, I know exactly what to do to make you jump/"

He sat bulky and expressionless at his desk, raking bejeweled fingers slowly through his beard—a magnificent, fan-shaped beard, black, glossy and modishly curled. His eyes were as black as the beard but so curiously lusterless he was often thought to be blind.

For the first time in a long, long span of years, he was remembering the meaning of fear.

But the alien thought had not followed him into the Dome— at least, he could trust his protective devices here! He reached into a section of the flowing black outer garments he wore, and produced a silvery, cone-shaped device. Placing the little amplifier carefully on the desk before him, he settled back in his chair, crossed his hands on his large stomach and half-closed his eyes.

Almost immediately the recorded nondirectional thought impulses began. So faint, so impersonal, that even now when he could study their modified traces at leisure, when they did not fade away the instant his attention turned to them, they defied analysis except of the most general kind. And yet the unshielded part of his mind had responded to them, automatically and stupidly, for almost an hour before he realized—

Long enough to have revealed—almost anything!

The gems on his hand flashed furious fire as he whipped the amplifier off the desk and sent it smashing against the wall of the room. It shattered with a tiny crackle and dropped to the floor where a spray of purple sparks popped hissing from its crumpled surfaces and subsided again. The thought-impulses were stilled.

The black-bearded man glared down at the broken amplifier. Then, by almost imperceptible degrees, his expression began to change. Presently, he was laughing silently.

No matter how he had modified and adapted this human brain for his purpose, it remained basically what it had been when he first possessed himself of it! Whenever he relaxed his guidance, it reverted automatically to the old levels of emotional reaction.

agent of vega 191

critically at his fingernails. "Normally, I should simply have made its achievement impossible, without letting you find out what had gone wrong. But as things stand, I'm afraid I shall be obliged to dispense with you entirely. I regret it, in a way. Our association has been a useful and amusing one—to me, at least! But, well—' He shook his head.

"Even I make mistakes!" he admitted frankly. "And recent events have made it clear that it was a mistake to involve somewhat ordinary human beings as deeply in my experiments and plans as I involved you—and also that companion of yours, whose absence here may have caused you to speculate. He," the Psychologist explained good-naturedly, "will outlive you by a day or so!" He smiled. "Oddly enough, his brief continued usefulness to me is due to the fact that he is by far the least intelligent of you —so that I had really debated the advisability of dropping him from our little circle before this!"

His smile broadened invitingly, but he showed no resentment when none of the chalk-faced, staring puppets before him joined in his amusement.

"Well," he beamed, "enough of this! There are minds on our track who seem capable of reaching you through any defense I can devise. Obviously, I cannot take that risk! Your friend, however, will live long enough to introduce me to one of these minds —another one of your ever-surprising species—who should eventually be of far greater value to me than any of you could hope to be. Perhaps even as valuable as the person you know as Tahmey! Let that thought console you in your last moments—which," he concluded, glancing at a pearly oblong that was acquiring a shimmering visibility in the wall behind the four Lycannese, "are now at hand!"

Two solidly built men came into the room through the oblong, saluted, and waited.

The black-bearded one gave them a genial nod and jerked his thumb in the general direction of the motionless little group of his disposed associates.

"Strangle those four," he said, "in turn—"

He looked on for a few moments but then grew bored. Rising from the couch, he walked slowly toward one of the six walls of the room. It began to turn transparent as he approached, and when he stood before it the port-city of Lycanno IV, the greatest city in the Lycannese System, was clearly visible a few thousand feet below.

He gazed down at the scene almost affectionately, savoring a mood of rich self-assurance. For he was, as he had just now proved once more, the city's absolute master—master of the eight million human beings who lived there; of the two billion on the planet; of the sixteen billion in the System. Not for years had his mastery been seriously challenged!

His lusterless black eyes shifted slowly to Lycanno's two suns, moving now toward their evening horizon. Scattered strategically through the galaxy, nearly a thousand such suns lighted as many planetary systems, each of which was being gathered slowly into a Ceetal's grasp. The black-bearded man did not entertain the delusion that Lycanno by itself was an important conquest—no more than each of those other fractional human civilizations. But when the time came finally—

He permitted himself to lapse into a reverie of galactic conquest. But curiously, it was now the human brain and mind which indulged itself in this manner. The parasite remained lightly detached, following the imaginings without being affected by them, alert for some new human foible which it might turn some day to Ceetal profit.

It was, the Ceetal realized again, an oddly complicated organism, the human one! His host fully understood the relationship between them, and his own subordinate part in the Ceetal's plans. Yet he never let himself become conscious of the situation and frequently appeared to feel an actual identity with the parasite. It was strange such a near-maniac species could have gained so dominant a position in this galaxy!

There was a sudden minor commotion in the center of the room, harsh snoring sounds and then a brief, frenzied drumming of heels on the carpeted floor.

"You are getting careless," the Psychologist said coldly, without turning his head. "Such things can be done quietly!"

The small yellow-faced man with the deep-set amber eyes drew a good number of amused and curious stares during the two days he was registered at the Old Lycannese Hotel.

He expected nothing else. Even in such sophisticated and galactic-minded surroundings, his appearance was fantastic to a rather indecent degree. The hairless dome of his head sloped down comically into a rounded snout. He was noseless and apparently earless, and in animated moments his naked yellow scalp would twitch vigorously like the flanks of some vermin-bitten beast.

However, the Old Lycannese harbored a fair selection of similarly freakish varieties of humanity within its many-storied walls—mutant humanity from worlds that were, more often than not, only nameless symbols on any civilized star-map. Side by side with them, indistinguishable to the average observer, representatives of the rarer humanoid species also came and went—on the same quest of profitable trade with Lycanno.

The yellow-faced man's grotesqueness, therefore, served simply to classify him. It satisfied curiosity almost as quickly as it drew attention; and no one felt urged to get too sociable with such a freak. Whether mutant human or humanoid, he was, at any rate, solvent and had shown a taste for quiet luxury. The hotel saw that he got what he wanted, pocketed his money and bothered its managerial head no further about him.

This curiosity-distracting effect, the yellow-faced man considered, as he strolled across the ground-floor lobby, was almost as satisfactory when it was applied to those who had reason to take a much sharper practical interest in any stranger! Two members of the Psychologist's bodyguard, behind whom he was heading toward an open elevator which led to the roof-terraces, had scrutinized him swiftly in passing a moment before—but only long enough to re-establish his identity beyond any doubt. They had checked that in detail the previous day—a Talpu, Humanoid, from a system of the Twenty-eighth Median Cluster, dealing in five varieties of gems—three of them previously unknown to Lycanno. Queer-looking little duck, but quite harmless.

The Psychologist's bodyguard took few chances, but they were not conditioned to look for danger in so blatantly obvious a shape.

The Psychologist himself, whose dome-shaped dwelling topped one section of the Old Lycannese Hotel, was taking no chances at all these days. From the center of the moving cluster of his henchmen he gave the trailing humanoid's mind a flicking probe and encountered a mind-shield no different than was to be expected in a traveler with highly valuable commercial secrets to preserve— a shield he could have dissolved in an instant with hardly any effort at all.

However, so sudden an operation would have entailed leaving a small yellow maniac gibbering in agony on the floor of the lobby behind him—a complication he preferred to avoid in public. He dropped the matter from his thoughts, contemptuously. He knew of the Talpu—a base, timid race, unfit even for slavery.

A secondary and very different shield, which the more obvious first one had concealed from the Psychologist's probe, eased cautiously again in the yellow-faced man's mind, while the Talpu surface thoughts continued their vague quick traceries over both shields, unaffected either by the probe or by the deeper reaction it had aroused.

As the Psychologist's group reached the automatic elevator, the humanoid was almost side by side with its rearmost members and only a few steps behind the dignitary himself. There the party paused briefly while one of the leading guards scanned the empty compartment, and then stood aside to let the Psychologist enter. That momentary hesitation was routine procedure. The yellow-faced man had calculated with it, and he did not pause with the rest—though it was almost another half-second before any of the Psychologist's watch-dogs realized that something had just passed with a shadowy unobtrusiveness through their ranks.

By then, it was much too late. The great man had just stepped ponderously into the elevator; and the freakish little humanoid, now somehow directly behind him, was entering on his heels.

Simultaneously, he performed two other motions, almost casually.

As his left hand touched the switch that started the elevator on its way to the roof, a wall of impalpable force swung up and outwards from the floor-sill behind him, checking the foremost to hurl themselves at this impossible intruder—much more gently than if they had run into a large feather cushion but also quite irresistibly. The hotel took no chances of having its patrons injured on its premises; so the shocked bodyguards simply found themselves standing outside the elevator again before they realized it had flashed upward into its silvery shaft.

As it began to rise, the yellow-faced man completed his second motion. This was to slip a tiny hypodermic needle into the back of the Psychologist's neck and depress its plunger.

One could not. of course, openly abduct the system's most influential citizen without arousing a good deal of hostile excitement. But he had, Iliff calculated, when the elevator stopped opposite his apartments near the top of the huge hotel, a margin of nearly thirty seconds left to complete his getaway before any possible counterattack could be launched. There was no need to hurry.

A half dozen steps took him from the elevator into his rooms, the Psychologist walking behind him with a look of vague surprise on his bearded face. Another dozen steps brought the two out to an open-air platform where a rented fast planecar was waiting.

At sixty thousand feet altitude, Iliff checked the spurt of their vertical ascent and turned north. The land was darkening with evening about the jewellike sparkle of clustered seaboard cities, but up here the light of Lycanno's primary sun still glittered greenly from the car's silver walls. The speeding vehicle was shielded for privacy from all but official spy-rays, and for several more minutes he would have no reason to fear those. Meanwhile, any aerial pursuer who could single him out from among the myriad similar cars streaming into and out of the port city at that hour would be very good indeed.

Stripping the vivo-gel masks carefully from his head and hands, he dropped the frenziedly twitching half-alive stuff into the depository beside his seat where the car's jets would destroy it.

The Psychologist sat, hunched forward and docile, beside him —dull black eyes staring straight ahead. Up to this point, the new Vegan mind-lock was conforming to the Third Coordinator's expectations.

Interrogation of the prisoner took place in a small valley off the coast of an uninhabited island, in the subpolar regions. A dozen big snake-necked carnivores scattered from the carcass of a still larger thing on which they had been feeding as the planecar settled down; and their snuffing and baffled howls provided a background for the further proceedings which Iliff found grimly fitting. He had sent out a fear-impulse adjusted to the beast-pack's primitive sensation-level, which kept them prowling helplessly along the rim of a hundred-yard circle.

In the center of this circle Iliff sat cross-legged on the ground, watching the Quizzer go about its business.

The Quizzer was an unbeautiful two-foot cube of machine. Easing itself with delicate ruthlessness through the Psychologist's mental defenses, it droned its findings step by step into Iliff's mind. He could have done the work without its aid, since the shield had never been developed that could block a really capable investigator if he was otherwise unhampered. But it would have taken a great deal longer; and at best he did not expect to have more time than he needed to extract the most vital points of information. Besides, he lacked the Quizzer's sensitivity; if he was hurried, there was a definite risk of doing irreparable injury to the mind under investigation—at that stage, he hadn't been able to decide whether or not it would be necessary to kill the Psychologist.

The second time the Quizzer contacted the Ceetal, he knew. The little robot reported an alien form of awareness which came and went through the Quizzer's lines of search as it chose and was impossible to localize.

"It is the dominant consciousness in this subject. But it is connected with the organism only through the other one."

The Quizzer halted again. It was incapable of surprise or confusion, but when it could not classify what it found it stopped reporting. It was bothered, too, by the effects of the mind-lock— an innovation to which it was not adjusted. The chemical acted directly on the shields, freezing those normally flexible defensive patterns into interlocked nets of force which isolated the energy centers of the nervous system that produced them.

"Give me anything you get on it!" Iliff urged.

The machine still hesitated. And then:

"It thinks that if it could break the force you call the mind-lock and energize the organism it could kill you instantly. But it is afraid that it would cause serious injury to the organism in doing so. Therefore it is willing to wait until its friends arrive and destroy you. It is certain that this will happen very quickly now."

Iliff grunted. That was no news to him, but it gave him an ugly thrill nevertheless. He'd found it necessary to cut his usual hit-and-run tactics very fine for this job; and so far he had got nothing he could use out of it.

"Does this primary consciousness/' he inquired, "know what you're trying to do and what you're telling me?"

"It knows what I'm trying to do/' the machine responded promptly. "It does not know that I'm telling you anything. It is aware of your presence and purpose but it can receive no sense impression of any kind. It can only think."

"Good enough/' Iliff nodded. "It can't interfere with your activity then?"

"Not while the mind-lock keeps it from arousing its energy sources."

"What of the other one—the human consciousness?"

"That one is somnolent and completely helpless. It is barely aware of what is occurring and has made no attempt to interfere. It is only the mind-lock that blocks my approach to the information you require. If you could dissolve that force, there would be no difficulty."

Iliff wasted a baleful look on his squat assistant. "Except," he pointed out, "that I'd get killed!"

"Undoubtedly," the machine agreed with idiotic unconcern. "The energy centers of this organism are overdeveloped to an extent which, theoretically, should have drained it of its life-forces many years ago. It appears that the alien consciousness is responsible both for the neural hypertrophy and for the fact that the organism as a whole has been successfully adapted to meet the resultant unnatural stresses—"

Towards the end of the next half-hour, the pattern of information finally began to take definite shape—a shape that made Iliff increasingly anxious to get done with the job. But which showed also that the Third Co-ordinator's hunch had been better than he knew!

Lycanno was long overdue for a Zone Agent's attentions.

He should, he supposed, have been elated; instead, he was sweating and shivering, keyed to nightmarish tensions. Theoretically, the mind-lock might be unbreakable, but the Ceetal, for one, did not believe it. It did fear that to shatter lock and shields violently might destroy its host and thereby itself; so far, that had kept it from making the attempt. That, and the knowledge it shared with its captor—that they could not remain undiscovered much longer.

But at each new contact, the Quizzer unemotionally reported an increase in the gathering fury and alarm with which the parasite observed the progress of the investigation. It had been coldly contemptuous at first; then the realization came slowly that vital secrets were being drawn, piece by piece, from the drugged human mind to which it was linked—and that it could do nothing to check the process!

By now, it was dangerously close to utter frenzy, and for many minutes Iliff's wrist-gun had been trained on the hunched and motionless shape of the Psychologist. Man and Ceetal would die on the spot if necessary. But even in its death-spasms, he did not want to be in the immediate neighborhood of that mind and the powers it could unleash if it broke loose. Time and again, he drew the Quizzer back from a line of investigation that seemed too likely to provide the suicidal impulse. Other parts of the pattern had been gained piecemeal, very circumstantially.

It was tight, carefully balanced work. However, there were only a few more really important points left now. There might be just time enough—

Iliff jerked upright as a warning blared from an automatic detector he had installed in the planecar the day before, raising a chorus of furious carnivore yells from the rim of the hundred-yard fear-circle.

"Two planetary craft approaching at low cruising speeds," it detailed. "Sector fourteen, distance eighty-five miles, altitude nineteen miles. Surface and psyche scanners are being used."

And, an instant later:

"You have been discovered/"

The rescuers were several minutes earlier than he'd actually expected. But the warning gave him the exact margin required for his next action, and the uncertainty and tension vanished from his mind.

He snapped a command to the Quizzer:

"Release the subject—then destroy yourself!"

Freed from invisible tentacles, the Psychologist's body rolled clumsily forward to the turf, and at once came stumbling to its feet. Behind it, the Quizzer flared up briefly in a shower of hissing sparks, collapsed, liquefied, and fused again into metallic formlessness.

Seconds later, Iliff had lifted the planecar over the valley's tree-top level. The vehicle's visiglobe was focused locally—every section of the dark little valley appeared as distinct in it as if flooded with brilliant daylight. Near its center, the figure of the Psychologist was groping through what to him was near-complete blackness down into the open ground. Whether the alien mind understood that its men had arrived and was attempting to attract their attention, Iliff would never know.

It did not matter, now. The planecar's concealed guns were trained on that figure; and his finger was on the trigger-stud.

But he did not fire. Gliding out from under the trees, the lean, mottled shapes of the carnivore-pack had appeared in the field of the globe. Forgetting the intangible barrier of fear as quickly as it ceased to exist, they scuttled back toward their recently abandoned feast—and swerved, in a sudden new awareness, to converge upon the man-form that stumbled blindly about near it.

Iliff grimaced faintly, spun the visiglobe to wide-range focus and sent the planecar hurtling over the shoreline into the sea. The maneuver would shield him from the surface scanners of the nearest pursuers and give him a new and now urgently needed head-start.

It would please his scientific colleagues back on Jeltad, he knew, to hear that the Ceetal had been mistaken about the strength of their mind-lock! For the brief seconds it survived in the center of the ravening mottled pack, that malevolent intellect must have put forth every effort to break free and destroy its attackers.

It had been quite unsuccessful.

Near dawn, in the fifth-largest city of Lycanno IV, a smallish military gentleman proceeded along the docks of a minor space port towards a large, slow-looking, but apparently expensive craft he had registered there two days before. Under one arm he carried a bulging brief case of the openly spy-proof type employed by officials of the Terran embassy.

The burden did not detract in the least from his air of almost belligerent dignity—an attitude which still characterized most citizens of ancient Earth in the afterglow of her glory. The ship he approached was surrounded by a wavering, globular sheen of light, like a cluster of multiple orange halos, warning dock attendants and the idly curious from coming within two hundred feet of it.

Earthmen were notoriously jealous of their right to privacy.

The military gentleman, whose size was his only general point of resemblance to either Iliff or the yellow-faced man who had been a guest of the Old Lycannese Hotel not many hours earlier, walked into the area of orange fire without hesitation. From the ship, a brazen, inhuman voice boomed instantly at him, both audibly and in mental shock-waves that would have rocked the average intruder back like a blow in the face:

"Withdraw at once! This vessel is shielded from investigation in accordance with existing regulations. Further unauthorized advance into the area defined by the light-barrier—"

The voice went silent suddenly. Then it continued, subvocally:

"You are being observed from a strato-station. Nothing else to report. We can leave immediately."

In the strato-station, eighty miles above, a very young, sharp-faced fleet lieutenant was turning to his captain:

"Couldn't that be-?"

The captain gave him a sardonic, worldly-wise smile.

"No, Junior," he said mildly, "that could not be. That, as you should recall, is Colonel Perritaph, recently attached to the Terran Military Commission. We checked him through this port yesterday morning. But," he added, "we're going to have a little fun with the colonel. As soon as he's ready to take off, he'll drop that light-barrier. When he does, spear him with a tractor and tell him he's being held for investigation, because there's a General Emergency out!"

"Why not do it now? Oh!"

"You catch on, Junior—you do catch on!" his superior approved tolerantly. "No light-barrier is to be monkeyed with, ever! Poking a tractor-beam into one may do no harm. On the other hand, it may blow up the ship, the docks, or, just possibly, our cozy little station up here—all depending on what stuff happens to be set how! But once the colonel's inside and has the crate under control, he's not going to blow up anything, even if we do hurt his tender Terran feelings a bit."

"That way we find out what he's got in the ship, diplomatic immunity or not/' the lieutenant nodded, trying to match the captain's air of weary omniscience.

"We're not interested in what's in the ship," the captain said softly, abashing him anew. "Terra's a couple of hundred years behind us in construction and armaments—always was!" This was not strictly true; but the notion was a popular one in Lycanno, which had got itself into a brief, thunderous argument with the aging Mother of Galactic Mankind five hundred years before and limped for a century and a half thereafter. The unforeseen outcome had, of course, long since been explained—rotten luck and Terran treachery—and the whole regrettable incident was not often mentioned nowadays.

But, for a moment, the captain glowered down in the direction of the distant spaceport, unaware of what moved him to malice.

"We'll just let him squirm around a bit and howl for his rights," he murmured. "They're so beautifully sensitive about those precious privileges!"

There was a brief pause while both stared at the bulky-looking ship in their globe.

"Wonder what that G.E. really went out for," the lieutenant ventured presently.

"To catch one humanoid ape—as described!" the captain grinned. Then he relented. "I'll tell you one thing—it's big enough that they've put out the Fleet to blast anyone who tries to sneak off without being identified!"

The lieutenant tried to look as if that explained it, but failed. Then he brightened and announced briskly: "The guy's barrier just went off!"

"All right. Give him the tractor!"

"It's-"

Up from the dock area then, clearly audible through their instruments, there rose a sound: a soft but tremendous WHOOSH! The cradle in which the slow-looking ship had rested appeared to quiver violently. Nothing else changed. But the ship was no longer there.

In white-faced surprise, the lieutenant goggled at the captain. "Did ... did it blow up?" he whispered.

The captain did not answer. The captain had turned purple, and seemed to be having the worst kind of trouble getting his breath.

"Took off—under space-drive/" he gasped suddenly. "How'd he do that without wrecking— With a tractor on him!"

He whirled belatedly, and flung himself at the communicators. Gone was his aplomb, gone every trace of worldly-wise weariness.

"Station 1222 calling Fleet!" he yelped. "Station 1222 calling—"

While Lycanno's suns shrank away in the general-view tank before him, Iliff rapidly sorted the contents of his brief case into a small multiple-recorder. It had been a busy night—to those equipped to read the signs the Fourth Planet must have seemed boiling like a hive of furious bees before it was over! But he'd done most of what had seemed necessary, and the pursuit never really got within minutes of catching up with him again.

When the excitement died down, Lycanno would presently discover it had become a somewhat cleaner place overnight. For a moment, Iliff wished he could be around when the real Colonel Perritaph began to express his views on the sort of police inefficiency which had permitted an impostor to make use of his name and position in the System.

Terra's embassies were always ready to give a representative of the Confederacy a helping hand, and no questions asked; just as in any all-out war, its tiny, savage fleet was regularly found fighting side by side with the ships of Vega—though never exactly together with them. Terra was no member of the Confederacy; it was having no foreigners determine its policies. On the whole, the Old Planet had not changed so very much.

When Iliff set down the empty brief case, the voice that had addressed him on his approach to the ship spoke again. As usual, it was impossible to say from just where it came; but it seemed to boom out of the empty air a little above Iliff's head. In spite of its curious resemblance to his own voice, most people would have identified it now as the voice of a robot.

Which it was—for its size the most complicated robot-type the science of Vega and her allies had yet developed.

"Two armed space-craft, Lycannese destroyer-type, attempting interception!" it announced. After the barest possible pause, it added: "Instructions?"

Iliff grinned a little without raising his head. No one else would

agentofvega ' 203

have noticed anything unusual in the stereotyped warning, but he had been living with that voice for some fifteen years.

"Evasion, of course, you big ape!" he said softly. "You'll have had all the fighting you want before you're scrapped!"

His grin widened then, at a very convincing illusion that the ship had shrugged its sloping and monstrously armored shoulders in annoyed response. That, however, was due simply to the little leap with which the suns of Lycanno vanished from the tank in the abruptness of full forward acceleration.

In effect, the whole ship was the robot—a highly modified version of the deadly one-man strike-ships of the Vegan battle fleet, but even more heavily armed and thus more than qualified to take on a pair of Lycannese destroyers for the split-second maneuverings and decisions, the whole slashing frenzy of a deep-space fight. Its five central brains were constructed to produce, as closely as possible, replicas of Iliff's own basic mental patterns, which made for a nearly perfect rapport. Beyond that, of course, the machine was super-sensed and energized into a truly titanic extension of the man.

Iliff did not bother to observe the whiplash evasion tactics which almost left the destroyers' commanders wondering whether there had been any unidentified spaceship recorded on their plates in the first place. That order was being carried out much more competently than if he had been directing the details himself; and meanwhile there was other business on hand—the part of his job he enjoyed perhaps least of all. A transmitter was driving the preliminary reports of his actions on Lycanno Four across nearly half the galaxy to G.Z. Headquarters Central on the planet of Jeltad.

There, clerks were feeding it, in series with a few thousand other current intermission reports, into more complex multiple-recorders, from which various sections were almost instantaneously disgorged, somewhat cut and edited.

"She has not responded to her personal beam," the robot announced for the second time. "Sure she just wasn't able to get back at us?" "There is no indication of that."

"Keep it open then—until she does answer," Iliff said. Personal telepathy at interstellar ranges was always something of an experiment, unless backed at both ends by mechanical amplifiers of much greater magnitude than were at Pagadan's disposal.

"But I do wish," he grumbled, "I'd been able to find out what made the Ceetal so particularly interested in Tahmey! Saving him up, as host, for the next generation, of course. If he hadn't been so touchy on that point—" He scowled at the idly clicking transmitter before him. Deep down in his mind, just on the wrong side of comprehension, something stirred slowly and uneasily and sank out of his awareness again.

"Correlation ought to call in pretty soon," he reassured himself. "With the fresh data we've fed them, they'll have worked out a new line on the guy."

"Departmental Lab is now attempting to get back on transmitter," the robot informed him. "Shall I blank them out till you've talked with Correlation?"

"Let them through," Iliff sighed. "If we have to, we'll cut them off-"

A staccato series of clicks conveying an impression of agitated inquiry, rose suddenly from the transmitter. Still frowning, he adjusted light-scales, twisted knobs, and a diminutive voice came gushing in mid-speech from the instrument. Iliff listened a while; then he broke in impatiently.

"Look," he explained. "I've homed you the full recorded particulars of the process they used! You'll have the stuff any minute now, and you'll get a lot more out of that than I could tell you. The man I got it from was the only one still alive of the group that did the job; but he was the one that handled the important part— the actual personality transfer.

"I cleared his mind of all he knew of the matter and recorded it, but all I understood myself was the principle involved—if that!"

The voice interjected a squeaky, rapid-fire protest. Iliff cut in again quickly:

"Well, if you need it now— You're right about there not having been any subjective switching of personalities involved, and I'm not arguing about whether it's impossible! These people just did a pretty complete job of shifting everything that's supposed to make up a conscious individual from one human body to another.

From any objective point of view, it looks like a personality transfer.

"No, they didn't use psychosurgery," he went on. "Except to fill in a six-months sequence of memory tracts to cover the interval they had Tahmey under treatment. What they used was a modification of the electronic method of planting living reflex patterns in robot brains. First, they blanked out Tahmey's mind completely-neutralized all established neural connections and so on, right down to the primary automatic reflexes."

"The 'no-mind' stage?" Lab piped.

"That's right. Then they put the Lycannese Deel in a state of mental stasis. They'd picked him because of his strong physical resemblance to Tahmey."

"That," Lab instructed him sharply, "could have no effect on the experiment as such. Did they use a chemical paralyzing agent to produce the stasis?"

"I think so. It's in the report—"

"You—Zone Agents! How long did they keep the two nerve systems linked?" "About six months."

"I see. Then they broke the flow and had a complete copy of the second subject's neural impulse paths stamped into the first subject's nervous system. Re-energized, the artificial personality would pick up at the exact point it entered mental stasis and continue to develop normally from there on. I see, I see, I see . . . but what happened to the second subject—Deel?"

"He died in convulsions a few seconds after they returned him to consciousness."

Lab clicked regretfully. "Usual result of a prolonged state of mental stasis—and rather likely to limit the usefulness of the process, you know. Now, there are a few important points—"

"Correlation!" the robot said sharply into Iliff's mind.

The squeaky voice thinned into an abrupt high whistle and was gone.

"I'm here, Iliff! Your friend and guide, Captain Rashallan of Correlation, himself! You haven't started to close in on that Tahmey bird yet, have you? You aren't anywhere near him yet?"

"No/' Iliff said. He squinted down at the transmitter and was surprised by a sudden sense of constriction in his throat. "Why?"

The Correlation man took about three minutes to tell him. He ended with:

"We've just had a buzz from Lab—they were trying to get back to you, but couldn't—and what they want us to tell you fits right in—

"The neutralization of a nervous system that produces the no-mind stage is an effect that wears off completely within two years! Normally, the result is the gradual re-establishment of the original personality; but, in this case, there can be no such result because all energy centers are channeling constantly into the Deel personality.

"However, there's no reason to doubt that 'Tahmey' is now also present in the system—though unconscious and untraceable because unenergized! Obviously, the Ceetal could have no reason to be interested in a commonplace mentality such as Deel's.

"Now you see how it ties in! Whether it was the Ceetal's intention or not—and it's extremely probable, a virtual certainty, that it was—the whole artificial creation remains stable only so long as the Deel personality continues to function!

"The instant it lapses, the original personality will be energized! You see what's likely to happen to any probing outsider then?"

"Yes," Iliff said, "I see."

"Assuming it's been arranged like that," said Captain Rashallan, "the trigger that sets off the change is, almost certainly, a situational one—and there will be a sufficient number of such triggered situations provided so that any foreseeable emergency pattern is bound to develop one or more of them!

"The Ceetal's purpose with such last-resort measures would be, of course, to virtually insure the destruction of any investigator who had managed to overcome his other defenses, and who was now at the point of getting a direct line on him and his little pals!

"So you'll have to watch . . . well, Zones wants to get through to you now, and they're getting impatient. Good luck, Iliff!"

Iliff leaned forward then and shut off the transmitter. For a moment or so after that, he sat motionless, his yellow eyes staring with a hard, flat expression at something unseen. Then he inquired:

"Did you get Pagadan?"

"ThereVe been several blurred responses in the past few minutes/' the robot answered. "Apparently, she's unable to get anything beyond the fact that you are trying to contact her—and she is also unable to amplify her reply to the extent required just now! Do you have any definite message?"

"Yes," Iliff said briskly. "As long as you get any response from her at all, keep sending her this: 'Kill Tahmey! Get off Gull!' Make it verbal and strong! Even if the beam doesn't clear, that much might get through."

"There's a very good chance of it," the robot agreed. It added, after a moment, "But the Interstellar operative is not very likely to be successful in either undertaking, Iliff!"

There was another pause before Iliff replied.

"No," he said then. "I'm afraid not. But she's a capable being-she does have a chance."

FOR DISTRIBUTION AT AND ABOVE ZONE AGENT LEVELS

Description: . . . mind-parasite of extragalactic origin, accidentally introduced into our Zones and now widely scattered there ... In its free state a nonmaterial but coherent form of conscious energy, characterized by high spatial motility.

. . . basic I. Q. slightly above A-type human being. Behavior . . . largely on reflex-intuition levels. The basic procedures underlying its life-cycle are not consciously comprehended by the parasite and have not, at present, been explained.

Cycle: . . . the free state, normally forming only a fraction of the Ceetal life-cycle, may be extended indefinitely until the parasite contacts a suitable host-organism. Oxygen-breathing life-forms with neural mechanisms in the general class of the human nervous system and its energy areas serve this purpose.

On contacting a host, the Ceetal undergoes changes in itself enabling it to control the basic energizing drives of the host-organism. It then develops the host's neural carriers to a constant point five times beyond the previous absolute emergency overload.

In type-case Ceetal-Homo—Lycanno S-4,1782—a drastic localized hypertrophy of the central nerve tissue masses was observed, indicating protective measures against the overload induced in the organism.

The advantages to the parasite of developing a host-organism of such abnormal potency and efficiency in its environment is obvious, as it is indissolubly linked to its host for the major part of its long parasitic stage and cannot survive the host's death. Barring accidents or superior force, it is, however, capable of prolonging the host's biological life-span almost indefinitely.

At the natural end of this stage, the Ceetal reproduces, the individual parasite dividing into eight free-stage forms. The host is killed in the process of division, and each Ceetal is freed thereby to initiate a new cycle—

chief g.z.: from correlation

F. . . . The numerical strength of the original swarm of free-stage
Ceetals can thus be set at approximately forty-nine thousand. The
swarm first contacted the Toeller Planet and, with the exception
of less than a thousand individuals, entered symbiosis with the
highest life-form evolved there.

The resultant emergency of the "Toeller-Worm," previously regarded as the most remarkable example known of spontaneous mental evolution in a species, is thereby explained. The malignant nature of the Super-Toeller mirrors the essentially predatory characteristics of the Ceetal. Its complete extermination by our forces involved the destruction of the entire Ceetal swarm, excepting the individuals which had deferred adopting a host.

G. Practical chances of a similar second swarm of these parasites
contacting our galaxy are too low to permit evaluation.

H. The threat from the comparatively few remaining Ceetals de-
rives from the survivors' decision to select their hosts only from
civilized species with a high basic I.Q., capable of developing and
maintaining a dominating influence throughout entire cultural sys-
tems.

In the type-case reported, the Ceetal not only secured a complete political dominance of the Class-Twelve System of Lycanno but extended its influence into three neighboring systems.

Since all surviving Ceetals maintain contact with each other and the identity and location of one hundred and eighteen of these survivors was given in the Agent's report, it should not be too difficult to dispose of them before their next period of reproduction— which would, of course, permit the parasite to disperse itself to a dangerous extent throughout the galaxy.

The operation cannot be delayed, however, as the time of reproduction for the first Ceetals to adopt hosts of human-level I.Q. following the destruction of the Toeller Worms can now be no more than between two and five years—standard—in the future. The danger is significantly increased, of course, by their more recent policy of selecting and conserving hosts of abnormally high I.Q. rating well in advance of the "change."

The menace to civilization from such beings, following their mental hypertrophy and under Ceetal influence, can hardly be overstated!

The problem of disposing of all surviving Ceetals—or, failing that, of all such prospective super-hosts—must therefore be considered one of utmost urgency.

"They're telling me!" the Third Co-ordinator said distractedly. He rubbed his long chin, and reached for a switch.

"Psych-tester?" he said. "You heard them? What are the chances of some other Ceetal picking up U-i?"

"It must be assumed," a mechanical voice replied, "that the attempt will be made promptly. The strike you have initiated against those who were revealed by the Agent's report cannot prevent some unknown survivor from ordering U-i's removal to another place of concealment, where he could be picked up at will. Since you are counting on a lapse of two days before the strike now under way will have yielded sufficient information to permit you to conclude the operation against the Ceetals, several of them may succeed in organizing their escape—and even a single Ceetal in possession of such a host as U-i would indicate the eventual dominance of the species! Galactic Zones has no record of any other mentality who would be even approximately so well suited to their purposes."

"Yes," said the Co-ordinator. "Their purposes— You think then if U-i got their treatment, being what he is, he could take us?" "Yes," the voice said. "He could."

The Co-ordinator nodded thoughtfully. His face looked perhaps a little harsher, a little grayer than usual.

"Well, we've done what we can from here," he said presently. "The first other Agent will get to Gull in eleven hours, more or less. There'll be six of them there tomorrow. And a fleet of destroyers within call range—none of them in time to do much good, I'm afraid!"

"That is the probability," the voice agreed.

"Zone Agent Iliff has cut communication with us," the Coordinator went on. "Correlation informed him they had identified Tahmey as U-i. He would be, I suppose, proceeding at top velocities to Gull?"

"Yes, naturally."

"Interstellar reports they have not been able to contact their operative on Gull. It appears," the Coordinator concluded, rather bleakly, "that Zone Agent Iliff understands the requirements of the situation!"

"Yes," the voice said, "he does."

"G.Z. Headquarters is still trying to get through," the robot said. After a moment, it added, "Iliff, this is no longer a one-agent mission!"

"You're right about that! Half the Department's probably blowing its jets trying to converge on Gull right now! They'll get there a little late, though. Meanwhile they know what we know, or as much of it as is good for them. How long since you got the last sign from Pagadan?"

"Over two hours."

Iliff was silent a moment. "You might as well quit working her beam," he said finally. "But keep it open, just in case. And pour on that power till we get to Gull!"

It did not take long after his landing on that planet to establish with a reasonable degree of certainty that if Pagadan was still present, she was in no condition to respond to any kind of telepathic message. It was only a very little later—since he was working on the assumption that caution was not a primary requirement just now—before he disclosed the much more significant fact that the same held true of the personage who had been known as Deel.

The next hour, however—until he tapped the right three or four minds—was a dragging nightmare! Then he had the additional information that the two he sought had departed from the planet, together, but otherwise unaccompanied, not too long after he had sent Pagadan his original message.

He flashed the information back to the docked ship, adding:

"It's a question, of course, of who took whom along. My own guess is Pagadan hadn't tripped any triggers yet and was still in charge—and U-i was still Deel—when they left here! The ship's a single-pilot yacht, shop-new, fueled for a fifty-day trip. No crew; no destination recorded.

"Pass it on to Headquarters right away! They still won't be able to do anything about it; but anyway, it's an improvement."

"That's done," the robot returned impassively. "And now?"

"I'm getting back to you at speed—we're going after them, of course."

"She must have got the message," the robot said after a moment, "but not clearly enough to realize exactly what you wanted. How did she do it?"

"Nobody here seems to know—she blasted those watch-dogs in one sweep, and Gull's been doing flip-flops quietly ever since! The Ceetal's gang is in charge of the planet, of course, and they think Deel and his kidnapers are still somewhere around. They've just been alerted from Lycanno that something went wrong there in a big way; but again they don't know what.

"And now they've also begun to suspect somebody's been poking around in their minds pretty freely this last hour or so."

The two men in the corridor outside the Port Offices were using mind-shields of a simple but effective type. It was the motor tension in their nerves and muscles that warned him first, surging up as he approached, relaxing slightly—but only slightly—when he was past.

He drove the warning to the ship.

"Keep an open line of communication between us, and look out for yourself. The hunt's started up at this end!"

"The docks are clear of anything big enough to matter," the robot returned instantly. "I'm checking upstairs. How bad does it look? I can be with you in three seconds from here."

"You'd kill a few thousand bystanders doing it, big boy! This section's built up. Just stay where you are. There are two men following me, a bunch more waiting behind the next turn of this corridor. All wearing mind-shields—looks like government police."

A second later: "They're set to use paralyzers, so there's no real danger. The Ceetal's outfit wants me alive, for questioning."

"What will you do?"

"Let them take me. It's you they're interested in! Lycanno's been complaining about us, and they think we might be here to get Deel and the Lannai off the planet. How does it look around you now?"

"Quiet, but not good! There're some warships at extreme vision range where they can't do much harm; but too many groups of men within two hundred miles of us are wearing mind-shields and waiting for something. I'd say they're ready to use fixed-mount space guns now, in case we try to leave without asking again."

"That would be it— Well, here go the paralyzers!"

He stepped briskly around the corridor corner and stopped short, rigid and transfixed in flickering white fountains of light that spouted at him from the nozzles of paralyzer guns in the hands of three of the eight men waiting there.

After a fifth of a second, the beams snapped off automatically. The stiffness left Iliff's body more slowly; he slumped then against the wall and slid to the floor, sagging jaw drawing his face down into an expression of foolish surprise.

One of the gunmen stepped toward him, raised his head and pried up an eyelid.

"He's safe!" he announced with satisfaction. "He'll stay out as long as you want him that way." Another man spoke into a wrist-phone. "Got him! Orders?"

"Get him into the ambulance waiting at the main entrance of the building!" a voice crackled back. "Take him to Dock 709. We've got to investigate that ship, and we'll need him to get inside."

"Thought it would be that," Iliff's murmur reached the ship. "They'll claim I was in an accident or something and ask to bring me in." The thought trailed off, started up again a moment later: "They might as well be using sieves as those government-issue mind-shields! These boys here don't know another thing except that I'm wanted, but we can't afford to wait any longer. We'll have to take them along. Get set to leave as soon as we're inside!"

The eight men who brought him through the ship's ground lock —six handling his stretcher, two following helpfully—were of Gull's toughest; an alert, well-trained and well-armed group, prepared for almost any kind of trouble. However, they never had a chance.

The lock closed soundlessly, but instantaneously, on the heels of the last of them. From the waiting ambulance and a number of other camouflaged vehicles outside concealed semiportables splashed wild gusts of fire along the ship's flanks—then they were variously spun around or rolled over in the backwash of the take-off. A single monstrous thunderclap seemed to draw an almost visible line from the docks towards the horizon; the docks groaned and shook, and the ship had once more vanished.

A number of seconds later, the spaceport area was shaken again— this time by the crash of a single fixed-mount space gun some eighty miles away. It was the only major weapon to go into action against the fugitive on that side of the planet.

Before its sound reached the docks, two guns on the opposite side of Gull also spewed their stupendous charges of energy into space, but very briefly. Near the pole, the ship had left the planet's screaming atmosphere in an apparent head-on plunge for Gull's single moon, which was the system's main fortress. This cut off all fire until, halfway to the satellite, the robot veered off at right angles and flashed out of range on the first half-turn of a swiftly widening evasion spiral.

The big guns of the moon forts continued to snarl into space a full minute after the target had faded beyond the ultimate reach of their instruments.

Things could have been much worse, Iliff admitted. And presently found himself wondering just what he had meant by that.

He was neither conscious nor unconscious. Floating in a little Nirvana of first-aid treatment, he was a disembodied mind vaguely aware of being hauled back once more—and more roughly than usual—to the world of reality. And as usual, he was expected to be doing something there—something disagreeable.

Then he realized the robot was dutifully droning a report of recent events into his mind while it continued its efforts to rouse him.

It really wasn't so bad! They weren't actually crippled; they could still outrun almost anything in space they couldn't outfight-as the pursuit had learned by now. No doubt, he might have foreseen the approximate manner in which the robot would conduct their escape under the guns of an alerted and a sizable section of that planet's war fleet—while its human master and the eight men from Gull hung insensible to everything in the webs of the force-field that had closed on them with the closing of the ground lock.

A clean-edged sixteen-foot gap scooped out of the compartment immediately below the lock was, of course, nobody's fault! Through the wildest of accidents, they'd been touched there, briefly and terribly, by the outer fringe of a bolt of energy hurled after them by one of Gull's giant moon-based guns.

The rest of the damage—though consisting of comparatively minor rips and dents—could not be so simply dismissed! It was the result, pure and simple, of slashing headlong through clusters of quick-firing fighting ships, which could just as easily have been avoided.

Dreamily, Iliff debated taking a run to Jeltad and having the insubordinate electronic mentality put through an emotional overhaul there. It wasn't the first time the notion had come to him, but he'd always relented. Now he would see it was attended to! And at once—

With that, he was suddenly awake and aware of the job much more immediately at hand. Only a slight sick fuzziness remained from the measures used to jolt him out of the force-field sleep and counteract the dose of paralysis rays he'd stopped. And that was going, as he bent and stretched, grimacing at the burning tingle of the stuff that danced like frothy acid through his arteries. Meanwhile, the robot's steel tentacles were lifting his erstwhile captors, still peacefully asleep, into a lifeboat which was then launched into space, came round in a hesitant half-circle and started resolutely back towards Gull.

"Here's our next move," Iliff announced as the complaining hum of the lifeboat's "pick-me-up" signals began to fade from their instruments. "They didn't get much of a start on us—and in an ordinary stellar-type yacht, at that! If they're going where I think they are, we might catch up with them almost any moment. But we've got to be sure, so start laying a global interception pattern at full emergency speeds—centered on Gull, of course! Keep detectors full on and telepath broadcast at ultimate non directional range. Call me if you get the faintest indication of a pickup on either line."

The muted brazen voice stated: "That's done!"

"Fine. The detectors should be our best bet. About the telepath: we're not going to call Pagadan directly, but we'll try for a subconscious response. U-i's got to be in charge by now, unless Correlation's quit being omniscient, but he might not spot that—at least, not right away! Give her this—"

Events had been a little too crowded lately to make the memory immediately accessible. But, after a moment's groping, he brought it from his mind: the picture of a quiet, dawnlit city—seas of sloping, ivory-tinted roofs and slender towers against a flaming sky.

The pickup came on the telepath an hour later.

"They're less than half a light-year out. Shall I slide in and put a tractor on them?"

"Keep sliding in, but no tractors! Not yet." Iliff chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. "Sure she didn't respond again?"

"Not after that first subconscious reply. But the yacht may have been blanked against telepathy immediately afterwards!"

"Well, anyway, she was still alive then," Iliff said resignedly. "Give Headquarters the yacht's location, and tell them to quit mopping their brows because U-i's on his own now—and any Ceetal that gets within detection range of him will go free-stage the hard way. Then drop a field of freezers over that crate! I want her stopped dead. I guess I'll have to board—"

He grimaced uncomfortably and added, "Get in there fast, fella, but watch the approach! There couldn't be any heavy armament on that yacht, but U-i's come up with little miracles before this! Maybe that Ceetal was lucky the guy never got back to Lycanno to talk to him! It's where he was pointed, all right."

"Headquarters is now babbling emotional congratulations!" the robot reported, rather coldly. "They also say two Vegan destroyers will be able to reach the yacht within six hours."

"That's nice!" Iliff nodded. "Get just a few more holes punched in you, and we could use those to tow you in."

Inclosed in a steel bubble of suit-armor, he presently propelled himself to the lock. The strange ship, still some five minutes' flight away in fact, appeared to be lying motionless at point-blank range in the port-screens—bow and flanks sparkling with the multiple pinpoint glitter of the freezer field which had wrapped itself around her like a blanket of ravenous, fiery leeches. Any ripple or thrust of power of which she was capable would be instantly absorbed now and dissipated into space; she was effectively immobilized and would remain so for hours.

"But the field's not flaring/' Iliff said. He ran his tongue gently over his lips. "That guy does know his stuff! He's managed to insulate his power sources and he's sitting there betting we won't blast the ship but come over and try to pry him out! The trouble is, he's right."

The robot spoke then, for the first time since it had scattered the freezer field in the yacht's path. "Iliff," it stated impersonally and somewhat formally, "regulations do not permit you to attempt the boarding of a hostile spaceship under such suicidal conditions. I am therefore authorized—"

The voice broke off, on a note of almost human surprise. Iliff had not shifted his eyes from the port-screen below him. After a while, he said dryly:

"It was against regulations when I tinkered with your impulses till I found the set that would let you interfere with me for my own good. You've been without that set for years, big boy—except when you were being overhauled!"

"It was a foolish thing to do!" the robot answered. "I was given no power to act against your decisions, even when they included suicide, if they were justified in the circumstances that formed them. That is not the case here! You should either wait for the destroyers to come up or else let me blast U-i and the yacht together, without any further regard for the fate of the Interstellar operative—though she is undoubtedly of some importance to civilization."

"Galactic Zones thinks so!" Iliff nodded. "They'd much rather she stays alive."

"Obviously, that cannot compare with the importance of destroying U-i the instant the chance is offered! As chief of the Ghant Spacers, his murders were counted, literally, by planetary systems! If you permit his escape now, you give him the opportunity to resume that career."

"I haven't the slightest intention of permitting his escape," Iliff objected mildly.

"My responses are limited!" the robot reminded him. "Within those limits I surpass you, of course, but beyond them I need your guidance. If you force an entry for yourself into that ship, you may logically expect to die, and because of the telepathic block around it I shall not be aware of your death. You cannot be certain then that I shall be able to prevent a mind such as that of U 1 from effecting his escape before the destroyers get here!"

Iliff snarled, suddenly white and shaking. He checked himself with difficulty, drew a long, slow breath. "Fm scared of the guy!" he complained, somewhat startled himself by his reaction. "And you're not making me feel any better. Now quit giving good advice, and just listen for a change!"

He went on carefully:

"The Lannai's quite possibly dead. But if she isn't, U-i isn't likely to kill her now until he finds out what we're after. Even for him, it's a pretty desperate mess—he'll figure we're Vegan, so he won't even try to dicker! But he'll also figure that as long as we think she's alive, we'll be just a little more cautious about how we strike at him.

"So it's worth taking a chance on trying to get her out of there. And here's what you do! In the first place, don't under any circumstances get any closer than medium beaming range to that crate! Then, just before I reach the yacht, you're to put a tractor on its forward spacelock and haul it open. That will let me in close to the control room, and that's where U-i's got to be.

"Once I'm inside, the telepath block will, of course, keep me from communicating. If the block goes down suddenly and I start giving you orders from in there, ignore them! The chances are I'll be talking for U-i. You understand that—I'm giving you an order now to ignore any subsequent orders until you've taken me back aboard again?"

"I understand."

"Good. Whatever happens, you're to circle that yacht for twenty minutes after I enter, and at the exact end of that time you're to blast it. If Pagadan or I, or both of us, get out before the time is up, that's fine. But don't pick us up, or let us come aboard, or pay attention to any instructions we give you until you've burned the yacht. If U-i is able to control us, it's not going to do him any good. If he comes out himself—with or without us, in a lifeboat or armor—you blast him instantly, of course! Lab would like to study that brain all right, but this is one time I can't oblige them. You've got all that?"

'Tve got it, yes."

"Then can you think of any other trick he might pull to get out of the squeeze?"

The robot was silent a moment. "No," it said then. "I can't. But U-i probably could!"

"Yes, he probably could," Iliff admitted thoughtfully. "But not in twenty minutes—and it will be less than that, because's he's going to be a terribly occupied little pirate part of the time, and a pretty shaky one, if nothing else, the rest of it! I may not be able to take him, but I'm sure going to make his head swim!"

It was going wrong before it started—but it was better not to think of that.

Actually, of course, he had never listed the entering of a hostile ship held by an experienced and desperate spacer among his favorite games. The powers that hurled a sliver of sub-steel alloys among the stars at dizzying multiples of the speed of light could be only too easily rearranged into a variety of appalling traps for any intruder.

U-i naturally, knew every trick in the book and how to improve on it. On the other hand, he'd been given no particular reason to expect interception until he caught and blocked their telepath-beam—unless he had managed, in that space of time, to break down the Lannai's mind-shields without killing her, which seemed a next to impossible feat even for him.

The chances were, then, that the spacer had been aware of pursuit for considerably less than an hour, and that wasn't time enough to become really well prepared to receive a boarding party —or so Iliff hoped.

The bad part of it was that it was taking a full four minutes in his armor to bridge the gap between the motionless, glittering yacht and the robot, which had now begun circling it at medium range. That was a quite unavoidable safety measure for the operation as a whole—and actually U-i should not be able to strike at him by any conceivable means before he was inside the yacht itself. But his brief outburst on the ship was the clearest possible warning that his emotional control had dropped suddenly, and inexplicably, to a point just this side of sanity!

He'd lived with normal fear for years—that was another thing; but only once before had he known a sensation comparable to this awareness of swirling, white-hot pools of unholy terror—held back from his mind now by the thinnest of brittle crusts! That had been long ago, in Lab-controlled training tests.

He knew better, however, than to try to probe into that sort of phenomenon just now! If he did, the probability was that it would spill full over him at about the moment he was getting his attack under way—which would be, rather definitely, fatal!

But there were other methods of emotional control, simple but generally effective, which might help steady him over the seconds remaining:

There was, for example, the undeniably satisfying reflection that not only had the major disaster of a Ceetal-dominated galaxy been practically averted almost as soon as it was recognized, but that in the same operation—a bonus from Lady Luck!—the long, long hunt for one of civilization's most ruthless enemies was coming to an unexpectedly sudden end! Like the avenging power of Vega personified was the deadly machine behind him, guided by a mind which was both more and less than his own, as it traced its graceful geometrical paths about the doomed yacht. Each completed circle would presently indicate that exactly one more minute had passed of the twenty which were the utmost remaining of U-i's life.

Just as undeniable, of course, was the probability that Pagadan's lease on life would come to an end even sooner than that—if she still lived!

But there wasn't much he could do about it. If he waited for the Vegan destroyers to arrive, the Lannai would have no chance at all. No normal being could survive another six hours under the kind of deliberately measured mental pressure U-i would be exerting on her now to drain every possible scrap of information through her disintegrating protective patterns.

By acting as he was, he was giving her the best chance she could get after he had sent her in to spring the trap about U-i on Gull, In the circumstances, that, too, had been unavoidable. Ironically, the only alternative to killing U-i outright, as she no doubt had tried to do, was to blunder into one of the situational traps indicated by Correlation, and so restore that grim spacer to his own savage personality—which could then be counted on to cope with any Ceetal attempt to subordinate him once more to their purposes!

Waiting the few hours until he could get there to do the job himself might have made the difference between the survival or collapse of civilization not many decades away! If he had hesitated, the Department would have sent the Interstellar operative in, as a matter of course—officially, and at the risk of compromising the whole Lannai alliance as a consequence.

No, there hadn't been any real choice—the black thoughts rushed on—but just the same it was almost a relief to turn from that fact to the other one that his own chances of survival, just now, were practically as bad! Actually, there was no particular novelty in knowing he was outmatched. Only by being careful to remain the aggressor always, consciously and in fact, by selecting time and place and method of attack, was he able regularly to meet the superiority of the monstrous mentalities that were an Agent's most specific game! And back of him had been always the matchless resources of the Confederacy, to be drawn on as and when he needed them.

Now that familiar situational pattern was almost completely reversed. U-i, doomed himself as surely as human efforts could doom him, had still been able to determine the form of the preliminary attack and force his enemy to adopt it!

So, as usual, the encounter would develop by plan, but the plan would not be Iliff's! His, for once, was to be the other role, that of the blundering, bewildered quarry, tricked into assault, then rushed through it to be struck down at the instant most favorable to the hunter.

Almost frantically, he tore his mind back from the trap! But it was just a little late—the swirling terror had touched him, briefly, and he knew his chances of success were down by that further unnecessary fraction.

Then the two-hundred-foot fire-studded bulk of the yacht came flashing toward him, blotting out space; and as he braked his jets for the approach he had time to remind himself that the quarry's rush did, after all, sometimes carry it through to the hunter! And that, in any event, he'd thought it all out and decided he still disliked an unfinished job—and that he had liked Pagadan.

Swinging himself up to the yacht's forward space lock, every weapon at the ready, he caught the robot's brief thought:

"He's waiting for you! All locks have been released from inside!"

Iliff's "Hm-m-m!" was a preoccupied salute to his opponent's

its core. Physically, it stopped him in mid-stride, held him rigid and immobilized with nearly the effect of a paralysis gun. But after the first near-fatal moment of shock, while he attempted automatically and unsuccessfully to restore his shields before that rush of destruction, he was fighting back—and not with a similar suicidal fury but with a grim cold weight of vast mental power which yielded further ground only slowly if at all.

With that, the struggle became so nearly a stalemate that it still meant certain victory for the spacer. Both knew the last trace of physical life would drain out of Iliff in minutes, though perhaps only Iliff realized that his mind must destroy itself even more swiftly.

Something tore through his consciousness then like jagged bolts of lightning. He thought it was death. But it came again and again —until a slow, tremendous surprise welled up in him:

It was the other mind which was being torn! Dissolving now, crumbling into flashing thought-convulsions like tortured shrieks, though it still struggled on against him—and against something else, something which was by then completely beyond IlifFs comprehension.

The surprise dimmed out, together with his last awareness of himself—still driving relentlessly in upon a hated foe who would not die.

The voice paused briefly, then added: "Get that part to Lab. They'll be happy to know they hit it pretty close, for once."

It stopped again. After a moment the bright-looking young man in the Jeltad Headquarters office inquired, not too deferentially:

"Is there anything else, sir?"

He'd glanced up curiously once or twice at the vision tank of the extreme-range communicator before him, while he deftly distributed Iliff's after-mission report through the multiple-recorders. However, it wasn't the first time he'd seen a Zone Agent check in from the Emergency Treatment Chamber of his ship, completely inclosed in a block of semisolid protective gel, through which he was being molded, rayed, dosed, drenched, shocked, nourished and psychoed back to health and sanity.

With the irreverence of youth, the headquarters man considered that these near-legendary heroes of the Department bore on such occasions, when their robots even took care of heartbeat and breathing for them, a striking resemblance to damaged and bad-tempered embryos. He hoped suddenly no one happened to be reading his mind.

"Connect me," IlifFs voice said, though the lips of the figure in the vision tank did not move, "with Three for a personal report."

"IVe been listening," came the deep, pleasantly modulated reply from an invisible source. "Switch off, Lallebeth—you've got all you need. All clear now, Iliff—and once more, congratulations!" And the picture of the tall, gray-haired, lean-faced man, who was the Third Co-ordinator of the Vegan Confederacy, grew slowly through the telepath-transmitter into the mind of the small, wiry shape—half restored and covered with irregular patches of new pink skin—in the ship's Emergency Treatment Chamber.

"Back in the tank again, eh?" the Co-ordinator observed critically. "For the second day after a mission, you don't look too bad!" He paused, considering Iliff closely. "Gravity?" he inquired.

"Gravity!" admitted the embryo.

"That will mess a fellow up!" The Co-ordinator was nodding sympathetically, but it seemed to Iliff that his superior's mind was on other matters, and more pleasing ones.

"Lab's just going to have to design me a suit," Three ran on with his usual chattiness, "which will be nonreactive to any type of syntheti-gravs, including tractors! Theoretically impossible, they say, of course! But I'm sure the right approach—"

He interrupted himself:

"I imagine you'll want to know what happened after she got you back to your ship and contacted the destroyers?"

"She left word she was going to get in touch with you on her way back to Jeltad," Iliff said.

"Well, she did that. A remarkably energetic sort of person in a quiet way, Iliff! Fully aware, too, as I discovered, of the political possibilities in the situation! I persuaded her, of course, to take official credit for the death of U-i, and the termination of that part of the Ceetal menace—and, incidentally, for saving the life of one of our Department Agents."

"That wasn't so incidental," Iliff remarked.

"Only in comparison with the other, of course. She really did it then?"

"Oh, she did it all right! I was on my way out fast when she burned him down. Must have been a bad shock to U-i. I understand he hadn't released her mind for more than three or four seconds before she was reaching for his projector."

The Co-ordinator nodded. "The mental resiliency of these highly developed telepathic races must be really extraordinary! Any human being would have remained paralyzed for minutes after such pressures—perhaps for hours! Well, he wasn't omniscient, after all. He thought he could just let her lie there until he was finished with you."

"How long had he been pouring it on her?"

"About four hours! Practically ever since they hit space, coming out from Gull."

"She didn't crack at all?" Iliff asked curiously.

"No, but she thinks she couldn't have lasted more than another hour. However, she seems to have had no doubt that you would arrive and get her out of the mess in time! Rather flattering, eh?"

The agent considered. "No," he said then. "Not necessarily."

His superior chuckled. "At any rate, she was reluctant to take credit for U-i. She thought, if she accepted, you might feel she didn't fully appreciate your plunging in to the rescue "

"Well, you seem to have reassured her. And now, just what are the political results going to be?"

"It's too early to say definitely, but even without any help from us they'd be pretty satisfactory. The Ceetal business isn't for public consumption, of course—the boys made a clean sweep of that bunch a few hours back, by the way!—but there've always been plenty of idiots building U-i up into a glamorous figure. The Mysterious Great Bandit of the Spaceways and that sickening kind of stuff! They'll whoop it up just as happily now for the Champion of Vegan Justice who sent the old monster on his way, to wit— the Lannai Pagadan! It won't hurt either that she's really beautiful. And through her, of course, the glamour reflects back on her people, our nonhuman allies."

Iliff said thoughtfully: "Think they'll stay fashionable long' enough to cinch the alliance?"

The Co-ordinator looked rather smug. "I believe that part of it can be safely left to me! Especially/' he added deliberately, "since most of the organized resistance to said alliance has already collapsed!"

Iliff waited and made no comment, because when the old boy got as confidential as all that, he was certainly leading up to something. And he did not usually bother to lead up to things without some good reason—which almost always spelled a lot of trouble for somebody else.

There was nobody else around at all, except Iliff.

"I had an unexpected visit three days ago," the Co-ordinator continued, "from my colleague, the Sixteenth Co-ordinator, Department of Cultures! He'd been conducting, he said, a personal investigation of Lannai culture and psychology—and had found himself forced to the conclusion there was no reasonable objection to having them join us as full members of the Confederacy. 'A people of extraordinary refinement . . . high moral standards—' Hinted we'd have no further trouble with the Traditionalists either. Remarkable change of heart, eh?"

"Remarkable!" Iliff agreed, watchfully.

"But can you imagine," inquired the Co-ordinator, "what brought Sixteen—between us, mind you, Iliff, as pig-headed and hidebound an obstructionist as the Council has been hampered by in centuries—to this state of uncharacteristic enlightenment?"

"No," Iliff said, "I can't."

"Wait till you hear this then! After we'd congratulated each other and so on, he brought the subject back to various Lannai with whom he'd become acquainted. It developed presently he was interested in the whereabouts of one particular Lannai he'd met in a social way right here on Jeltad a few weeks before. He understood she was doing some work—"

"All right," Iliff interrupted. "It was Pagadan."

The Co-ordinator appeared disappointed. "Yes, it was. She told you she'd met him, did she?"

"She admitted to some circulating in our upper social levels," .Iliff said. "What did you tell him?"

"That she was engaged in highly confidential work for the Department at present, but that we expected to hear from her within a few days—I had my fingers crossed there!—and that I'd see to it she heard he'd been inquiring about her. Afterwards, after he'd gone, I sat down and sweated blood until I got her message from the destroyer!"

"You don't suspect, I suppose, that she might have psychoed him?"

"Nonsense, Iliff!" the Co-ordinator smiled blandly. "If I had the slightest suspicion of that, it would be my duty to investigate immediately. Wouldn't it? But now, there's one point—your robot, of course, made every effort to keep Pagadan from realizing there was no human crew manning the ship. However, she told me frankly she'd caught on to our little Department secret and suggested that the best way to keep it there would be to have her transferred from Interstellar to Galactic. As a matter of fact, she's requested Zone Agent training! Think she'd qualify?"

"Oh, she'll qualify!" Iliff said dryly. "At that, it might be a good idea to get her into the Department, where we can try to keep an eye on her. It would be too bad if we found out, ten years from now, that a few million Lannai were running the Confederacy!"

For an instant, the Co-ordinator looked startled. "Hm-m-m," he said reflectively. "Well, that's hardly likely. However, I think I'll take your advice! I might send her over to your Zone in a week or so, and—"

"Oh, no," Iliff said quietly. "Oh, no, you don't! I've been waiting right along for the catch, and this is one job Headquarters is going to swing without me!"

"Now, Iliff-"

"It's never happened before," Iliff added, "but right now the Department is very close to its first case of Zone Agent mutiny!"

"Now, Iliff, take it easy!" The Co-ordinator paused. "I must disapprove of your attitude, of course, but frankly I admire your common sense. Well, forget the suggestion—I'll find some other sucker."

He became pleasantly official.

"I suppose you're on your way back to your Zone at present?"

"I am. In fact, we're almost exactly in the position we'd reached when you buzzed me the last time. Now, there wouldn't happen to be some little job I could knock off for you on the way?"

"Well—" the Co-ordinator began, off guard. For the shortest fraction of a second, he had the air of a man consulting an overstuffed mental file.

Then he started and blinked.

"In your condition? Nonsense, Iliff! It's out of the question!"

On the last word, IlifFs thought and image flickered out of his mind. But the Third Co-ordinator sat motionless for another moment or so before he turned off the telepath transmitter. There was a look of mild surprise on his face.

Of course, there had been no change of expression possible in that immobilized and anaesthetized embryonic figure—not so much as the twitch of an eyelid! But in that instant, while he was hestitat-ing, there had seemed to flash from it a blast of such cold and ferocious malignity that he was almost startled into flipping up his shields.

"Better lay off the little devil for a while!" he decided. "Let him just stick to his routine. Ill swear, for a moment there I saw smoke pour out of his ears."

He reached out and tapped a switch.

"Psych-tester? What do you think?"

"The Agent requires no deconditioning," the Psych-tester's mechanical voice stated promptly. "As I predicted at the time, his decision to board U-i's ship was in itself sufficient to dissolve both the original failure-shock and the artificial conditioning later connected with it. The difficulties he experienced, between making the decision and his actual entry of the ship, were merely symptoms of that process and have had no further effect on his mental health."

The Co-ordinator rubbed his chin reflectively.

"Well, that sounds all right. Does he realize I . . . uh . . . had anything to do—?"

"The Agent is strongly of the opinion that you suspected Tahmey of being U-i when you were first informed of the Interstellar operative's unusual report, and further, that you assigned him to the mission for this reason. While approving of the choice as such, he shows traces of a sub-level reflection that your tendency towards secretiveness will lead you to . . . out-fox . . . yourself so badly some day that he may not be able to help you."

"Why-"

"He has also begun to suspect," the Psych-tester continued, undisturbed, "that he was fear-conditioned over a period of years to the effect that any crisis involving U-i would automatically create the highest degree of defensive tensions compatible with his type of mentality." The Coordinator whistled softly.

"He's caught on to that, eh?" He reflected. "Well, after all," he pointed out, almost apologetically, "it wasn't such a bad idea in itself! The boy does have this tendency to bull his way through, on some short-cut or other, to a rather dangerous degree! And there was no way of foreseeing the complications introduced by the Ceetal threat and his sense of responsibility towards the Lannai, which made it impossible for him to obey that urgent mental pressure to be careful in whatever he did about U-i!"

He paused invitingly, but the Psych-tester made no comment.

"It's hard to guess right every time!" the Co-ordinator concluded defensively.

He shook his head and sighed, but then forgot Iliff entirely as he turned to the next problem.

232 space police

Dear Magnus,

My chef's report on tomorrow's dinner—broiled grouse with truffles and compote of Marchisand cherries, Queen Persis salad, Sirius Fifth artichokes. A subsidiary report of my own—wines from three planets, including an incredible Fragence claret, a final course of canned sardines.

If you are free, I'd like your verdict on the menu—especially the sardines, which are unusual.

Joel Karamor.

Magnus Ridolph returned to the deck-chair, re-read the invitation, folded it, laid it on the table beside him. He rubbed his short white beard, then, leaning back in his deck-chair, half-closed his eyes, apparently intent on a small sailboat, white as the walls of Marrakech, plying the dark blue face of Lake Sahara.

He arose abruptly, crossed into his study, seated himself at his Mnemiphot, keyed the combination for Sardines.

For several minutes information played across the screen. Very little seemed significant and he found no notes of his own on the topic. The Sardinia pilchardus, according to the Mnemiphot, belonged to the herring family, swam in large shoals and fed on minute pelagic animals. There were further details of scale pattern, breeding habits, natural enemies, discussion of variant species.

Magnus Ridolph wrote an acceptance to the invitation, ticked off Joel Karamor's address code, dropped the message into the transgraph slot.

Karamor was a large healthy man with a big nose, a big chin, a brush of brindle-gray hair. He was an honest man and conducted his life on a basis of candor, simplicity and good-will. Magnus Ridolph, accustomed to extremes of deception and self-interest, found him a refreshing variant.

The dinner was served in a high room paneled in Congo hardwoods, decorated with primitive masks hung high in the shadows. One glass wall opened up on a magnificent expanse of clear blue twilight and, twenty miles south, the loom of the Tibesti foothills.

The two sat at a table of burnished lignum vitae, between them a centerpiece of carved malachite which Magnus Ridolph recognized for a Three-Generation Work from the Golwana Coast of the planet Mugh—a product of father, son and son's son, toiled over a hundred years to the minute.*

The dinner surpassed Karamor's usual standard. The grouse was cooked to a turn, the salad beyond exception. The wines were smooth and brilliant, rich but not cloying. Dessert was a fruit ice, followed by coarse crackers and cheese.

"Now," said Karamor, watching Magnus Ridolph slyly, "for our sardines and coffee."

Magnus Ridolph obliged with the wry face he knew to be expected of him. "The coffee, at least, I shall enjoy. The sardines will have to be of spectacular quality to tempt me."

Karamor nodded significantly. "They're unusual." He arose, slid back the panel of a wall-cabinet, returned to the table with a flat can, embossed in red, blue and yellow.

"It's yours," and Karamor, seating himself, watched his guest expectantly.

The label read: Premier Quality. Select Sardines in oil. Packed by Chandaiia Canneries, Chandaiia.

Magnus Ridolph's fine white eyebrows rose. "Imported from Chandaria? A long way to bring fish."

"The sardines are top-grade," said Karamor. "Better than anything on earth—delicacies of prime quality and they bring a premium price."

"I still should not, at first thought, imagine it profitable," was Magnus Ridolph's doubtful comment.

"That's where you're wrong," declared Karamor. "Of course you must understand the cannery expenses are very low, and compensate for the shipping costs. And then spacefreight is not especially expensive. Actually we're doing very well."

Magnus Ridolph looked up from the can. "We?"

"George Donnels, my partner in the canning business, and myself. I financed the proposition, and I look after the sales. He runs the cannery and fishing operations."

"I see," said Magnus Ridolph vaguely.

* The catalogue of Pomukka-Dhen, last of the Golwana emperors, listed seven thousand Century pieces, 136 Millennium pieces, and fourteen Ten-Thousand-Year pieces. A rumor had reached Magnus Ridolph of a Hundred-Thousand-Year work nearing completion in the Backlands, a gigantic carved tourmaline.

" A few months ago/' continued Karamor, frowning, "he offered to buy me out. I told him I'd consider it. And then—' Karamor gestured toward the can. "Open it."

Magnus Ridolph bent over the can, raising a tab, pressing the lid-release button. . . . Bang! The lid flew high in the air, the contents of the can sprayed in all directions.

Magnus Ridolph sat back, raising eyebrows mutely at Karamor. He felt his beard, combing out the fragments of fish which had become entangled in the hairs.

"Spectacular indeed," said Magnus Ridolph. "I agree. What were the other tests you wished me to make?"

Karamor rose to his feet, circled the table. "Believe me, Magnus,
that surprised me as much as it did you. I expected nothing like
that____ "

"What did you expect?" inquired Magnus Ridolph drily. "A flight of birds?"

"No, no, please believe me, Magnus. You must know I wouldn't indulge in a stupid joke of that sort!"

Magnus Ridolph wiped his face with a napkin. "What is the explanation for the—" he licked his lips—"the occurrence?"

Karamor returned to his seat. "I don't know. I'm worried. I want to find out. I've opened a dozen cans of sardines in the last week. About half were in good condition. The rest—all tampered with, one way or another.

"In one can the fish were threaded with fine wires. In another the flesh tasted of petroleum. Another gave off a vile odor. I can't understand it. Someone or something wants to ruin Chandaria Cannery's reputation."

"How widespread is this tampering?"

"Only the last shipment, so far as I know. We've had nothing but compliments on the product up to now." "Whom do you suspect?"

Karamor spread out his big hands. "I don't know, Donnels couldn't benefit, that's certain—unless he figured he could scare me into selling and I think he knows me better than that. I thought you might investigate—act for me."

Magnus Ridolph considered a moment. "Well—at the moment, so it happens, I'm free."

Karamor relaxed, smiled. "The import seals were all intact/' he told his guest, "And they are applied at the cannery?" "Right"

"Then," said Magnus Ridolph, "it is evident that the mischief occurs on Chandaria."

Magnus Ridolph rode the passenger packet to City of the Thousand Red Candles, on Rhodope, Fomalhaut's fourth planet, where he took a room at the Ernst Delabri Inn.

He enjoyed a quiet dinner in the outdoor dining room, then hired a barge and let the boatman paddle him along the canals till long after dark.

Next morning Magnus Ridolph assumed a new character. Ignoring his white and blue tunic, he buttoned himself into a worn brown work-suit, pulled a gray cloth cap over his ruff of white hair. Then, crossing the King's Canal and the Panalaza, he threaded the dingy street of the Old Town to the Central Employment Pool.

Here he found little activity. A few men, a few nervous torn-tickers, a knot of Capellan anthropoids, one Yellowbird, a few native Rhodopians listlessly watched the call-screen. Prominent on the wall was a sign reading:

CANNERY WORKERS! WANTED ON CHANDARIA!

—a notice which excited little attention.

Magnus Ridolph strolled to the assignment window. The velvet-skinned Rhodopian clerk bobbed his head courteously, lisped, "Yes, sir?"

"I'd like to try the cannery on Chandaria," said Magnus Ridolph. The Rhodopian flicked him a seal-brown glance. "In what capacity?" "What positions are open?"

The Rhodopian glanced at a list. "Electrician—three hundred munits; integrator-feed mechanic—three hundred twenty munits; welder—two hundred ninety munits; laborer—two hundred munits."

"Hm," said Magnus Ridolph. "No clerical work?"

"At the present, no."

Til try the electrician job."

"Yes, sir," said the Rhodopian. "May I see your Union Journeyman Certificate?"

"My word," said Magnus Ridolph. "I neglected to pack it."

The Rhodopian showed blunt pink teeth. "I can send you out as a laborer. The steward will sign you up on the job."

"Very well," sighed Magnus Ridolph.

A cargo freighter conveyed the cannery recruits to Chandaria—a thick wobbly shell permeated through and through with the reek of hot oil, sweat and ammonia. Magnus Ridolph and a dozen others were quartered in an empty hold. They ate in the crew's mess and were allowed two quarts of water a day for washing. Smoking was forbidden.

Little need be said of the voyage. Magnus Ridolph for years afterward labored to expunge the memory from his brain. When at last the passengers filed, blinking, out on Chandaria, Magnus Ridolph looked his part. His beard was unkempt and dirty, his hair hung around his ears and he blended completely with his fellows.

His first impression of the planet was dismal watery distance, drifting patches of fog, wan maroon illumination. Chandaria was the ancient planet of an ancient red sun and the land lay on a level with the ocean—prone, a gloomy peneplain haunted with slow-shifting mists.

In spite of its age Chandaria supported no native life more advanced than reeds and a few fern trees. Protozoa swarmed the seas and, with no natural enemies, the twenty thousand sardines originally loosed into the waters throve remarkably well.

As the passengers alighted from the hold of the freighter a young man with a long horse-like yellow face, very broad shoulders, very narrow hips, stepped forward.

"This way, men," he said. "Bring your luggage."

The newcomers obediently trooped at his heels, across ground that quaked underfoot. The path led into fog and, for a quarter-mile, the only features of the landscape were a few rotten trees thrusting forlorn branches through the mist, a few pools of stagnant water.

The mist presently thinned, revealing a huddle of long buildings and, beyond, an expanse of reeds and the glint of water.

"This is the bunkhouse for those of you who sleep/' and the young man jerked his finger at the men and the anthropoids. "You go in and sign with the house-captain. You, Yellowbird, you, Portmar, and you, Rhodope, this way."

Magnus Ridolph ruefully shook his head as he mounted the soggy steps into the bunkhouse. This was probably the low point in his career. Two hundred munits a month, grubbing among the intimate parts of fish. He made a wry grimace, entered the bunkhouse.

He found an empty cubicle, threw his duffel-bag on the cot, strolled into the recreation room, which smelled of fish. Unpainted plyboard covered the walls, which were spanned by bare aluminum rafters. A cheap telescreen at the end of the room displayed a buxom young woman, singing and contorting her body with approximately equal vehemence.

Magnus Ridolph sighed once more, inquired for the house-captain.

He was assigned to the No. 4 Eviscerator. His duties were simple. At intervals of about three minutes he pulled a lever which raised a gate. From a pond outside came a rush of water and thousands of sardines swam serenely into the machine, where fingers, slots and air jets sorted them for size, guided them against flashing knives, finally flung them through a spray and out on a series of belts, where, still flapping feebly, they were tucked into cans by a line of packers.

These packers were mostly Banshoos from nearby Thaddeus XII—bulbous gray torsos with twenty three-fingered tentacles, an eye and a sub-brain at the tip of each tentacle.

From the packers the cans were fitted with lids, conducted through a bank of electronic cookers and finally stacked into crates, sealed and ready for export.

Magnus Ridolph considered the process with a thoughtful eye. An efficient and well-organized sequence of operations, he decided. The Banshoo packers were the only nonmechanical stage in the process and, watching the swift play of tentacles over the belt, Magnus Ridolph thought that no machine could work as quickly and flexibly.

Somewhere along this line, he reflected, the sardines had been, and possibly were being, adulterated. Where? At the moment no answer presented itself.

He ate his lunch in an adjoining cafeteria. The food was passable—precooked on Earth, served in sealed trays. Returning toward his post at Eviscerator No. 4 he noted a doorway leading out on a plank walk.

Magnus Ridolph paused, stepped outside. The walk, supported on piles driven into the morass, ran the length of the plant. Magnus Ridolph turned toward the ocean, hoping to catch a glimpse of the cannery's fishing fleet.

The mist had lifted somewhat, revealing endless miles of reed-covered mud-flats and a stagnant sea. The land proper was distinguishable from the mud-flats only by an occasional cycad which showed a dull frond to the great somber sun. It was a landscape bleak and inexpressibly dreary, a world without hope or joy.

Magnus Ridolph rounded the corner of the plant, came upon the concentration pond from which the fish were channeled to the eviscerators. He looked right and left but—except for a neat aluminum dinghy—not a boat of any sort was visible. How then was the cannery supplied with fish?

He turned his attention to the concentration pond, a shallow concrete basin, fifty feet by twenty, with a break in the wall facing the sea three feet square. Magnus Ridolph, stepping closer, saw that a set of long transparent bristles pointed through the opening, permitting fish to swim in, but preventing their escape.

And as he watched, the dull surface of the ocean rippled. He caught the sheen of a thousand small fins, and into the basin darted first one fish, then a hundred, then a thousand and further thousands until the basin seethed and spattered with concentrated life.

Magnus Ridolph felt eyes on him. Lifting his head he saw standing across the pond the broad-shouldered young man with the long yellow face. He wore puttees, high field boots of nulastic, a tan jacket, and now he came striding around the pond toward Magnus Ridolph.

"You supposed to be out here? Or at work?"

"I am employed, yes," said Magnus Ridolph mildly. "I supervise a"—he coughed—"an eviscerator. But now, I have only just finished my lunch."

The young man's mouth curled. "The whistle blew half an hour ago. Get in motion. Pop, because we didn't bring you three light-years out here to see the sights."

"If, as you say, the whistle has blown, I shall certainly return to my duties. Er—whom have I the pleasure of addressing?"

"My name's Donnels. I sign your check."

"Ah, yes. I see," said Magnus Ridolph, nodding. He thoughtfully returned to the eviscerator.

His duties were light but monotonous. Open the gate, shut it; open the gate, shut it—occasionally break up a jam of frantic silvery bodies in front of the segregators. Magnus Ridolph found ample time for reflection.

An explanation for the mysterious adulterations seemed as far away as ever. The man who could accomplish the mischief most easily was George Donnels but so far as Magnus Ridolph could see, the plant seemed completely efficient. True, Donnels wanted to buy out Karamor's interest, but why should he endanger the reputation of his own product?

Especially when he had such admirable raw material—for the fish, so Magnus Ridolph noted, were larger and more plump than the specimens displayed by his Mnemiphot. Evidently conditions on Chandaria agreed with them or possibly Donnels had stocked the world with only the most select fish.

Open the gate, close it. And he noted that the surge of fish down the chute formed a recurring pattern. First one fish—rather larger, this one, perhaps the leader of the shoal—then the thousands, dashing helter-skelter after him into the knives. There was never any hesitation. The instant the gate opened, in surged the shoal-leader, followed by the eager thousands.

The races most numerously represented at the cannery were the Banshoos, Capellan anthropoids, men and Cordovan toricles, in that order. Each had its separate bunkhouse and mess-hall— though bunkhouse was perhaps a misnomer for the tanks of warm broth in which the Banshoos wallowed, or the airtight barracks of the Capellans.

After a shower and his evening meal, Magnus Ridolph wandered into the recreation room. The telescreen was for the moment lifeless and a pair of card games were in progress. Magnus Ridolph took a seat beside a stocky bald man with plump cheeks and little blue pig-eyes, who was reading the afternoon news-facsimile.

After a moment he laid the sheet to the side, stretched pudgy arms, belched. Magnus Ridolph with grave courtesy offered him a cigarette.

"Thanks, don't mind if I do," said the stocky man cheerfully.

"Rather dull, isn't it?" said Magnus Ridolph.

"Sure is," and his new friend blew a plume of smoke into the already hazy atmosphere. "Think I'll take outa this jungle next ship."

"You'd think the company would provide better recreation facilities," said Magnus Ridolph.

"Oh, they don't care for anything but making money. These are the worst conditions I've ever worked in. Bare union minimum, no extras at all, whatever."

"A matter has been puzzling me—" began Magnus Ridolph.

"Lots of stuff puzzling me," sniffed his friend.

"How are the fish supplied to the cannery?"

"Oh," the man exhaled a wise cloud of smoke, "they're supposed to have bait in that pond. There's so many fish and they're so hungry they bite for anything. Donnels sure saves that way-gets the fish free, so to speak. Don't cost him a cent, far's I can see."

"And where does Donnels live?" inquired Magnus Ridolph. "He's got him a nice little cabin over behind the laboratory," "Oh—the laboratory," mused the white-bearded sage. "Arid where is the laboratory? I hadn't noticed it."

"She's off along the trail a little ways, down the shore." "I see."

Magnus Ridolph presently rose to his feet and wandered around the room a moment or so. Then he slipped out into the night.

Chandaria had no moons and a heavy mist shrouded the face of the planet from the stars. Ten steps took Magnus Ridolph into utter darkness. He switched on his pocket flash, picked his way gingerly over the soggy ground, at last came upon the trail to the laboratory—a graveled path, dry and solid.

Once fairly on the path he doused the flash, halted, strained his ears for sound. He heard a far waver of voices from the direction of the cannery, a phonograph faintly squeaking Capellán music.

He continued along the path, guiding himself by the feel of the gravel, stopping often to listen. He walked an interminable time, through blackness so dense that it seemed to stream back from his face as he walked. Suddenly a row of lighted windows glowed through the fog. Magnus Ridolph moved as close as feasible to one of these windows, stood on his tiptoes, stared.

He was looking into a room equipped as a biological laboratory. Donnels and a slight dark man in a white smock stood talking beside a coffin-shaped crate.

As he watched Donnels took a pair of cutters, snapped the bands of metal tape binding the crate. The fiber sides fell away, wadding was torn aside, and now a factory-new diving-suit stood revealed—a semirigid shell with a transparent dome, oxygen generator and propulsion unit.

Donnels kicked aside the rubbish, stood viewing the gear with evident satisfaction. Magnus Ridolph strained to catch a word of the conversation. Impossible—the window was insul-glass. He trotted to the door, inched it open.

"—ought to be a good outfit, four hundred and fifty munits worth," came Donnels' flat voice.

"The question is—is it what we need?"

"Sure." Donnels sounded confident, cocksure. "There's no current to speak of. In five minutes I can circle the colony, and before they know what's going on, the stessonite will kill 'em off like flies."

"Ha, hmph," the technician coughed. "They'll see you coming —ha, hmph—just as when you tried to blast them."

"Curse it, Naile," crowed Donnels, "you're a pessimistl I'll come in along the bottom. They won't see the suit like they did the boat. The suit can hit as fast as they can swim; no chance of word getting on ahead. Well, we'll try anyway. No harm trying. How're your pupils coming along?"

"Good, very good indeed. Two in D tank are ready for the fifth chart and in H tank—that big fellow—he's into the eighth chart."

Magnus Ridolph straightened slightly, then bent closer. "The Barnett Method?" He heard Donnels' voice. "And how about that fellow—in the tank by himself?"

"Ah/' said Naile, "that's the wise one! Sometimes I think he knows more than I do."

"That's the boy that'll make millionaires out of both of us," said Donnels, a singing lilt in his voice. "Provided I can buy out Karamor."

There was a silence. Then Magnus Ridolph heard a faint movement of feet. He ducked back to the window, in time to see Donnels' broad-shouldered figure leaving the laboratory.

Naile came obliquely toward him, bent forward with mouth loosely open, staring at an object out of Magnus Ridolph's vision. Magnus Ridolph chewed his lip, fingered his beard. Hypotheses formed in his mind, only to be defeated by their eventual implications. Naile left the room through a door at the rear. Evidently he had his quarters in an annex to the laboratory.

Magnus Ridolph stirred himself. Further information must be collected. He marched to the door and, almost insolently casual, entered the laboratory.

Standard equipment—permobeam projector and viewer, radio-activator, microscopes—visual and quantumnal—balances, automatic dissectors, gene calibrators, mutation cradles. These he dismissed with a glance. At his shoulder stood the diving-suit. First things first, thought Magnus Ridolph. He inspected the suit with appreciation.

"Excellent apparatus," he said to himself. "Admirable design, conscientious workmanship. A shame to defeat the purpose of so much effort." He shrugged, reached inside, and detached the head of the seam-sealer—a small precisely-machined bit of metal, without which the suit could not be made water-tight.

Movement flickered across the room. Nailei Magnus Ridolph quietly stepped toward the door. The motion caught the technician's eye.

"Hey!" he cried. "What are you up to?" He bounded forward. "Come back here!" But Magnus Ridolph was away into the Chandaria night.

A beam of light tore a milky rent through the fog, rested a moment on Magnus Ridolph.

"You!" roared Naile. For so slight a man, thought Magnus Ridolph, his voice was remarkably powerful. He heard the thud of Naile's feet. The man also appeared to be agile, swift.

Magnus Ridolph groaned once, then—as the thud of feet grew louder—he jumped off the path into the swamp.

He sank to his knees in cool slime, crouched, threw himself prone. The beam of Naile's flash passed over his head, the steps pounded past. Darkness returned,

Magnus Ridolph struggled through the muck back to the path, proceeded cautiously.

The mist wandered away, vague as a sleepwalker. Magnus Ridolph saw the lights of his bunkhouse, a hundred yards distant. But as he watched they were obscured by something prowling the road in front. Naile?

Magnus Ridolph turned, trotted as fast as his old legs would carry him, skirted far around to the left. Then he closed in to the rear of the bunkhouse. He made directly for the washroom, showered, rinsed out his clothes.

Returning to the recreation hall he found the stocky bald man sitting exactly where he had left him an hour previously.

Magnus Ridolph took a seat. "I understand," he said, "that Donnels was blasting out in the ocean."

The plump man guffawed. "Yes, sir, he surely was. What in the Lord's name for, I'm sure I can't tell you. Sometimes I think he's— well, he flies off the handle, like. A little excitable."

"Possibly he wished to kill some fish?" suggested Magnus Ridolph.

His friend shrugged, pushed plump lips out around his pipe-stem. "With hundreds of tons of fish swarming of their own free will into his cannery he wants to go out and kill more? I hardly think so. Unless he's crazier'n I think."

"Just where was he blasting?"

His friend darted him a glance from little blue pig-eyes. "Well, I'll tell you—though I don't see what difference it makes. He was right off the point of land that sticks into the ocean—the one with the three tall trees on it. About a mile down the shore."

"Strange," mused Magnus Ridolph. He pulled the small metal part from his pocket, fingering it thoughtfully. "Strange. Sardines flinging themselves headlong into cans—Donnels and Naile applying the Barnett Method to something in a tank—Donnels blasting, poisoning something in the ocean—and, too, the adulteration of the canned sardines. . . .

He reported to work at the eviscerator with a theory looming vague at the portals of his mind, like one of the fern trees through the Chandaria mist. He bent over the chute, eyes under the frosty eyebrows sparking with as much excitement as he ever permitted himself.

Open the gate—the surge of fish. Close the gate. Open the gate— the chute running thick with glinting silver crescents. Close the gate. Open the gate—the fish, first one, then the ranks behind. Close the gate.

Magnus Ridolph noted that always a lone sardine led the way down the chute, a swarm of followers close on his tail. And peering after them into the bowels of the eviscerator Magnus Ridolph noticed an inconspicuous side-channel into which the first fish ducked while his fellows poured on to their deaths.

Magnus Ridolph thoughtfully found a rag, reached far down, wadded shut the side-channel. Open the gate. The lead fish plunged down the chute—after him came the blind finny horde. He reached the side-channel, butted the rag frantically. The thrust of the others caught him. With desperate flapping of tail, he vanished into the knives. Close the gate. Open the gate. And the lead fish, thwarted in his escape by the wadded rag, was carried to death by his fellows.

Six times the sequence was repeated. Then, when Magnus Ridolph opened the gate, there was no rush of fish. He reached down, removed the rag, sat peering with an innocent eye up the chute.

A foreman presently bustled forward. "What's the trouble? What's wrong up here?"

"The fish evidently have learned the danger of the chute," said Magnus Ridolph. The foreman gave him a scornful glance. "Keep working the gate." He turned away.

Ten minutes later, when Magnus Ridolph opened the gate, fish poured down the chute as before. The foreman came to watch a moment, assured himself that the fish were running as usual, then departed. Magnus Ridolph replaced the rag in the side-passage. Six operations later the opened gate again drew blank. Magnus Ridolph immediately pulled out the rag.

The foreman came on the run. Magnus Ridolph shook his head ruefully, framed an apologetic smile behind his beard.

"We can't have this—we can't have this!" bawled the foreman. "What's going on here?"

He ran off, came back with a rock-eyed Donnels.

Donnels peered down the chute, felt into the side escape. He drew back, straightened, glanced sharply at Magnus Ridolph, who blandly returned the gaze.

"Throw another unit into the tank," said Donnels to the foreman. "Keep an eye on 'em. See what's happening."

"Yes, sir." The foreman hurried off.

Donnels turned to Magnus Ridolph, his long yellow face set hard, his mouth pulled far down at the corners. "You come out on the last ship?"

"Why, yes," said Magnus Ridolph. "A dismal voyage. The quarters were cramped, the food was miserable."

The thin mouth quivered. "Where did you sign up?"

"On Rhodope. I remember it perfectly, it was—"

"Fine, fine," said Donnels. After a short pause, "You look like a pretty smart man."

"Ahr, ahem," said Magnus Ridolph. "Are you suggesting a promotion? I'd be delighted to have a more responsible position, something clerical perhaps."

"If you're smart," said Donnels in an edged even tone, "you'll keep your mind on your work—and nothing else."

"Just as you say," said Magnus Ridolph with dignity.

The foreman returned. Donnels signaled Magnus Ridolph to raise the gate and fish once more flushed the chute.

Donnels stood close at hand for twenty minutes and the foreman remained ten minutes after Donnels had stalked away.

The rest of the shift Magnus Ridolph performed his duties well and skillfully—though by way of diversion he found it amusing to reach down and cuff the Judas fish as it passed, until at last the fish learned to keep to the far side of the chute. Magnus Ridolph could pursue his sport only with inconvenient exertion and so desisted.

Magnus Ridolph sat on the clammy bench before the bunkhouse, looking out over the landscape. There was little to see. Low in the sky hung the giant red sun, fitfully obscured by the shifting vapors. Ahead stretched the mud-flats and the leaden ocean, to his left rose the cannery and the warehouse. To his right the laboratory was visible, two hundred yards down the gravel path.

Magnus Ridolph reached for a cigar, then remembered that he had packed none in his meager luggage—and the brand sold at the commissary offended rather than soothed his palate.

Movement at the laboratory. Magnus Ridolph sat straighter on the bench. Donnels and Naile emerged, followed by two Capellan laborers, carrying the diving-suit.

Magnus Ridolph pursed his lips. Evidently the absence of the seam-sealer had not been discovered.

He watched impassively as the party turned toward the cannery wharf—Donnels darted him a long level stare as he strode by.

As soon as the group had passed Magnus Ridolph rose, jauntily set off down the path toward the laboratory. He found the door unlocked and, entering, turned directly to the wall which had been out of his vision when he stood at the window.

Tanks lined the wall, tanks full of fish—sardines. Some swam placidly to and fro, others hung close to the glass, staring out with intent eyes. Magnus Ridolph became aware of differences.

Some had monstrous tails, lizard-like heads. Others resembled tadpoles, with rudimentary fins and tail barely moving hyper-developed crania. Eyes bulged at Magnus Ridolph—eyes like bubbles, eyes flame red, eyes coal-pit black. One fish trailed a bridal-train of fins, another wore an antler-like head-growth.

Magnus Ridolph surveyed the array without emotion. He had seen like sights in other biological laboratories, freak distortions of every description. In the infamous clinic on the planet Pandora— Magnus Ridolph returned to the case at hand, sought a fish in a tank by himself— 'the wise one."

There he was, at the far end—a fish normal except for a slightly enlarged head.

"Well, well," said Magnus Ridolph. "Well, well." He bent forward, peered into the tank and the sardine, eyes unwinking, expressionless, stared back. Magnus Ridolph turned, sought around the room. There they were—the twenty charts comprising the Barnett Method for Establishing Communication with Alien Intelligences.

Magnus Ridolph fanned out the master chart before the tank, and the fish pressed closer to the glass.

"Opening communication/' Magnus Ridolph signaled and waited. The fish plunged to the bottom of the tank, returned with a bit of metal in its mouth. It tapped on the glass—once, twice, once.

Magnus Ridolph had no need to refer to the chart. "Proceed," was the message.

He bent over the chart, selected the symbols with care, pausing frequently to assure himself that the fish was following him.

"Instructor-man ... of you . . . desire . . . utilize . . . you . . . purpose . . . injury . . . class of you. I . . . know (negative) . . • method."

The fish tapped on the glass: 5—3—5, 4—3—2. 5—6—1, 2-6-3-4.

Magnus Ridolph followed the code on the chart. "Class of me . . . exists . . . place (indefinite, interrogative)?"

Magnus Ridolph signaled back. "Large (emphatic) . .. extension . . . water . . . exists . . . exterior. Plurality (emphatic) . . . class of you . . . exists Class of instructor-man . . . kill . . . class of you . . . eat . . . class of you."

"Purpose (interrogative) ... of you?" was the fish's pointed signal.

"Complex mixture," signaled Magnus Ridolph. "Constructive. You . . . desire (interrogative) . . . depart . . . tank . . . converge . . . plurality . . . class of you?"

The fish rattled his bit of metal indecisively. "Food?"

"Plurality," returned Magnus Ridolph. "Swim . . . extension (emphatic) . . . barriers (negative)."

The fish twitched his fins, retired to a dark corner. Presently, as Magnus Ridolph was becoming restive, the fish swam out in front once more, tapped twice on the glass.

Magnus Ridolph sought around the laboratory, found a bucket. He dipped it into the tank, but the fish nervously skittered out of reach. Magnus Ridolph scooped him out willy-nilly and, stuffing the Barnett charts into his pocket, he left the laboratory.

Briskly he traversed the path, turned toward the wharf. Now he spied Donnels and Naile coming toward him, lines dividing Donnels' yellow face into hard segments. Magnus Ridolph prudently set the bucket beside the bunkhouse, and was placidly seated on the bench when Donnels and Naile passed.

"—slider was there and working last night, I'm sure," Magnus Ridolph heard Naile say. Donnels shook his head curtly.

As soon as they had passed Magnus Ridolph took the bucket, continued toward the wharf.

The diving-suit stood at the edge of the pier, ready for use— except for the missing seam-sealer. The Capellan laborers stood dully nearby, watching without interest.

Magnus Ridolph rubbed his chin. Suit—seam-sealer—why not? He changed his mind about throwing the fish into the ocean; instead he approached the suit, looked it over carefully. Two dials on the breastplate; one controlled the drive-unit, the other the air generator. Simplicity itself.

He fitted the seam-sealer into place and, with a side-glance at the two Capellans, stepped into the suit, slid the seam-sealer home. The Capellans shifted uneasily, brains roiling at a sight which they knew to be unnatural—and yet which they had no orders to prevent. As an afterthought Magnus Ridolph unsealed the suit, transferred the Barnett charts to the exterior pouch, sealed himself into the suit once more.

At his belt hung a knife, an axe, a flashlamp. Another lamp was set at the top of the transparent head-dome. He reached to the breastplate, assured himself that the dials moved easily, set the air-generator in operation.

He looked over his shoulder. Motion near the laboratory. He floated the bucket on the sluggish water, lurched off the dock, A last glimpse of the rear showed him George Donnels running in his direction, face twisted in a contortion of rage. Behind him scampered Naile, white smock flapping.

Magnus Ridolph tapped the side of the bucket, unsure of the code, hoping for the best. "Swim .. . proximity ... me." Then he overturned the bucket. The fish darted out, away. Magnus Ridolph himself sank under the surface.

He twisted the propulsion dial. Water was sucked into the unit, spewed astern. Magnus Ridolph drove headlong through the water. And something tore hissing past the head-dome, made a vague clap in his ears.

Magnus Ridolph wrenched at the dial, and the water buffeted his suit.

Two or three minutes later he slowed, rose to the surface. The wharf was a quarter-mile to the rear and he could see Donnels' taut frame searching across the water. Magnus Ridolph chuckled.

The point of land with the three tall trees sloped into the ocean at his left. Turning on his head-lamp, fixing the direction by a compass set in the rim of the dome, he submerged, drove forward.

The water was emerald-green, clearer than it seemed from the surface. He swam into a gigantic underwater forest—sea-trees with delicate silver fronds pinned to the bottom by the slenderest of stalks, sea-vines rising straight as pencils of light from the depths, with shining globes spaced along the stalks.

These might not be true plants, thought Magnus Ridolph, but possibly groups of polyps like the anemones of Earth. And, recalling the sting of the Portuguese man-of-war, he gave the sea-vines a wide berth.

Everywhere swam sardines, shoal upon shoal, sardines by the millions, and the light in the head-dome glinted on the flitting silver sides like moonlight along a wind-ruffled lake.

Magnus Ridolph looked about to see if possibly the fish he had liberated were near. If so he was indistinguishable among his fellows.

On he drove, suspended between the mirroring under-surface and the gloom of the depths, past shoulders of quiet mud, across sudden deeps, threading the groves of the sea-trees.

He rose once more to the surface, adjusted his course. The cannery was a ramshackle huddle far back along the gray shore. He submerged, continued.

A white wall glimmered ahead. He veered, slowed and saw the barrier to be a submarine dyke, a rampart of felsite or quartzite, striding mightily across the ocean floor. He drifted close to the wall, rose to the top face—a flat course of rock fifteen feet below the surface.

Magnus Ridolph floated quietly, considering. This was approximately where Donnels had blasted, possibly a little further out to sea. He turned, swam slowly through the lime-green water, just above the flat white rock-face. He halted, floated motionless.

Below him several score bubbles clung to the stone, large globes arrayed in ordered rows. They seemed flexible, swayed slightly to random currents. Within, Magnus Ridolph glimpsed small intricate objects and a lurid flickering light came from several.

Magnus Ridolph suddenly became aware of the press of fish, thicker than anything he had seen to date. They were pushing slowly in upon him and now, noting the hyperdeveloped crania, the bulging eyes, the careful purposive movements, Magnus Ridolph felt that he knew a great deal about the Chandaria cannery.

He also experienced a sense of uneasiness. Why were several of the fish nudging a weighted bubble in his direction?

He whipped out the Barnett charts, found number one, gesticulated to the sequence which conveyed the notion of friendly intent.

Several of the fish darted close, followed his motions carefully. One of them—no different, so far as Magnus Ridolph could tell, from the multitude—came close, tapped on head-dome.

1—2—1— "opening communication."

Magnus Ridolph sighed, relaxed in the diving suit, indicated symbols on the charts.

"I . . . come . . . purpose . . . help . . . class of you."

"Doubt. Class of you . . . destructive (interrogative)?"

"Class of me ... in building . . . friends (negative) of me. I . . . constructive. Friend . . . class of you."

"Class of you . . . purpose . . . kill . . . class of us."

Magnus Ridolph struggled with the elemental concepts. Valuable as the charts were, conveying an exact sense was like repairing a watch with a pipe-wrench.

"Complex . . . thought. Class of me . . . carry . . . you . • . this place. Construct . . . thinking ... of you . . . stronger."

A sudden small movement flurried through the throng, silver sides twinkled. Magnus Ridolph listened—the hum of a propeller. He rose to the surface. Not a hundred yards distant was the row-boat, propelled by an outboard motor. The man in the boat sighted Magnus Ridolph, swerved. In one hand he carried a long tube with a shoulder stock. Magnus Ridolph submerged quickly.

The propeller droned louder, closer. The black underbody of the little boat plunged directly at him.

Magnus Ridolph threw the propulsion dial hard to its stop.

Water blasted back from the jet, scattering the fish, and Magnus Ridolph dove off at an angle.

The boat turned with him, following swiftly. The propeller halted, the boat slowed. Under the surface came the tube, pointing at Magnus Ridolph. It twitched, ejected a little projectile which bubbled fast toward him.

Magnus Ridolph doubled fast to the side and the spew of his drive caught the missile, diverted it slightly. From behind came a tremendous explosion—jarring Magnus Ridolph like a hammer blow. And the boat was once more after him.

Magnus Ridolph blinked, shook his head. He twisted, dove up at a slant for the boat. Up under the light boat he came, the head-dome under one side of the hull. Full power on the thrust-unit— up and over went the boat. Sprawling into the water toppled an awkward dark shape and the rocket-tube plunged steeply into the darkness below. The boat filled with water, settled into the gloom.

Magnus Ridolph surfaced, placidly watched Naile, the laboratory technician, paddling for land. He was a clumsy swimmer and the shore was a mile distant. If he reached the shore, there would still be several miles of morass to traverse back to the cannery. After a moment Magnus Ridolph sunk below the surface, returned to the great white underwater rampart.

Joel Karamor strode back and forth, hands behind his back, forehead furrowed. Magnus Ridolph, at his ease in an old-fashioned leather armchair, sipped a glass of sherry. This was Joel Karamor's business office, high in the French Pavilion Tower—one of the landmarks of Tran, the miracle-city on the shores of Lake Sahara.

"Yes," muttered Karamor, "but where was Donnels all this time? Where is he now?"

Magnus Ridolph coughed slightly, touched his white beard, this once more crisp, well-cropped.

"Ah, Donnels," he mused. "Did you value him as a partner?"

Karamor froze stock-still, stared at his visitor. "What do you mean? Where is Donnels?"

Magnus Ridolph touched the tips of his fingers together. "Ill continue my report. I returned to the dock and as it was somewhat after sunset, very dull and gloomy, I fancy I was not observed. A large number of the intelligent fish. I may add, accompanied me for reasons of their own, into which I did not inquire.

"I assumed that Donnels would be standing on the wharf, probably armed and emotionally keyed to shoot without permitting me to present my authority from you. I believe I have mentioned that the wharf provided the only access from the cannery to the ocean— the shore being an impassable swamp.

"If Donnels were standing on the wharf, he would completely dominate the ground. My problem then was to find a means to reach solid ground without being perceived by Donnels."

Karamor resumed his pacing. "Yes," he muttered. "Go on."

Magnus Ridolph sipped his sherry. "A suitable expedient had occurred to me. Understand now, Joel, I could not, at the risk of my life, climb boldly up on the wharf."

"I understand perfectly. What did you do?"

"I swam through the trap into the concentration pond. But I still would be exposed if I tried to emerge from the water, so ..."

"So?"

"So I swam to the gate into the cannery, waited till it opened and propelled myself into the chute toward the eviscerator."

"Hah!" snorted Joel Karamor. "Just the grace of God I'm not opening a can of sardines and finding you. Canned Magnus. Canned Ridolph!"

"No," said the white-bearded sage. "There was little danger of the eviscerator. The chute is set at a gentle slope ... As you may imagine, the operator of the machine was startled when I appeared before him. Fortunately for me he was a Capellan, excellent at routine tasks, short on initiative, and he raised no special outcry when I rose from the chute.

"I removed the diving suit, explained to the Capellan that I was testing the slope of the channel—which seemed to satisfy him— and then I strolled out on the wharf.

"As I expected, Donnels was standing there, watching across the water. He did not hear me—I walked rather quietly. It now occurred to me that inasmuch as Donnels was young and athletic, of choleric disposition and furthermore carried a hand-weapon, my bargaining position was rather poor. Accordingly I pushed him into the water."

"You did! Then what?"

Magnus Ridolph put on a doleful countenance.

"Then what, confound it?" bawled Karamor.

"A tragic occurrence," said Magnus Ridolph. He shook his head. "I might have foreseen it had I thought. You remember, I mentioned the fish following me back from the dike."

Karamor stared. "You mean?"

"Donnels drowned," said Magnus Ridolph. "The fish drowned him. Feeble individually, in the mass they drove him away from the wharf, pulled him under. A distressing sight. I was very upset."

Karamor paced once, twice, across the room, flung himself into a chair opposite Magnus Ridolph.

"An accident, hey? Poor unfortunate Donnels, hey? Is that the story? The trouble is, Magnus, I know you too well. The whole thing sounds too precise. These—ah, intelligent sardines"—he made a sardonic mouth—"had no idea Donnels would be pushed into the water?"

"Well," said Magnus Ridolph thoughtfully. "I did mention that he would probably be waiting on the wharf. And the Bamett charts, though very useful of course, are not infallible. I suppose it's not impossible that the fish assumed—"

"Never mind, never mind," said Karamor wearily.

"Look at it this way," suggested Magnus Ridolph easily. "If Donnels had not attempted to blast and poison the fish they would not have drowned him. If Donnels had not sent Naile to blast me out of the water and had not been waiting on the dock for the honor of shooting me personally, I would not have pushed him in."

"Yes," said Karamor, "and if you hadn't stolen his suit he probably wouldn't have been waiting for you."

Magnus Ridolph pursed his lips. "If we pursue the matter of ultimate responsibility to the limit we might arrive at you, who, as Donnels' partner, is legally responsible for his actions."

Karamor sighed. "How did the whole thing start?"

"A natural evolution," said Magnus Ridolph. "Donnels and Naile, in stocking Chandaria with sardines, naturally selected the best sardines possible. Then in the laboratory, while waiting for the fish to multiply, they encouraged mutations to improve the stock even further.

"One of these mutations proved highly intelligent, and I fancy this gave Donnels his big idea. Why not breed a strain of intelligent fish which could be trained to work for him, like sheep-dogs or better, like the Judas-goat which leads the sheep into the abattoir?

"They set to work breeding, cross-breeding, and indeed a very intelligent sardine resulted. Those which would cooperate with Donnels rendered very valuable service, enabling him to can fish without going to the trouble of catching them himself.

"A few of the fish, the most intelligent, preferred freedom and founded a colony near the dike. Donnels soon learned of this colony because all but the most servile of his Judas fish swam off and joined their brothers.

"Taming these fish, teaching them, was a laborious task and Donnels decided to exterminate the colony. He also feared that the intelligent fish might outnumber the normal ones and refuse to be led blindly into his concentration pond. He tried blasting and poison from the surface but was unsuccessful, as the fish could see him coming. So he ordered a diving-suit from Rhodope.

"Meanwhile the fish had launched a counter-offensive. They had no weapons—they could not attack Donnels directly. But they knew the purpose of the cannery, that it packed sardines for human consumption.

"They developed the skill to build the bubbles on the dike—a secretion, I believe—and prepare a series of offensive substances. Then a great number of ordinary sardines were captured, packed with these substances, sent into the cannery to be canned and exported."

Joel Karamor rose abruptly to his feet, once more paced the glossy floor. "And what happened to Naile?"

"He showed up a day later. A mere tool."

Karamor shook his head. "I suppose the plant is a total loss. Did you make arrangements to evacuate the help?"

Magnus Ridolph widened his eyes in surprise. "None whatever. Was I supposed to do so?"

"I gave you full powers," snapped Karamor. "You should have seen to it."

A buzzer sounded. Karamor pushed the button. A soft voice spoke. Karamor's brindle-gray hair rose in a startled ruff.

"Cargo of canned sardines? Hold on." He turned to Magnus Ridolph. "Who dispatched the sardines? What's going on here— and there?"

Magnus Ridolph shrugged. "The cannery is functioning as before —under new management. Using my powers I made the necessary arrangements. Your share of the profits shall be as before/'

Karamor halted in mid-stride. "So? And who is my partner? Naile?"

"By no means/' said Magnus Ridolph. "He has nothing to offer." "Who then?" bellowed Karamor.

"Naturally, the colony of intelligent sardines I told you about." "What/"

"Yes," said Magnus Ridolph. "You are now associated commercially with a shoal of sardines. The Sardine-Karamor Company."

"My word," husked Karamor. "My word/"

"The advantages to all concerned are obvious," said Magnus Ridolph. "You are assured of efficient management with high-grade raw material guaranteed. The sardines receive whatever civilized amenities they desire."

Karamor was silent for some minutes. He turned a narrow eye on the bland Magnus Ridolph.

"I detect the Ridolph touch in this scheme. The characteristic lack of principle, the calculated outing of orthodox practice. . . ."

"Tut, tut," said Magnus Ridolph. "Not at all, not at all."

Karamor snorted. "Do you deny that the whole program was your idea?"

"Well," said Magnus Ridolph carefully, "I admit that I pointed out to the fishes the advantages of the arrangement."