"Look," said Stella Wing to Beverly Bell. "Over there." "I've seen it before. It's simply

disgusting."

 "That's a laugh." Stella's tawny-brown eyes twinkled. "You made your bombing runs on

that target, too, my sweet, and didn't score any higher than I did."

 "I soon found out I didn't want him-much too stiff and serious. Frank's a lot more fun."

 The staff had gathered in the lounge, as had become the custom, to spend an hour or

so before bedtime in reading, conversation, dancing, light flirtation and even lighter

drinking. Most of the girls, and many of the men, drank only soft drinks. Hilton took one

drink per day of avignognac, a fine old brandy. So did de Vaux-the two usually making a

ceremony of it.

 Across the room from Stella and Beverly, Temple Bells was looking up at Hilton and

laughing. She took his elbow and, in the gesture now familiar to all, pressed his arm

quickly, but in no sense furtively, against her side. And he, equally openly, held her

forearm for a moment in the full grasp of his hand.

 "And he isn't a pawer," Stella said, thoughtfully. "He never touches any of the rest of

us. She taught him to do that, damn her, without him ever knowing anything about it . . .

and I wish I knew how she did it."

 "That isn't pawing," Beverly laughed lightly. "It's simply self-defense. If he didn't fend

her off, God knows what she'd do. I still say it's disgusting. And the way she dances

with him! She ought to be ashamed of herself. He ought to fire her." "She's never been

caught outside the safety zone, and we've all been watching her like hawks. In fact,

she's the only one of us all who has never been alone with him for a minute. No,

darling, she isn't playing games. She's playing for keeps, and she's a mighty smooth

worker."

 "Huh!" Beverly emitted a semi-ladylike snort. "What's so smooth about showing off

man-hunger that way? Any of us could do that-if we would."

 "Miaouw, miaouw. Who do you think you're kidding, Bev, you sanctimonious

hypocrite-me? She has staked out the biggest claim she could find. She's posted

notices all over it and is guarding it with a pistol. Half your month's salary gets you all of

mine if she doesn't walk him up the center aisle as soon as we get back to Earth. We

can both learn a lot from that girl, darling. And I, for one, am going to."

 "Uh-uh, she hasn't got a thing I want," Beverly laughed again, still lightly. Her friend's

barbed shafts had not wounded her. "And I'd much rather be thought a hypocrite, even

a sanctimonious one, than a ravening, slavering-I can't think of the technical-name for a

female wolf, so-wolfess, running around with teeth and claws bared, looking for another

kill."

 "You do get results, I admit." Stella, too, was undisturbed. "We don't seem to convince

each other, do we, in the matter of technique?"

 At this point the Hilton-Bells tete-a-tete was interrupted by Captain Sawtelle. "Got half

an hour, Jarve?" he asked. "The commanders, especially Elliott and Fenway, would like

to talk to you."

 "Sure I have, Skipper. Be seeing you, Temple," and the two men went to the captain's

cabin, in which room, blue with smoke despite the best efforts of the ventilators, six full

commanders were arguing heatedly.

 "Hi, men," Hilton greeted them.

 "Hi, Jarve," from all six, and: "What'll you drink? Still making do with ginger ale?" asked

Elliott (Engineering).

 "'That'll be fine, Steve. Thanks. You having as much trouble as we are?"

 "More," the engineer said, glumly. "Want to know what it reminds me of? A bunch of

Australian bushmen stumbling onto a ramjet and trying to figure out how it works. And

yet Sam here has got the sublime guts to claim that he understands all about their

detectors-and that they aren't anywhere nearly as good as ours are."

 "And they aren't!" blazed Commander Samuel Bryant (Electronics). "We've spent six

solid weeks looking for something that simply is not there. All they've got is the

prehistoric Whitworth system and that's all it is. Nothing else. Detectors-hell! I tell you I

can see better by moonlight than the very best they can do. With everything they've got

you couldn't detect a woman in your own bed!"

 "And this has been going on all night," Fenway (Astrogation) said. "So the rest of us

thought we'd ask you in to help us pound some sense into Sam's thick, hard head."

 Hilton frowned in thought while taking a couple of sips of his drink. Then, suddenly, his

face cleared. "Sorry to disappoint you, gentlemen, but-at any odds you care to name

and in anything from split peas to C-notes--Sam's right."

 Commander Samuel Bryant gasped in surprise and the six other officers exploded as

one. When the clamor had subsided enough for him to be heard, Hilton went on: "I'm

very glad to get that datum, Sam. It ties in perfectly with everything else I know about

them."

 "How do you figure that kind of twaddle ties in with anything?" Sawtelle demanded.

 "Strict maintenance of the status quo," Hilton explained, flatly. "That's all they're

interested in. You said yourself, Skipper, that it was a hell of a place to have a

space-battle, practically in atmosphere. They never attack. They never scout. They

simply don't care whether they're attacked or not. If and when attacked, they put up just

enough ships to handle whatever force has arrived. When the attacker has been

repulsed, they don't chase him a foot. They build as many ships and Omans as were

lost in the battle-no more and no less-and then go on about their regular business. The

Masters owned that half of the Fuel Bin, so the Omans are keeping that half. They will

keep on keeping it for ever and ever. Amen."

 "But that's no way to fight a war!" Three or four men said this, or its equivalent, at once.

 "Don't judge them by human standards. They aren't even approximately human. Our

personnel is not expendable. Theirs is-just as expendable as their material."

 While the Navy men were not convinced, all were silenced except Sawtelle. "But

suppose the Stretts had sent in a thousand more skeletons than they did?" he argued.

 "According to the concept you fellows just helped me develop, it wouldn't have made

any difference how many they sent," Hilton replied, thoughtfully. "One or a thousand or

a million, the Omans have-must have-enough ships and inactivated Omans hidden

away, both on Fuel World and on Ardry here, to maintain the balance."

 "Oh, hell!" Elliott snapped. "If I helped you hatch out any such brainstorm as that, I'm

going onto Tillinghast's couch for a six-week overhaul-or have him put me into his

padded cell."

 "Now that's what I would call a thought," Bryant began. "Hold it, Sam," Hilton

interrupted. "You can test it easily enough, Steve. Just ask your Oman."

 "Yeah-and have him say "Why, of course, Master, but why do you keep on testing me

this way?" He'll ask me that about four times more, the stubborn, single-tracked,

brainless skunk, and I'll really go nuts. Are you getting anywhere trying to make a

Christian out of Laro?"

 "It's too soon to really say, but I think so." Hilton paused in thought. "He's making

progress, but I don't know how much. The devil of it is that it's up to him to make the

next move; I can't. I haven't the faintest idea whether it will take days yet or weeks."

 "But not months or years, you think?" Sawtelle asked.

 "No. We think that-but say, speaking of psychologists, is Tillinghast getting anywhere,

Skipper? He's the only one of your big wheels who isn't in liaison with us."

 "No. Nowhere at all," Sawtelle said, and Bryant added:

"I don't think he ever will. He still thinks human psychology will apply if he applies it hard

enough. But what did you start to say about Laro?"

 "We think the break is about due, and that if it doesn't come within about thirty days it

won't come at all-we'll have to back up and start all over again."

 "I hope it does. We're all pulling for you," Sawtelle said. "Especially since Karns'

estimate is still years, and he won't be pinned down to any estimate even in years. By

the way, Jarve, I've pulled my team off of that conversion stuff."

 "Oh?" Hilton raised his eyebrows.

 "Putting them at something they can do. The real reason is that Poindexter pulled

himself and his crew off it at eighteen hours today."

 "I see. I've heard that they weren't keeping up with our team."

 "He says that there's nothing to keep up with, and I'm inclined to agree with him." The

old spacehound's voice took on a quarter-deck rasp. "It's a combination of psionics,

witchcraft and magic. None of it makes any kind of sense."

 "The only trouble with that viewpoint is that, whatever the stuff may be, it works," Hilton

said, quietly.

 "But, damn it, how can it work?"

 "I don't know. I'm not qualified to be on that team. I can't even understand their reports.

However. I know two things. First, they'll get it in time. Second, we BuSci people will

stay here until they do. However, I'm still hopeful of finding a shortcut through Laro.

Anyway, with this detector thing settled, you'll have plenty to do to keep all your boys

out of mischief for the next few months."

 "Yes, and I'm glad of it. We'll install our electronics systems on a squadron of these

Oman ships and get them into distant-warning formation out in deep space where they

belong. Then we'll at least know what is going on."

 "That's a smart idea, Skipper. Go to it. Anything else before we hit our sacks?"

 "One more thing. Our psych, Tillinghast. He's been talking to me and sending me

memos, but today he gave me a formal tape to approve and hand personally to you. So

here it is. By the way, I didn't approve it; I simply endorsed it 'Submitted to Director

Hilton without recommendation.' "

"Thanks." Hilton accepted the sealed canister. "What's the gist? I suppose he wants me

to squeal for help already? To admit that we're licked before we're really started?"

 "You guessed it. He agrees with you and Kincaid that the psychological approach is the

best one, but your methods are all wrong. Based upon misunderstood and unresolved

phenomena and applied with indefensibly faulty techniques, et cetera. And since he has

'no adequate laboratory equipment aboard,' he wants to take a dozen or so Omans

back to Terra, where he can really work on them."

 "Wouldn't that be something?" Hilton voiced a couple of highly descriptive deep-space

expletives. "Not only quit before we start, but have all the top brass of the Octagon, all

the hot-shot politicians of United Worlds, the whole damn Congress of Science and all

the top-bracket industrialists of Terra out here lousing things up so that nobody could

ever learn anything? Not in seven thousand years!"

 "That's right. You said a mouthful, Jarve!" Everybody yelled something, and no one

agreed with Tillinghast, who apparently was not very popular with his fellow officers.

 Sawtelle added, slowly: "If it takes too long, though . . , it's the uranexite I'm thinking of.

Thousands of millions of tons of it, while we've been hoarding it by grams. We could

equip enough Oman ships with detectors to guard Fuel Bin and our lines. I'm not

recommending taking the Perseus back, and we're 'way out of hyper-space radio range.

We could send one or two men in a torp, though, with the report that we have found all

the uranexite we'll ever need."

 "Yes, but damn it, Skipper, I want to wrap the whole thing up in a package and hand it

to 'em on a platter. Not only the fuel, but whole new fields of science. And we've got

plenty of time to do it in. They equipped us for ten years. They aren't going to start

worrying about us for at least six or seven; and the fuel shortage isn't going to become

acute for about twenty.

 Expensive, admitted, but not critical. Besides, if you send in a report now, you know

who'll come out and grab all the glory in sight. Five-Jet Admiral Gordon himself, no

less."

 "Probably, and I don't pretend to relish the prospect. However, the fact remains that we

came out here to look for fuel. We found it. We should have reported it the day we

found it, and we can't put it off much longer."

 "I don't agree. I intend to follow the directive to the letter. It says nothing whatever

about reporting."

 "But it's implicit . . ."

 "No Bearing. Your own Regulations expressly forbid extrapolation beyond or

interpolation within a directive. The Brass is omnipotent, omniscient and infallible. So

why don't you have your staff here give an opinion as to the time element?"

 "This matter is not subject to discussion. It is my own personal responsibility. I'd like to

give you all the time you want, Jarve, but . . . well, damn it . . . if you must have it, I've

always tried to live up to my oath, but I'm not doing it now."

 "I see." Hilton got up, jammed both hands into his pockets, sat down again. "I hadn't

thought about your personal honor being involved, but of course it is. But, believe it or

not, I'm thinking of humanity's best good, too. So I'll have to talk, even though I'm not

half ready to-I don't know enough. Are these Omans people or machines?"

 A wave of astonishment swept over the group, but no one spoke.

 "I didn't expect an answer. The clergy will worry about souls, too, but we won't. They

have a lot of stuff we haven't. If they're people, they know a sublime hell of a lot more

than we do; and calling it psionics or practical magic is merely labeling it, not answering

any questions. If they're machines, they operate on mechanical principles utterly foreign

to either our science or our technology. In either case, is the correct word 'unknown' or

'unknowable'? Will any human gunner ever be able to fire an Oman projector? There

are a hundred other and much tougher questions, half of which have been scaring me

to the very middle of my guts. Your oath, Skipper, was for the good of the Service and,

through the Service, for the good of all humanity. Right?"

 "That's the sense of it."

 "Okay. Based on what little we have learned so far about the Omans, here's just one of

those scarers, for a snapper. If Omans and Terrans mix freely, what happens to the

entire human race?"

 to your elbow, fella!" "Hoch der BuSci!" "Seven no trump bid and made!" and other

shouts in similar vein.

 "Thanks, fellows." Hilton shook hands all around. "I'm mighty glad that you were all in

on this and that you'll play along with me. Goodnight, all."

 Minutes of almost palpable silence followed. Then Sawtelle spoke . . . slowly,

gropingly.

 "I begin to see what you mean . . . that changes the whole picture. You've thought this

through farther than any of the rest of us . . . what do you want to do?"

 "I don't know. I simply don't know." Face set and hard, Hilton stared unseeingly past

Sawtelle's head. "I don't know what we can do. No data. But I have pursued several

lines of thought out to some pretty fantastic points . . . one of which is that some of us

civilians will have to stay on here indefinitely, whether we want to or not, to keep the

situation under control. In which case we would, of course, arrange for Terra to get free

fuel-FOB Fuel Bin-but in every other aspect and factor both these solar systems would

have to be strictly off limits."

 "I'm afraid so," Sawtelle said, finally. "Gordon would love that . . . but there's nothing he

or anyone else can do . . . but of course this is an extreme view. You really expect to

wrap the package up, don't you?"

 "'Expect' may be a trifle too strong at the moment. But we're certainly going to try to,

believe me. I brought this example up to show all you fellows that we need time."

 "You've convinced me, Jarve." Sawtelle stood up and extended his hand. "And that

throws it open for staff discussion. Any comments?"

 "You two covered it like a blanket," Bryant said. "So all I want to say, Jarve, is deal me

in. I'll stand at your back 'til your belly caves in."

 "Take that from all of us!" "Now we're blasting!" "Power to your elbow, fella!" "Hoch der

BuSci!" "Seven no trump bid and made!" and other shouts in similiar vein.

"Thanks fellows." Hilton shook hands all around. "I'm mighty glad that you were all in on

this and that you'll play along with me. Goodnight, all."