'You've checked, of course,' Garlock said. 'Everything all right?'

'Absolutely. Even to Lola and her biologists. Everybody's full of joy and gratitude and stuff - as well as information. And we managed to pry ourselves loose without taking up you two trumpet-of-doom sleepers. So we're ready to jump again. I wonder where in hell well wind up this time.'

'I'm glad you said that, Jim,' Garlock said. 'It gives me the nerve to spring a thing on you that I've been mulling around in my mind ever since we landed here.'

'Nerve? You?' James asked incredulously. 'Pass the coffeepot around again, Brownie. If that character there said what I heard him say, thisll make your hair stand straight up on end.'

'On our jumps we've had altogether too much power and no control whatever. Consider three things. First, as you all know, I've been trying to figure out a generator that would give us intrinsic control, but I haven't got any farther with it then we did back on Tellus. Second, consider all the jumps we've made except this last one. Every time we've taken off, none of us has had his shield really up. You, Jim, were concentrating on the drive, and so were wide open to it. The rest of us were at least

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thinking about it, and so were more or less open to it. Not one of us has ever ordered it to take us to any definite place; in fact, I don't believe that any one of us has ever even suggested a destination.

Third, consider this last jump all by itself. It's the first time we've ever stayed in the same galaxy. It's the first time we've ever gone where we wanted to. And it's the first time - here's the crux - that any of us has been concentrating on any destination at the moment of firing the charge. Brownie was willing the Pleiades to this planet so hard that we could all taste it. The rest of us, if not really pushing to get here, were at least not opposed to the idea.'

'Are you saying the damn thing's alive'}'' James asked. 'No. I'm saying I don't believe in miracles. I don't believe in coincidence - that concept is as meaningless as that of paradox. I certainly do not believe that we hit this planet by chance against odds of almost infinity to one. So I've been looking for a reason. I found one. It goes against the grain - against everything I've ever believed - but, since it's the only possible explanation, it must be true. The only possible director of the Gun-ther Drive must be the mind.'

'Damn it, now you are saying that the thing's alive.' 'Far from it. It's Brownie who's alive. It was Brownie who got us here. Nothing else - repeat, nothing else - makes sense.' James pondered for a full minute. 'I wouldn't buy it except for one thing. If you, the hardest-boiled skeptic that ever went unhung, can feed yourself the whole bowl of such a mess as that, I can at least take a taste of it. So go on.'

'Okay. You know that we don't know anything really fundamental about either teleportation or the drive. I'm sure now that the drive is simply mechanical teleportation. If you tried to 'port yourself without any idea of where you wanted to go, where do you think you'd land?'

'You might scatter yourself all over space - no, you wouldn't. You wouldn't move, because it wouldn't be teleportation at all. Destination is an integral part of the concept.'

'Exactly so - but only because you've been conditioned to it all your life. This thing hasn't been conditioned to anything.' 'Like a new-born baby,' Lola suggested. 'Life again,' James said. 'I can't see it - pure luck, even at

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those odds, makes a lot more sense."

'And to make matters worse,' Garlock went on as though neither of them had spoken, 'just suppose that a man had four minds instead of one and they weren't working together. Then where would he go?'

This time, James simply whistled; the girls stared, speechless.

'I think we've proved that my school of mathematics was right - the thing was built to operate purely at random. Fother-ingham was wrong. However, I missed the point that if control is possible, the controller must be a mind. The idea never occurred to me or anyone working with me. Nor to Fother-ingham or anybody else.'

'I can't say I'm sold, but it's easy to test and the results can't be any worse. Let's go.'

'How would you test it?'

'Same way you would. Only way. First, each one of us alone. Then pairs and threes. Then all four together. Fifteen tests in all. No. Three destinations for each setup - near, medium, and far. Except Tellus, of course; we'd better save that shot until we learn all we can find out. Anybody not in the set should screen up as solidly as he can set his block - eyes shut, even, and concentrating on something else. Check?'

James did not express the thought that Tellus must by now be so far away that no possible effort could reach it; but the thought was nagging at everyone's minds anyway.

'Check. I'll concentrate on a series of transfinite numbers. Belle, you work on the possible number of shades of the color green. Lola, how many different perfumes you can identify by smell? Jim, hit the button.'

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SIX

The tests took much time, and were strictly routine in nature. At their conclusion, Garlock said:

'First: either Jim alone, or Lola alone, or Jim and Lola together, can hit any destination within any galaxy, but can't go from one galaxy to another.

'Second: either Belle or I, or any combination containing either of us without the other, has no control at all,

'Third: Belle and I together, or any combination containing both of us, can go intergalactic with full control.

'In spite of confession supposedly being good for the soul, I don't like to admit that we've messed things up - do you, Belle?' Oarlock's smile was both rueful and forced.

'Not one bit.' Belle licked her lips; for the first time since boarding the starship she was acutely embarrassed. 'We'll have to admit it, of course. It was all my fault - and it makes me look like a damned stupid juvenile.'

'Not at all, since neither of us had any idea. I'll be glad to settle for half the blame.'

'Will you please stop talking Sanskrit?' James asked. 'Or lep it, so we two innocent bystanders can understand it?'

'Will do,' said Garlock, and he went on in thought: 'Remember what I said about this drive not being conditioned to anything? I was wrong. Belle and I have conditioned it, but badly. We've been fighting so much that something or other in that mess down there has become conditioned to her, something else to me. My part will play along with anyone except Belle; hers with anybody except me. Anti-conditioning, you might call it. Anyway, they lay back their ears and balk.'

'Oh, hell!' James snorted. Talk about gobbledegook! You're

still saying that that conglomeration of copper and silver and

steel and insulation that we built ourselves has got intelligence,

and I still won't buy it.'

'By no means. Remember, Jim, that both the concept of

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mechanical teleportation, and that the mind is the only possible controller, are absolutely new. We've got to throw out all previous ideas and start new from scratch. I postulate, as a working hypothesis drawn from original data as modified by these tests, that that particular conglomeration of materials generates at least two fields about the properties of which we know nothing at all. That one of those properties is the tendency to become preferentially resonant with one mind and preferentially non-resonant with another. Clear so far?'

'Dimly.' James scowled in thought. 'However, it's no harder to swallow than Sanderson's Theory of Teleportation. Or, for that matter, the actual basic coupling between mind and ordinary muscular action. Does that mean we'll have to rebuild half a million credits' worth of ... no, you and Belle can work it, together.'

'I don't know.' Garlock paced the floor. 'I simply can't see any possible mechanism of coupling.'

'Subconscious, perhaps,' Belle suggested,

'For my money that whole concept is invalid,' Garlock said. 'It merely changes "I don't know" to "I can't know," and I don't want any part of that. However, "unconscious" could be the answer, and if so, we may have a lever. Belle, are you willing to bury your hatchet for about five minutes - work with me like a partner ought to?'

'I certainly am, Clee. Honestly. Screens down flat, if you say so.'

'Halfway's enough, I think - we'll know when we get down there.' Her mind joined his and he went on, 'Ignore the machines themselves completely. Consider only the fields. Feel around with me - keep tuned! - see if there's anything at all here that we can grab hold of and manipulate, like an Op field except probably very much finer. I'll be completely damned if I can see how this type of Gunther generator can put out a manipulable field, but it must. That's the only - AAAIIII!'

The last was a yell of pure mental agony. Both hands flew to his head, his face turned white, sweat poured, and he slumped down unconscious.

He came to, however, as the other three were stretching him out on a davenport. Belle was mopping his face with a handkerchief.

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'What happened, Clee?'

'I found my manipulable field, but a bomb went off in my brain when I straightened it out.' He searched his mind anxiously, then smiled. 'But no damage done - just the opposite. It opened up a Gunther cell I didn't know I had. Didn't it sock you, too, Belle?'

'No,' she said, more than half bitterly. 'I must not have one. That makes you a super-Prime, if I may name a new classification.'

'Nonsense! Of course you've got it. Unconscious, of course, like me, but without it you couldn't have conditioned the field. But why - oh, what bit me must have been the one conditioned

to me.'

'Oh, nice!' Belle exclaimed. 'Come on, Clee, let's go get

mine!'

'Do you want a bit of knowledge that badly, Belle?' Lola asked. 'Besides, wait, he isn't strong enough yet.'

'Of course he's strong enough. A little knock like that? Want it I'd give my right leg and ... and almost anything for it It didn't kill him, so it won't kill me.'

'There may be an easier way,' Garlock said. 'I wouldn't wish a jolt like that onto my worst enemy. But that had two hundred kilovolts and four hundred kilogunts behind it. Since I know now where and what the cell is, I think I can connect it up for you without being quite so rough.'

'Oh, lovely - come in, quick!'

Garlock went in, and wrought. It took longer - half an hour, in fact - but it was very much easier to take. 'What did it feel like, Belle?' Lola asked eagerly. 'You winced like he was drilling teeth and struck a couple of nerves.'

'No. It was more like being stretched all out of shape. Like having a child, maybe, in a small way. Let's go, Clee!'

They joined up and went. And they got what they were after.

Breaking connection, Belle said, Thanks a million, Clee; you're tall, solid gold. Do you want to run some more tests, to see which of us is the intergalactic transporter?'

'Not unless you do.'

'Who, me? I'll be tickled to death not to. Back to Tellus, then?'

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'Tellus here we come,' Garlock said. 'Jim, what are the Tellurian figures for exactly five hundred miles up?'

'I'll punch 'em - got 'em in my head.' James did so. 'Shall Brownie and I set our blocks?'

'No,' Belle said. 'Nothing can interfere with us now.'

'Ready.' Garlock sat down in the pilot's seat. 'Cluster 'round, Belle.'

Belle leaned against the back of the seat and put both arms around Oarlock's neck. 'I'm clustered.'

'The spot we're shooting at is exactly over the precise center of the middle blast-pit at Port Gunther. In sync?'

'I'm exactly on the locked. Shoot.'

'Now, you sheet-iron bucket of nuts and bolts, JUMP!' said Garlock, and snapped the red switch.

Earth lay beneath them. So did Port Gunther.

'Whew!' Oarlock's huge sigh held much more of relief than of triumph.

'They did it! We're home!' Lola shrieked; and, breaking into unashamed and unrestrained tears, went into her husband's extended arms.

'Cry ahead, sweet,' James said. Then, extending his right hand to Garlock and to Belle: 'I was scared to death you couldn't make it except by backtracking. Good going, you two Primes.' But his thoughts said vastly more than his words.

Belle's eyes, too, were wet. She looked at Clee and said, 'Judging from that sigh of yours, you weren't as sure as you looked, that we could do it the hard way. I was a quivering mass of jelly inside, myself.'

'Afterward, you mean. You were solid as Gibralter when I fired the charge. You're the kind of woman a man wants with him when the going's tough. Slide around here a little, so I can get hold of you.'

Garlock released Belle - finally - and turned to the pilot, who was just pulling a data-sheet from the computer. 'How far did we miss target. Jim?"

James held up his right hand, thumb and forefinger forming a circle. 'You're one point eight seven inches high, and off-center point five three inches to the north north east by east. I hereby award each of you the bronze medal of Marksman First. Shall I take her down now or do you want to check in

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from here first?'

•Neither... I think. What do you say, Belle?'

'Right. Not until you-know-what.'

'Check. Until we decide whether or not to let them know just yet that we can handle the ship - and, if we do, how many of our taped reports we turn in and how many we toss down the chute.'

'I get it!' James exclaimed, with a spreading grin. 'That, my dear people, is something I never expected to live long enough to see - our straightlaced Doctor Garlock applying the Bugger Factor to a research problem!'

'I prefer the term "Monk's Coefficient", myself,' Garlock said, 'from the standpoint of mathematical rigor.'

'At Polytech we called it "Finagle's Formula",' Belle commented. 'The most widely applicable operator known.'

'Have you three lost your minds?' Lola demanded. 'That's nothing to joke about - you wouldn't destroy official reports! All that astronomy and anthropology that nobody ever even dreamed of before? You couldn't! Not possibly!'

'Each of us knows just as well as you do how much data we have, exactly how new and startling it is; but we've thought ahead farther than you have. None of us likes the idea of destroying it a bit more than you do. We won't, either, without your full, unreserved, wholehearted consent; nor without your fixed, ironclad, unshakeable determination never to reveal any least bit of it.' Oarlock's voice was hard and cold.

'That language is far too strong for me. I'd like to be able to go along with you, but on those terms I simply can't.'

'I think you can, when you've thought it through. You've met Alonzo P. Ferber, haven't you? Read him?'

'One glimpse; that was all I could stand. He pawed me mentally and wanted to paw me physically, the very first time I ever met him.'

'Check. So I'm going to ask you two questions, which you may answer as an anthropologist, as Lola Montandon, as Mrs. James James James the Ninth, as a member of our team, or as any other character you choose to assume. Remembering that Ferber's a Gunther First - and pretends to be an Operator whenever he can get away with it - should he, or anyone like him, ever be allowed to visit Hodell? Second question: if there

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is any possible way for him to get there, can he be made to stay away?'

'Oh ... Grand Lady Neldine and that perfectiy stunning Grand Lady Lemphi they picked out for Jim ... they're such nice people ... and the Gunther genes...' As Lola thought on, her expressive face showed a variety of conflicting emotions before it hardened into decision.  'The only possible answer to both questions is no. I subscribe - on the exact terms you stipulated. And you don't believe, Clee, that my thesis had anything to do with my holding out at first?' 'Certainly I don't. Besides...' 'What thesis?' Belle asked.

'For my Ph.D. in anthropology. I thought I had it made, but it just went down the chute. And I don't know if any of you realize just how nearly impossible it is to make a really worthwhile original contribution to science in that field.'

'As I started to tell you, Brownie,' Garlock said, 'I don't think you've lost a thing. There's a bigger and better one coming up.' 'What?'

'He's got a theory,' Belle explained. 'It's such a weirdie that he won't talk about it to anybody.'

'It isn't a theory yet - at least, not ripe enough to pick - but it's something more than a hunch,' Garlock said.

'But what could possibly make as good a thesis as those extra-galactic tapes?' Lola wailed. They would have made it a summer breeze.'

'More like a hurricane - the hottest thing since doctorate disputations first started,' Garlock said. 'However, as I started to say twice before, it still will be. Intra-galactic tapes will be just as good. In this case, better.'

'W-e-1-1... possibly. But we don't have any.' 'That's what this conference is about. We can't destroy the stuff we have unless we can replace it with something better. My idea is that we should visit a few - say fifty - Tellus-type planets in this galaxy; the ones closest to Tellus. I'm pretty sure they'll be inhabited by Homo Sapiens. There's a chance, of course, that they'll be like Hodell and the others we've seen; in which case I don't see how we can keep Gunther genes confined to Earth. However, I'm pretty sure in my own mind that

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we'll find them all very much like Tellus, Gunther and all. What would you think of that for a thesis, Lola?'

'Oh, wonderful!'

'Okay. Now to get back to whether we want to check in or not. I don't like to duck out without letting them know we can handle this heap - after a fashion, that is; they don't need to know we can really handle it - but we've got nothing we can report and Fatso will blow his stack - Oh-oh! Should've remembered Tellus isn't Hodell; the tri-di's setting up! Belle, you take it. She'd give me Fatso, because he wants to chew me out, but she won't put him on for you. Cut her throat, but' good! Brownie hide somewhere! Jim, set up for Beta Centauri - not Alpha, but Beta - and fast! Give her hell, Belle!' Gar-lock sent this last thought from behind a davenport, from which hiding-place he could see the tri-di screen and both Belle and James; but anyone on the screen could not see him.

Miss Foster's likeness appeared upon the screen. Chancellor Ferber's secretary was a big woman, but not fat; middle-aged, gray-haired, wearing consciously the aura and the domineering, overbearing expression of a woman who has great power and an even greater drive to exert her authority.

'Why haven't you reported in?' Miss Foster snapped, with a glare that was pure frost. 'You arrived thirteen minutes ago. Such delay is inexcusable. Get Garlock.'

'Captain Garlock is off-watch; asleep. I, Commander Bellamy, "am in charge.' Standing stiffly at attention, Belle paused to exchange glares with the woman across the big desk. If Miss Foster's was frost, Commander Bellamy's was helium ice.

'Ready to roll, Jim?' Belle flashed the thought.

'Half a minute yet.'

'Any time after I sign off. Pick your own spot.' Then aloud in the screen: 'I will report to Chancellor Ferber. I will not report to Chancellor Ferber's secretary.'

'Doctor James!' Miss Foster's voice was neither as cold nor as steady as it had been. 'Bring that ship down at once!'

James made no sign that he had heard the order. Belle stood changelessly stiff. She had not for an instant taken her coldly competent eyes from those of the woman on the ground. Her emotionless, ultra-refrigerated voice went, as ever, directly into the screen.

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'I trust that this conversation is being recorded?'

'It certainly is!'

'Good. I want it on record that we, the personnel of the starship Pleiades, are not subject to the verbal orders of the Chancellor's secretary. You will now connect me with Chancellor Ferber, please.'

The Chancellor is in conference and is not to be disturbed. I have authority to act for him. You will report to me, and do it right now!' Foster's voice rose almost to a scream.

'That ground has been covered. Since you have taken it upon yourself to exceed your authority to such an extent as to refuse to connect the officer in command of the Pleiades with the Chancellor, I can not report to him either the reasons why we are not landing at this time nor when we expect to return to Tellus. You are advised that we may leave at any instant, just like that!' Belle snapped her finger under the imaged nose. 'You may inform the Chancellor, or not inform him if you prefer, that our control of the starship Pleiades is something less than perfect I do not know exactly how many seconds longer we will be here. Commander Bellamy signing off. Over and out.'

'Commander Bellamy, indeed!' Miss Foster was screaming now, in thwarted fury. 'You're no more a commander than my lowest office-girl is! Just wait till you get down here, you green-haired—' The set went instantaneously from full volume to zero sound as James drove the red button home.

'Belle, you honey!' Garlock scrambled out from behind the davenport, seized her around the waist, and swung her, feet high in the air, through four full circles before he let her down and kissed her vigorously. 'You were great I You're the first living human being ever to pull Foster's cork!'

Belle was, however, unusually diffident. 'I stuck my neck out a mile - worse, I stuck Glee's out too. I'm sorry, Clee. I had to have some weight to throw around, and I had only a second to think, and that was the first thing that came to me - and after half a minute she made me so damn mad that I went entirely too far.'

'No ... just far enough. That was a perfect job.'

'But she'll never forget that. She knows I'm not a commander. I can laugh at her, of course, but she'll crucify you as

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soon as we land.'

'She just thinks you aren't a commander. The official log will show, though, that after only one day out I discovered that we should all be the officers - one captain and three commanders - with pay and perquisites of rank. I'll think up good and sufficient reasons for it between now and the time when I make up the log.'

'But you can't! Or can you, really?'

'Well, nobody told me I couldn't, so I'm going to assume the right. Besides, you didn't tell her commander of what, so I'll make it stick, too - see if I don't. Or else I'll tear two or three offices apart finding out why I can't.'

'All that may not be necessary,' Lola said. 'That tape will never be heard. I'll bet she's erased it already.'

'Perhaps; but ours isn't going to be erased - it will be heard exactly where it will do the most good.'

'I'm awfully glad you don't think we're on the hook. All that's left then, is that second-in-command business. Both of you know, of course, that that was just window-dressing.'

'You were telling the truth and didn't know it,' James said, cheerfully. 'You've actually been second in command ever since the drive tests.'

'I haven't, and I won't. Surely you don't think I'm enough of a heel, Jim, to step on your toes like that?'

'Nothing like that involved. You tell her, Clee.'

'Gunther ability is what counts. You're a Prime, Jim's an Operator; so, now that we can handle the heap, you'll have to be second in command whether you like it or not. And any time you can out-Gunther me we'll trade places; and you won't have to take the job away from me - I'll give it to you.'

'But ... no hard feelings, Jim? No reservations? Screens down?'

'None whatever. In fact, I'm relieved. I'm Gunthered for this board here - for that one I'm not. Come in and look; and shake on it.'

She looked; and, while they were shaking hands, she flashed a thought at Lola: 'Do you know that we've got two of the finest men that ever lived?'

'I've known that for a long time,' Lola flashed back, 'but

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you've hardly started to realize what they really are.'

'Well, shall we start earning our pay and perquisites by getting to work on this planet, which we haven't even looked -wait a minute! We're just about to open up the galaxy, aren't we?'

They were.

'Then there'll have to be some kind of a unifying and correlating authority - a Galactic Council or something - and the quicker it's set up the better, the less confusion and turmoil and jockeying-for-position there'll be. Question: should this authority be political?'

'It should not I' James declared. 'It takes United Worlds seven solid days of debate to decide whether or not to buy one lead pencil.'

'Military - or naval, I suppose it'd be - that's what Glee's driving at,' Belle said. 'You're priceless, Clee. We're officers of the brand-new Galactic Navy. Subject to civilian control, of course, but the civilians will be the United Galaxian Societies of the Galaxy, and nobody else. Beautiful, Clee! There are ten Operators, Jim. Right?'

'Check. Brownie and I are here; the other eight are running the Galaxian Society under Clee. And the whole Society eats right out of his hands.'

'I don't know about that, but Belle and I together could swing it, I think,' Garlock said.

'I'll say we could!' Belle laughed. 'And I simply can't wait to see you kick Fatso's teeth in with this one!'

'I don't like the word "Navy",' Garlock said. 'It's tied definitely to warfare. How about calling it the "Galactic Service"? Applicable to either war or peace. Brass hats will think of us in terms of war, even though we'll actually work for peace. Any objections?'

There were no objections.

'About the uniforms,' Lola said eagerly. 'Space-black and star-white, with chromium comets and things on the shoulders...'

To hell with uniforms,' Garlock broke in. 'Why do women have to go off the deep end on clothes?'

'No, she's right, Clee,' James said. 'Without a uniform you won't get off the ground, not even with the Society. And you'll

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be talking to Top Planetary Brass. Also, they're Gunthered plenty - you can feel their Op field clear out here.'

'Could be,' Garlock conceded. 'Okay, you girls dope it out to suit yourselves. But do you think you can stand it, Belle, to wear more than twelve square inches of clothes?'

'Wait till you see it, friend. I've been designing a uniform for myself for positively years'

'I can't wait. And you're a captain, of course.'

'What? You can't have two cap ... oh, I see. Primes. I appreciate that, Clee. Thanks.'

'Hold on, both of you,' James said. 'You haven't thought this through far enough. Suppose we meet forces already organized? Better start high than low. You've got to be top admiral, Clee.'

'Like hell! Suppose We don't find anything at all?"

'You're right, Jim,' Belle said. 'Clee, you talk like a man with a paper nose. It's you who's been yowling for two solid years about being ready for anything.'

'Correction accepted. Brief me.'

'Ranks should be different from those of United Worlds. They should be descriptive, but impressive. Tops could be Galactic Admiral. That's you. Vice Galactic Admiral - me..."

'Galactic Vice Admiral would be better,' Lola said.

'Accepted. Those two we'll make stick come hell or space-warps. Right?'

Garlock did not reply immediately. 'Up to either one of two points,' he agreed finally.

'What points?'

'War, or being out-Gunthered. Top Gunther takes top place - man, woman, bird, beast, fish, or bug-eyed-monster.'

'Oh.' Belle was staggered for a moment. 'No war, of course. As to the others ... I hadn't thought of that.'

There are a lot of things none of us had thought of, but as amended I'll buy it.'

Then several Regional Admirals, each with his Regional Vice Admiral. Then System Admirals and Vices; and World or Planetary - naming the planet, you know - Admirals and Vices. Let the various Galaxian Societies take over from there down. How do you like that?'

'Nice. And formal address, intra-ship, will be Mister and

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Miss. Jim and Brownie?'

They liked it. 'Where do we fit in?' James asked.

'Pick your own spots,' Garlock said.

'If we stick to the Solar System we aren't so apt to get bumped by Primes. So you can make the Solar System Admiral and Brownie my Vice.'

'Okay. How long will it take you, Belle, to materialize those uniforms?'

'Fifteen seconds longer than it takes the converter to scan us. Lola's color scheme is right, and I've got everything else down to the last curlicue of chrome. Let's go.'

They went; and came back into the Main in uniform.

That of the men, while something on the spectacular side, was more or less conventional, with stiff-visored, screened, heavily-chromed caps - but the women's uniforms! Slippers, overseas caps, shorts, and jackets - but what jackets!

'Well...' Garlock said,' after examining the two girls speechlessly for a good half minute. 'It doesn't look exactly like a spray-on job - but if you ever take a deep breath it'll split from here to there.'

'Oh, no. The fabric stretches a little, see? Nothing like a sweater, but a similar effect - perhaps a bit more so.'

'Quite a bit more so, I'd say. However, since Operators and Primes are automatically stacked like Interplan Towers, I don't suppose your recruits will be unduly perturbed at the exposure. Are we finally ready to go down and get to work?'

'I am,' James said. 'How do you want to handle it?'

'Run a search pattern. Belle and I will center their Op field and check on Ops and Primes. You two probe at will.'

Around and around the planet, in brief bursts of completely incomprehensible speed, the huge ship darted. The tremendous oceans and six great continents were traversed ... the ice-caps ... the frigid, the temperate, and the torrid zones. Wherever she went, powerful and efficient radar scanned and tracked her; wherever she went, excitement seethed.

'Beta Centauri Five,' Garlock reported, after a few minutes. 'Margonia, they call it. Biggest continent and nation named Nargoda. Capital city Margon; Margon Base is on the coast nearby. Lots of Gunther Firsts. All the real Gunther, though, is clear across the continent. They're building a starship. Four-

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teen Ops and two Primes - a man and a woman. Deggi Del-camp's a big bruiser, with a godawful lot of stuff. Ugly as hell, though. He's a bossy type.'

'I'm amazed.' James played it straight. 'I thought all male Primes would be just like you. Timorous Timmies.'

'Huh? Oh...' Garlock was taken slightly aback, but went on quickly, 'What do you think of your opposite number, Belle?' He smiled broadly and made hour-glass motions with his hands. 'I'd thought of trading you in on a new model, but Fao Talaho is ho bargain, either - and nobody's pushover.'

'Trade! You tomcat I' Belle's nostrils flared. 'You know what that bitch tried to do? High-hat me!'

'I noticed. When we four get down to business, face to face, there should be some interesting by-products.'

'You said it, boss. Primes seem to be such nice people.' James rolled his eyes upward and steepled his hands. 'If you've got all the dope, no use finishing this search pattern.'

'Go ahead. Window dressing. Their Brass hasn't any idea of what's going on, any more than ours did.'

The search went on until:

This is it,' James reported. 'Where? Over Margon Base?'

'Yes. Kick us over there, ten or twelve hundred miles up.'

'On the way, boss. Looks like your theory is about ripe.'

'It isn't much of a theory yet - just that cultural and evolutionary patterns should be more or less homogeneous within galaxies. Until it can explain why so many out-galaxies are just alike it doesn't amount to much. By the way, I'm glad you people insisted on organization and rank and uniforms. The Brass down there is going to take a certain amount of convincing. Take over, Brownie - this is your dish.'

'I was afraid of that.'

The others watched Lola drive her probe - a diamond-clear, razor-sharp bolt of thought that no Gunther First could possibly either wield or stop - down into the innermost private office of that immense and far-flung base. Through Lola's inner eyes they saw a tall, trim, handsome, fiftyish man in a resplendent uniform of purple and gold; they watched her brush aside that officer's hard-held mental block.

'I greet you, Supreme Grand Marshal Entlore, Highest Commander of the Armed Forces of Nargoda. This is the

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starship Pleiades, of System Sol, planet Tellus. I am Sol-System Vice-Admiral Lola Montandon. I have with me as guests three of my superior officers of the Galactic Service, including the Galactic Admiral himself. We are making a goodwill tour of the Tellus-type planets of this region of space. I request permission to land and information as to your landing conventions. Tne landing pad - bottom - of the Pleiades is flat; sixty feet wide by one hundred twenty feet long. Area loading is approximately eight tons per square foot. Solid, dry ground is perfectly satisfactory. While we land vertically, with little or no shock impact, I prefer not to risk damaging your pavement.'

They all felt the Marshal's thoughts race. 'Starship! Tellus -Sol, that insignificant, type G dwarf! Interstellar travel a commonplace! A ship that size and weight - an organized, uniformed, functioning galaxy-wide navy - and they don't want to damage my pavement] My God!'

'Good going, Brownie! Kiss her for me, Jim.' Garlock flashed the thought.

Entlore, realizing that his every thought was being read, pulled himself together. 'I admit that I was shocked, Admiral Montandon. But landing - really, I have nothing to do with landings. They are handled by ...'

'I realize that, sir; but you realize that no underling could possibly authorize my landing. That is why I always start at the top. Besides, I do not like to waste time on officers of much lower rank than my own, and' - Lola allowed a strong tinge of good humor to creep into her thought - 'the bigger they are, the less apt they are to pass the buck.'

'You have had experience, I see.' The marshal laughed. He did have a sense of humor. 'While landing here is forbidden -top secret, you know - would my refusal mean much to you?'

'Having made satisfactory contact, I introduce you to Galactic Admiral Garlock. Take over, sir, please.'

Entlore winced, for the probe Garlock used then compared to Lola's very much as a diamond drill compares to a piece of soft brass pipe.

'It would mean everything to us,' Garlock assured him. 'Our mission is a perfectly friendly one. We will have a friendly visit or none. If you do not care for our friendship, another nation

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will.'

That wouldn't do, either, of course.' Entiore paused in thought. 'It boils down to this: I must either welcome you or destroy you.'

'You may try.' Garlock grinned in frankly self-satisfied amusement. 'However, the best you can do is lithium-hydride fusion missiles in the hundreds-of-megatons range. Firecrackers. Every once in a while a planet has to try a few such things on us before it will believe that we are powerful as well as friendly. Would you like to test our defenses? If so, I will neither take offense nor retaliate.'

Supreme Grand Marshal Entiore was floored. 'Why ... er ... not at all. I read in your mind ...' He broke off, to quell an invasion into his own private office. 'God damn it, keep stillV all four 'heard' him yell. 'I know they ran a search pattern. I know that, too. I know everything about it, I tell you! I'm in full rapport with their Supreme Grand Admiral. There's only the one ship, they're friendly, and I'm inviting them to land here on Margon Base. Give that to the Press. Say also that entrance restrictions to Margon Base will not be relaxed at present. Grand Marshal Holson and ComOff Flurnoy, stay here and tune in. The rest of you get out and stay out!'

'Resume command, please, Miss Montandon,' Garlock directed, and withdrew his probe from Entlore's mind.

'I thank you, Supreme Grand Marshal Entiore, for your welcome,' Lola sent. Tm sorry that our visits cause so much disturbance, but I suppose it can't be helped. Our Gunther blocks are down. Would you and your two assistants like to teleport out here to us, and con us down yourselves?' Lola knew instantly that they could not, and covered deftly for them. 'But of course you can't, without knowing a focus spot here in the Main. Shall I teleport you aboard?'

ComOff Flurnoy's face - she was an attractive, nicely-built redhead wearing throat-mike, earphone, and recorder - turned so pale that a faint line of freckles stood out across the bridge of her nose. She very evidently wanted to scream a protest, but would not Both men, strangely enough, were eager to go. Instantly all three were standing in line on the deep-piled rug of the Main, facing the four Tellurians. Seven bodies came rigidly to attention, seven right hands snapped into two varie-

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ties of formal salute. Standing thus, each party studied the other for a couple of seconds.

There was no doubt at all as to which two of the visitors the two Nargodian men were studying; but neither of them could quite make up his mind as to which of the black-and-white-clad women to study first or most. The redhead's glance, too, flickered between Belle and Garlock - incredulous envy and equally incredulous admiration.

'At rest, please, fellow-officers,' Garlock said.

Lola performed the necessary introductions, adding, 'We do not, however, use titles aboardship. Mister and Miss are customary and sufficient.'

Behind each row of officers a long davenport appeared; between them a table loaded with food, drinks, cigars, and cigarettes.

'Help yourselves,' Garlock invited. 'We serve neither intoxicants nor drugs, but you should find something there to your taste.'

'Indeed we shall, and thank you,' Entiore said. 'Is there any objection, Mr. Garlock, to Miss Flurnoy transmitting information of this meeting and of this ship to our base?'

'None whatever. Send as you please, Miss Flurnoy, or as Mr. Entiore directs.'

Tm glad I didn't quite scare myself out of coming up here,' the communications officer said. 'This is the biggest and nicest thrill I ever had. Such a thrill that I don't know just where to begin.' She cocked an eyebrow at her commanding officer.

'As usual. Whatever you think should be sent' Entiore sent her a steadying thought Then, as the girl settled back with a sandwich in one hand and a tall glass of Chericol hi the other, he went on, to Garlock, 'She is a very fine and very strong telepath - by our standards, at least.'

'By galactic standards also.' Garlock had of course been checking. 'Accurate, sharp, wide-range, clear-thinking, and fast. Not one of us four could do it any better.'

'I thank you, Mr. Garlock,' the girl said, with a blush of pleasure - and with scarcely a perceptible pause in her work.

A tour of the ship followed; and as it progressed, the two Nargodian commanders became more and more confused and dismayed.

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'But no crew at allT Holson demanded incredulously. 'How can a thing like this possibly work?'

'It's fully Gunthered,' Lola explained. 'It works itself. That is, almost all the time. Whenever we land on any planet for the first time, one of us has to control it. Or for any other special job not in its memory banks. When you're ready for us to land I'll show you how we do it.'

'Miss Flurnoy, have they cleared the air over Pylon Six?'

'Yes, sir. Clearance came through five minutes ago. They are holding it clear for us.'

'Thank you. Miss Montandon, you may land at your convenience.'

'Thank you, sir.' Lola took the pilot's seat. This is the scanner. I pull it over my face and head, so. Since I am always in tune with the field...'

'What does that mean?' Entlore asked, dark foreboding in his mind.

'I was afraid of that. You can't feel an Operator Field. I'm sorry, sir, but that means that you can't handle these forces and never will be able to. Certain Gunther areas of your brain are inoperative. On our scale you are a Gunther First...'

'On ours, I'm an Esper Ten, the highest rating in the world -except for a few theoretical crackpots who... Excuse me, please, I shouldn't have said that, in view of what I see happening here."

'No offense taken, sir. Those who developed the Gunther Drive were crackpots until they got the first starship out into space. But with this scanner on, I think of where I want to look and I can see it. I then think the ship a few miles sidewise - so - and we are now directly over your Pylon Six. I'm starting down, but I won't go into free fall.'

Apparent weight grew less and less until:

'This is about enough for you, Miss Flurnoy?'

'Just,' the ComOff agreed, with a gulp. 'One pound less and I'm afraid I'll upchuck that lovely lunch I just ate.'

'We're going fast enough now. Everyone sitting down? Brace yourselves, please; you'll be about fifty percent overweight for a while.'

As bodies settled deeper into cushions Entlore sent Garlock a thought 'We three weigh about five hundred pounds. You

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lifted us - instanteously or nearly so, but I'll pass the question of acceleration for the moment - eleven hundred miles straight up. How did you repeal the Law of Conservation?'

'We didn't. We have fusion engines of twenty million horsepower. Our Operator Field, which has a radius of fifteen thousand miles and is charged to an electrogravitic potential of one hundred thousand gunts, stores energy. Its action is not exactly like that of an electrical condenser or of a storage battery, but is more or less analogous to both. Thus, the energy required to lift you three came from the field, but the amount was so small that it did not lower the potential of the field by any measurable amount. Setting this ship down - call it sixty thousand tons for a thousand miles at one gravity - will increase the field's potential by approximately one-tenth of one gunt. Have you studied paraphysics?"

'No.'

Garlock smiled - with a touch of condescension. Then I can't make even a stab at explaining instantaneous translation to you. I'll just say that there is no acceleration involved, no time lapse. There is no violation of the Law of Conservation, since departure and arrival points are equi-Guntherial. But what I am really interested in is that small group of high espers you mentioned.'

'Yes, I inferred that from Miss Montandon's comments.' Entlore fell silent and Garlock watched his somber thoughts picture Margon Base and his nation's capital being attacked and destroyed by a fleet of invincible and invulnerable starships like this Pleiades.

'You are wrong, sir,' Garlock put in quietly. 'The Galactic Service has not had, does not and will not have, anything to do with intra-planetary affairs. We have no connection with, and no responsibility to, any world or any group of worlds. We are an arm of the United Galaxian Societies of the Galaxy. Our function is to control space. To forbid, to prevent, to rectify any interplanetary or interstellar aggression. Above all, to prevent, by means of procedures up to and including total destruction of planets if necessary, any attempt whatever to form any multi-world empires.'

The three Nargodians gasped, as much at the scope of the thing as at the calmly cold certainty of ability carried by the

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thought.

'You are transmitting this precisely, Miss Flurnoy?' Entlore,. asked.

'Precisely, sir - including background, fringes, connotations, and implications; just as he is giving it to us."

'Let us assume that your Nargodian government decides to conquer all the other nations of your planet Margonia. Assume further that it succeeds. We will not object; in fact, ordinarily we will not even be informed of it. If then, however, your government decides that one world is not enough for it rule and prepares to conquer, or take aggressive action against, any other world, we will be informed and we will step in. First, warning will be given. Second, any and all vessels dispatched on such a mission will be annihilated. Third, if the offense is continued or repeated, trial will be held before the Galactic Council and any sentence imposed will be carried out.'

In spite of Garlock's manner and message, both marshals were highly relieved. 'You're in plenty of time with us, sir,' Entlore said. 'We have just sent our first rocket to our nearer moon ... that is, unless the group of - of espers gets their ship off the ground."

'How far along are they?'

'The ship itself is built, but they are having trouble with their drive. The hull is spherical, and much smaller than this one. It has atomic engines, but no blasts of ion-plates ... but neither has this one!'

'Exactly; they may be pretty well along. I'd like to get in touch with them as soon as possible. May I borrow a "talker" like Miss Flurnoy for a few days? You have others, I suppose?'

'Yes, but I'll let you have her; it is of the essence that you have the best one available. Miss Flurnoy?'

'Yes, sir?' Besides reporting, she had been conversing busily with James and Belle.

'Would you like to be assigned to Mr. Garlock for the duration oif his stay on Margonia?'

'Oh, yes, sir!' she replied, excitedly.

'You are so" assigned. Take orders from him or from any designate as though I myself were issuing them.'

"Thank you, sir ... but what limits? and do I transmit to

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and/or record for you, sir?'

'No limit. These four Galaxians are hereby granted nationwide top clearance. Transmit as usual whatever is permitted.'

'Full reporting is not only permitted, but urged,' Garlock said. "There is nothing secret about our mission.'

As the Pleiades landed: 'If you will give us your focus spot, Mr. Entlore, we can all 'port to your office and save calling staff cars.'

'And cause a revolution?' Entlore laughed. 'Apparently you haven't been checking outside.'

'Afraid I haven't. I've been thinking.'

'Take a look. I got orders from the Cabinet to put guards wherever people absolutely must not go, and open everything else to the public. I hope there are enough guards to keep a lane open for us, but I wouldn't bet on it.' Garlock was very glad that the military man's stiff formality had disappeared. 'You Galaxians took this whole planet by storm while you were still above the stratosphere.'

From the Pleiades they went to the Administration Building, where an informal reception was held. Thence to the Capitol, where the reception was very formal indeed. Thence to the Grand Ballroom of the city's largest hotel, where a tremendous - and long-winded - banquet was served.

At Garlock's request, all sixteen members of the 'crackpot' group - the most active members of the Deep Space Club - had been invited to the banquet. And, even though Garlock was a very busy man, his talker tuned in to each one of the sixteen, tuned them all to Garlock, and in odd moments a great deal of business was done.

After being told most of the story - in tight-beamed thoughts that ComOff Flurnoy could not receive - the whole group was wildly enthusiastic. They would change the name of their club forthwith to THE GALAXIAN SOCIETY OF MARGONIA. They laid plans for a worldwide organization which would have tremendous prestige and tremendous income. They already had a field - Garlock knew about their ship - and they wanted the Pleiades to move over to it as soon as possible. Yes, Garlock thought he could do it the following day ... if not, as soon as he could...

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The Pleiades had landed at ten o'clock in the forenoon, local time; the banquet did not come to an end until long after midnight. Throughout all this time the four Galaxians carried on, without a slip, the act that all this was, to them, old stuff.

Nargoda's Top Brass, in the limelight for once in a thoroughly pleasant and enjoyable way, allowed as much of their enjoyment to show as was consistent with military dignity.

ComOff Flurnoy, however, made neither physical nor mental secret of the fact that she was having the time of her life.

Garlock told her, as the banquet neared its end, 'You don't have to come back to the ship with us if you'd rather go home from here.'

'Oh, but I want to go back to the ship with you I' she protested. 'I'm assigned to you for the duration! Surely you can find some little place for me aboard the Pleiades! 1 won't take up hardly any room at all! Honestly, I'll be glad to sleep on the floor, out in the kitchen or anywhere! Besides, I told my folks and all my friends I was living aboard and they're all insane with jealousy!'

'Okay, okay.' Garlock managed finally to choke off the rush of exclamatory thought. She was really a sender. We've got lots of room, and you're perfectly welcome. It's just that you've put in a lot of overtime today and I thought you'd rather stay at home as usual and work your regular seven-hour day.'

'Work? You call this work"?'

'For me, it most certainly is,' Garlock said.

They got back to the starship a little before daylight -through massed crowds all the way. Once in the Main Belle kicked off her slippers and slumped bonelessly onto a davenport.

'My feet are simply killing me,' she moaned, 'and I haven't got strength enough left even to think me up a Chericol.' A tall glass, tinkling with ice-cubes, appeared in her hand. 'Thanks, Clee - you're sweet. But why didn't you make me wear combat boots with an inch of cork sponge inside 'em?'

'Because even my powers are finite. You'd've worn 'em - I don't think.'

'Why, of course she wouldn't have!' The ComOff exclaimed. 'And that Grand Marshal Holson - asking you to wear

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your uniforms all the time you're here so people could recognize you. Of all the dim-witted ... oh, phogoplootl' This last, highly idiomatic, thought carried the force of about ten gunts of scorn. The ComOff's still marveling gaze went from Belle to Garlock and back. 'With a shape like yours and a build like his you couldn't help but be recognized, even all wrapped up in tarps. Lordy, I wish I looked like you do!'

'And I've wished, a good many times, that I didn't... Maybe I wouldn't be such a damn fool as to wear shoes like that through such a war as this has been.' Belle glared at the offending slippers and they promptly vanished. 'Come on, Elta; 111 show you your room. Goodnight, everyone.'

The green-haired officer clad in black and white, and the red-haired one in purple and gold, vanished instantaneously; and, a moment later, the Main was empty.

SEVEN

Since everyone, including the ebullient ComOff, slept late the following morning, they all had brunch instead of breakfast and lunch. All during the meal Garlock was preoccupied and stern.

'Hold everything for a while, Jim,' he said, when everyone had eaten. 'Before we move, Belle and I have got to have a conference.'

'Not a Fatso Ferber nine-o'clock type, I hope.' James frowned in mock reproach and ComOff Flurnoy cocked an eyebrow in surprise. 'Monkey-business on company time is only for Big Shots like him; not for small fry such as you.'

'Well, it won't be exclusively monkey-business, anyway. While we're gone you might clear with the control tower and take us up into takeoff position. Come on, Belle.' He took her by one elbow and led her away.

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Inside his room, Garlock checked every Gunther block - a most unusual proceeding. 'I was just checking to be sure we're Prime-proof,' he said. 'I'm not ready for Deggi Delcamp yet. That guy, as you probably noticed, has got one godawful load of stuff.'

'Not as much as you have, Clee. Nor as much push behind what he has got. And his shield wouldn't make patches for yours.'

'Huh? How sure are you of that?'

'I'm positive. I'm the one who is going to get bumped, I'm afraid. That Fao Talaho is a hard-hitting, hard-boiled hellcat on wheels.'

'Ill be damned. You're wrong. I checked her from stem to gudgeon and you lay over her like a damper field. What's the answer?'

'Oh? Do I? I'm mighty glad... Funny, both of us being wrong ... it must be that it's sex-based differences. We're used to each other, but neither of us has ever felt a Prime of the same sex before, and there must be more difference between Ops and Primes than we realized. Suppose?'

'Could be - I hope. But that doesn't change the fact that we aren't ready. We haven't got enough data. If we start out with this grandiose Galactic Service thing and find only two or three planets Gunthered, we make jackasses of ourselves. On the other hand, if we start out with a small organization or none, and find a lot of planets, it'll be one continuous cat-fight. On the third hand ...'

"Three hands, Clee? What are you, an octopus or an Arpa-lone?'

'Quiet. On the third hand, we've got to start somewhere. Any ideas?'

'I never thought of it that way. Hm-m-m-m ... I see. Damned if we do and blasted if we don't.' She thought for a minute, then went on. 'Well have to start without starting, then ... quite a trick. But how about this? Suppose we take a fast tour, with you and me taking quick peeks, without the peekees ever knowing we've been peeking?'

'That's using the brain, Belle. Let's go.'

Then, out in the Main, he said, 'Jim, we want to hit a few high spots, as far out as you can reach without losing orienta-

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tion. Beta Centauri here is pretty bright. Rigel and Canopus are real lanterns. With those three as a grid, you could reach fifteen hundred or two thousand light-years, couldn't you?'

'More than that. That many parsecs, at least.'

'Good. Belle and I want to make a fast, random-sampling check of Primes and Ops around here. We'll need five minutes at each planet - quite a ways out. So set up as big a globe as you can and still be dead sure of your locations; then sample it.'

'Not enough data. How many samples do you want?'

'As many as we can get in the rest of today. Six or seven hours, say - eight hours max.'

Call it seven ... Brownie on the guns, me on Compy... Five minutes for ... I should be able to lock down the next shot in five ... one minute extra, say, for safety factor ... that'd be ten an hour. Seventy planets enough?'

"That'll be fine.'

'Okay. We're practically at Number One now.' James and Lola donned their scanners.

'Miss Flurnoy,' Garlock said, 'you might tell Mr. Entlore that we're...'

'Oh, I already have, sir.'

'You don't have to come along, of course, if you'd rather stay here."

'Stay here, sir? Why, he'd kill me! ... I'm off the air for a minute,' she added in a conspiratorial whisper. 'Besides, do you think I'd miss a chance to be the first person - and just a girl, too - of a whole world to see other planets of other suns? Unless, of course, you invite Mr. Entlore and Mr. Holson along. They're both simply dying to go, I know, but of course won't admit it.'

'You'd be just as pleased if I didn't?'

'What do you think, sir?'

'We'll be working at top speed and they'd be very much in the way, so they'll get theirs later ...'

'Ready to roll, Clee,' James announced.

'Roll.'

'Why, I lost contact!' Miss Flurnoy exclaimed.

'Naturally,' Garlock said. 'Did you expect to cover a distance it takes light thousands of years to cross? You can record

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anything you see in the plates. You can talk to Jim or Lola any time they'll let you. Don't bother Miss Bellamy or me from now on.'

Garlock and Belle went to work. All four Galaxians worked all day, with half an hour off for lunch. They visited seventy planets and got back to Margonia in time for a very late dinner. ComOff Flurnoy had less than a quarter of one roll of recorder-tape left unused, and the Primes had enough information to start the project they had in mind.

And, shortly after dinner, all five retired.

'In one way, Clee, I'm relieved,' Belle mused, 'but I can't figure out why all the Primes - the grown-up ones, I mean -on all the worlds are just about the same cantankerous, out-and-out stinkers as you and I are. How does that fit into your theory?'

'It doesn't. Too fine a detail. My guess is - at least it seems to me to make sense - it's because we haven't had any competition strong enough to smack us down and make Christians out of us. I don't know what a psychologist would say...'

'And I know exactly what you'd think of whatever he did say, so you don't need to tell me.' Belle laughed and presented her lips to be kissed. 'Goodnight, Clee.'

'Goodnight, Belle.'

And the next morning early, Garlock and Belle teleported themselves - by arrangement and appointment, of course -across almost the full width of a nation and into the private office in which Deggi Delcamp and Fao Talaho awaited them.

For a time which would not have been considered polite in Tellurian social circles the four Primes stood still, each couple facing the other with blocks set tight, studying each other with their eyes. Delcamp was, as Garlock had said, a big bruiser. He was shorter and heavier than the Tellurian. Heavily muscled, splendidly proportioned, he was a man of tremendous physical as well as mental strength. His hair, clipped close all over his head, was blond; his eyes were a clear, keen, cold dark blue.

Fao Talaho was a couple of inches shorter than Belle, and a good fifteen pounds heavier. She was in no sense fat, however, not even plump - actually, she was almost lean. She was wider and thicker than was the Earthwoman, with heavier bones forming a wider and deeper frame. She, too, was beautifully -

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yes, spectacularly - built Her hair, fully as thick as Belle's own and worn in a free-falling bob three or four inches longer than Belle's, was bleached almost white. Her eyes were not really speckled, not really mottled, but were regularly patterned in lighter and darker shades of hazel. She was, Garlock decided, a really remarkable hunk of woman.

Both Nargodians wore sandals without either socks or stockings. Both were dressed - insofar as they were dressed at all -in yellow. Fao's single garment was of a thin, closely-knitted fabric, elastic and sleek. Above the waist it was neckless, backless and almost frontless; below, it was a very short, very tight, and clinging skirt. Delcamp wore a sleeveless jersey and a pair of almost legless shorts.

Garlock lowered his shield enough to send and to receive a thin layer of superficial thought; Delcamp did the same.

'So far, I like what I see,' Garlock said then. 'We are well ahead of you, hence I can help you a lot if you want me to and if you want to be friendly about it. If you don't, on either count, we leave now. Fair enough?'

'Fair enough. I, too, like what I have seen so far. We need help, and I appreciate your offer. Thanks, immensely. I can promise full cooperation and friendship for myself and for most of our group; and I assure you that I can and will handle any non-cooperation that may come up.'

'Nicely put, Deggi.' Garlock smiled broadly and let his guard down to a comfortable lepping level. 'I was going to bring that up - the faster it's cleared the better. Belle and I are paired. Some day - unless we kill each other first - we may marry. However, I'm no bargain and she's one-third wildcat, one-third vixen, and one-third cobra. How do you two stand?'

'You took the thought right out of my own mind. Your custom of pairing is not what you call "urbane" on this world. Nevertheless, Fao and I are paired. We had to. No one else has ever interested either of us; no one else ever will. We should not fight, but we do, furiously. But no matter how vigorously we fly apart, we inevitably fly together again just as fast. No one understands it, but you two are pretty much the same.'

'Check. Just one more condition, then, and we can pull those women of ours apart.' Belle and Fao were still staring at each other, both still sealed tight. 'The first time Fao Talaho

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starts throwing her weight at me, I'm not going to wait for you to take care of her - I'm going to give her the surprise of her life.'

'It'd tickle me silly if it could be done.' Declamp gave a perfectly frank smile. 'But the man doesn't live who can do it. How would you go about trying it?'

'Set your block solid.'

Delcamp did so, and through that block - the supposedly impenetrable shield of a Prime Operator - Garlock insinuated a probe. He did not crack the screen or break it down by force; he neutralized and counter-phased, painlessly and almost imperceptibly, its every component and layer.

'Like this,' Garlock said, in the depths of the Margonian's mind.

'My God! You can do thatT

'If I tell her, this deep, to play ball or else, do you think she'd need two treatments?'

'She certainly shouldn't. This makes you Galactic Admiral, no question. I'd thought, of course, of trying you out for Top Gunther, but this settles that. We will support you, sir, wholeheartedly - and my heartfelt thanks for coming here.'

'I have your permission, then, to give Fao a little discipline when she starts rocking the boat?'

'I wish you would. I'm not too easy to get along with, I admit, but I've tried to meet her a lot more than halfway. She's just too damned cocky for anybody's good.'

'Check. I wish somebody would come along who could knock hell out of Belle.' Then, aloud, 'Belle, Delcamp, and I have the thing going. Do you want in on it?'

Delcamp spoke to Fao, and the two women slowly and reluctantly lowered their shields to match those of the men.

'Your Galaxian shaking of the hands - handshake, I mean -is very good,' Delcamp said, and he and Garlock shook vigorously.

Then the crossed pairs did the same, and lastly the two girls - although neither put much effort into the gesture.

'Snap out of it, Belle!' Garlock sent a tight-beamed thought. 'She isn't going to bite you!'

'She's been trying to, damn her, and I'm going to bite her right back - see if I don't.'

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Garlock called the meeting to order and all four sat down. The Tellurians lit cigarettes and the others - who, to the Earth-lings' surprise, also smoked - assembled and lit two peculiar-looking things halfway between pipe and cigarette. And both pairs of smokers, after a few tentative tests, agreed in not liking at all the other's taste in tobacco.

'You know, of course, of the trip we took yesterday?' Gar-lock asked.

'Yes,' Delcamp admitted. 'We read ComOff Flurnoy. We know of the seventy planets, but nothing of what you found."

Okay. Of the seventy planets, all have Op fields and all have two or more Operators; one planet has forty-four of them. Only sixty-one of the planets, however, have Primes old enough for us to detect. Each of these worlds has two, and only two, Primes - one male and one female - and each world the two Primes are of approximately the same age. On fifteen of these worlds the Primes are not yet adult. On the forty-six remaining worlds, the Primes are young adults, from pretty much like us four down to considerably younger. None of these couples is married-for-family. None of the girls has as yet had a child or is now pregnant.

'Now as to the information circulating all over this planet about us. Part of it is false. Part of it is misleading - to impress the military mind. Thus, the fact is that the Pleiades, as far as we know, is the only starship in the whole galaxy. Also, the information is very incomplete, especially as to the all-important fact that we were lost in space for some time before we discovered that the only possible controller of the Gunther Drive is the Human mind..."

'What?!' And argument raged until Garlock stopped it by declaring that he would prove it in the Margonians' own ship.

Then Garlock and Belle together went on to explain and to describe - not even hinting, of course, that they had ever gone outside the galaxy or had even thought of trying to do so -their concept of what the Galaxian Societies of the Galaxy would and should do; of what the Galaxian Service could, should, and would become - the Service to which they both intended to devote their lives. It wasn't even in existence yet, of course. Fao and Deggi were the only other Primes they had ever talked to in their lives. That was why they were so eager

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to help the Margonians get their ship built. The more starships there were at work, the faster the Service would grow into a really tremendous...

('Fao's getting ready to blow her top,' Declamp flashed Gar-lock a tight-beamed thought. '// / were doing it I'd have to start right now.'

Til let her work up a full head of steam, then smack her bow-legged.'

'Cheers, brother! I hope you can handle her!')

... organization. Then, when enough ships were working and enough Galaxian Societies were rolling, there would be the Regional organizations and the Galactic Council...

'So, on a one-planet basis and right out of your own little fat head,' Fao sneered, 'you have set yourself up as Grand High Chief Mogul, and all the rest of us are to crawl up to you on our bellies and kiss your feet?'

'If that's the way you want to express it, yes. However, I don't know how long I personally will be in the pilot's bucket. As I told you, I will enforce the basic tenet that top Gunther is top boss-man, woman, snake, fish, or monster.'

'Top Gunther be damned!' Fao blazed. 'I don't and won't take orders from any man - in hell or in heaven or on this planet or on any other...'

•Fao!' Delcamp exclaimed, 'Please keep still - please!'

'Let her rave,' Garlock said coldly. 'This is just a three-year-old baby's tantrum. If she keeps it up, I'll give her the damnedest jolt she ever got in her life."

Belle tight-beamed a thought to Fao: 'If you've got any part of a brain, you'd better start using it. The boy-friend not only plays rough, but he doesn't bluff."

'To hell with that!' Fao rushed on. 'We won't have anything to do with your organization - go on back home or anywhere else you want to. We'll finish our own ship and build our own organization and run it to suit ourselves. We'll...'

That's enough of that, you spoiled brat.' Garlock penetrated her shield as easily as he had the man's, and held her in lock. 'You are not going to wreck this project. You will start behaving yourself right now or I'll spread your mind wide open for Belle and Deggi to look at and see exactly what kind of a half-baked egotist you are. If that doesn't work, I'll put you into a

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Gunther-blocked cell aboard the Pleiades and keep you there until the ship is finished and we leave Margonia. How do you want it?'

Fao was shocked as she had never been shocked before. At first she tried viciously to fight; but, finding that useless against the appalling power of the mind holding hers, she stopped struggling and really began to think.

That's better. You've got what it takes to think with. Go ahead and do it.'

And Fao Talaho did have it. Plenty of it. She learned.

'I'll be good,' she said, finally. 'Honestly. I'm ashamed, really, but after I got started I couldn't stop. But I can now, I'm sure.'

'I'm sure you can, too. I know exactly how it is. All us Primes have to get hell knocked out of us before we amount to a whoop in hell. Deggi got his one way, I got mine another, you got yours this way. No, neither of the others know anything about this conversation and they won't. This is strictly between you and me.'

'I'm awfully glad of that. And I think I ... yes, damn you, thanks!'

Garlock released her and, after an embarrassed pause, she said, 'I'm sorry, Deggi; and you, too, Belle. I'll try not to act like such a fool any more.'

Delcamp and Belle both stared at Garlock; Belle licked her lips.

'No comment,' he thought at the man; and, to Belle, 'She just took a beating. Will you sheathe your claws and take a lot of pains to be extra nice to her the rest of the day?'

'Why, surely. I'm always nice to anybody who's nice to me.'

'Says you,' Garlock replied skeptically, and all four went to work as though nothing had happened.

They went through the shops and the almost-finished ship. They studied blueprints. They met all the Operators and discussed generators and fields of force and mathematics and paraphysics and Guntherics. They argued so hotly about mental control that Garlock had James bring the Pleiades over to newly-christened Galaxian Field so that he could prove his point then and there.

Entlore and Holson came along this time, as well as the

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ComOff; and all three were nonplussed and surprised to see each member of the 'crackpot' group hurl the huge starship from one solar system to any other one desired, apparently merely by thinking about it. And the 'crackpots' were extremely surprised to find themselves hopelessly lost in uncharted galactic wildernesses every time they did not think, definitely and positively, of one specific destination.

Then Garlock took a chance. He had to take it sometime; he might just as well do it now.

'See if you can hit Andromeda, Deggi,' he suggested.

While Belle, James, and Lola held their breaths, Delcamp tried. The starship went toward the huge nebula, but stopped at the last suitable planet on the galaxy's rim.

'Can you hit Andromeda?' Delcamp asked, more than half jealously, and Belle tensed her muscles.

'Never tried it,' Garlock said, easily. 'I suppose, though, since you couldn't kick the old girl out of our good old home galaxy, she'll just sit right here for me, too.'

He went through the motions and the Pleiades did sit right there - which was exactly what he had told her to do. And everybody - even the 'crackpots' - breathed more easily.

And Belle was 'nice' to Fao; she didn't use her claws, even once, all day. And, just before quitting time —

'Does he ... I mean, did he ever ... well, sort of knock you around?'Fao asked.

'I'll say he hasn't!' Belle's nostrils flared slightly at the mere thought. 'I'd stick a knife into him!'

'Oh, I didn't mean physically...'

'Through my blocks? A Prime's blocks? Don't be ridiculous, Fao!'

'What do you mean, "ridiculous"?' Fao snapped. 'You tried my blocks. What did they feel like to you - mosquito netting? What I thought was ... oh, all he really said was that all Primes have to have hell knocked out of them before they could be any good. That he had had it one way, Deggi another, and me a third. I see - you haven't had yours yet.'

'I certainly haven't. And if he ever tries it, I'll...'

'Oh, he won't. He couldn't, very well, because after you're married, it would...'

'Did he tell you I was going to marry him?'

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'Of course not. No fringes, even. But who else are you going to marry? If the whole universe was clear full of the finest men imaginable, can you ever conceive of marrying any one of them except him?'

'I'm not going to marry anybody. Ever.'

'No? You, with your Prime's mind and your Prime's body, not have any children? And you tell me not to be ridiculous?'

That stopped Belle cold, but she wouldn't admit it. Instead: T don't get it. What did he do to you, anyway?'

Fao's block set itself so tight that it took her a full minute to soften it down enough for even the thinnest thought to get through. 'That's something nobody will ever know. But anyway, unless ... unless you find another Prime as strong as he is - and I don't really think there are any, do you?'

'Of course there aren't. There's only one of his class, anywhere. He's it,' Belle said, with profound conviction.

"That makes it tough for you. You'll have the toughest job imaginable. The very toughest. I know.'

'Huh? What job?'

'Since Clee won't do it for you, and since nobody else can, you'll just have to knock hell out of yourself.'

And in Oarlock's room that night, getting ready for bed, Belle asked suddenly, 'Clee, what in hell did you do to Fao Talaho?'

'Nothing much. She's a pretty good one, really.'

'Could you do it, whatever it was, to me?'

'As the man said when asked if he could play the violin - "I don't know; I never tried it."'

'Would you, then, if I asked you to?'

'No.'

•Why not?'

'Answer that yourself.'

'And it was "nothing much", it says here in fine print. But I think I know just about what it was. Don't I?'

'I wouldn't be surprised.'

'You knocked hell out of yourself, didn't you?'

'I lied to her about that. I'm still trying to.'

'So I've got to do it to myself. And I haven't yet?'

'Check. But you're several years younger than I am, you

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know.'

Belle thought it over for a minute, then stubbed out her cigarette and shrugged her shoulders. 'No sale. Put it back on the shelf. I like me better the way I am. That is, I think I do... In a way, though, I'm sorry, darling.'

'Darling? Something new has been added. I wish you really meant that.'

'I wish I didn't,' Belle said. Ready for bed, she was much more completely and much less revealingly dressed than during her working hours. She slid into bed beside him, pulled the covers up to her chin, and turned off the light by glancing at the switch. 'If I thought anything could ever come of it, though, I'd do it if I had to pound myself unconscious with a club. But I wouldn't be here, then, either - I'd scoot into my own room so fast my head would spin.'

'You wouldn't have to. You wouldn't be here.'

'I wouldn't, at that. That's one of the things I like so much about you. But honestly, Clee - seriously, screens-down honestly - can you see any possible future in it?'

'No. Neither of us would give that much. Neither of us can. And there's nothing one-sided about it; I'm no more fit to be a husband than you are to be a wife. And God help our children - they'd certainly need it.'

'We'd never have any. I can't picture us living in marriage for nine months without committing at least mayhem. Why, in just the little time we've been paired, how many times have you thrown me out of this very room, with the fervent hope that I'd drown in deep space before you ever saw me again?'

'At a guess, about the same number of times you've stormed out under your own power, slamming the door so hard it sprung half the seams of the ship."

"That's what I mean. But how come we got off on this subject, I wonder? Because when we aren't fighting, like now, it's purely wonderful. So I'll say it again. Goodnight, darling.'

In the dark his lips sought hers and found them. The fervor of her kiss was not only much more intense than any he had ever felt before - it was much, very much more intense than Belle Bellamy had either wanted it or intended it to be.

Next morning eight o'clock, the four Tellurians appeared in 136

the office of Margonia's Galaxian Field.

The first thing to do, Deggi, is to go over in detail your blueprints for the generators and the drive,' Garlock said.

'I suppose so. The funny pictures, eh?' Delcamp had learned much, the previous day; his own performance with the Pleiades had humbled him markedly.

'By no means, my friend,' Garlock said, cheerfully. 'While your stuff isn't exactly like ours - it couldn't be, hardly; the field is so big and so new - that alone is no reason for it not to work. James can tell you. He's the Solar System's top engineer. What do you think, Jim?'

'What I saw in the ship yesterday will work. What few of the prints I saw yesterday will fabricate, and the fabrication will work. The main trouble with this project, it seems to me, is that nobody's building the ship.'

'What do you mean by that crack?' Fao blazed.

'Just that. You're a bunch of prima donnas, each doing exactly as he pleases. So some of the stuff is getting done three or four times, in three or four different ways, while a lot of it isn't getting done at all.'

'Such as?' Delcamp demanded.

And Fao said, 'We'll, if you don't like the way we're doing things you can —'

'Just a minute, everybody.' Lola came in, with a disarming smile. 'How much of that is hindsight, Jim? You've built one, you know - and from all accounts, progress wasn't nearly as smooth as your story can be taken to indicate.'

'You've got a point there, Lola,' Garlock agreed. 'We slid back two steps for every three we took forward.'

'Well... maybe,' James admitted.

'So why don't you, Fao and Deggi, put Jim in charge of construction?"

Fao threw back her silvery head and glared, but Delcamp jumped at the chance. 'Would you, Jim?'

'Sure - unless Miss Talaho objects.'

'She won't.' Delcamp's eyes locked with Fao's, and Fao kept still. 'Thanks immensely, Jim. And I know what you mean.' He went over to a cabinet of wide, flat drawers and brought back a sheaf of drawings - not blueprints, but original drawings in pencil. 'Such as this. I haven't even got it designed yet, to

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say nothing of building it.'

James began to leaf through the stack of drawings. They were full of erasures, re-drawings, and such notations as 'See sheets 17-B, 21-A, and 27-F.' Halfway through the pile he paused, turned backward three sheets, and studied for minutes. Then, holding that one sheet by a corner, he went rapidly through the rest of the stack.

"This is it,' he said then, pulling the one sheet out and spreading it flat. 'What we call Unit Eight - the heart of the drive.' Then, tight-beamed to Garlock:

'This is the thing that you designed in toto and that I never could understand any part of. All I did was build it. It must generate those Prime fields.'

'Probably,' Garlock flashed back. 'I didn't understand it any too well myself. How does it look?'

'He isn't even close. He's got only half of the constants down and half of the ones he has got down are wrong. Look at this mess here...'

'Ill take your word for it. I haven't your affinity for blueprints, you know, nor your eidetic memory for them."

'Do you want me to give him the whole works?'

'We'll have to, I think. Or the ship might not work at all.'

'Could be - but how about intergalactic hops?'

'He couldn't do it with the Pleiades, so he won't be able to with this. Besides, if we change it in any particular he might. You see, I don't know very much more about Unit Eight than you do."

'That could be, too.' Then, as though just emerging from his concentration on the drawings, James thought at Delcamp and Fao, but on the open, general band.

'A good many errors and a lot of blanks, but in general you're on the right track. I can finish up this drawing in a couple of hours, and we can build the unit in a couple of days. With that in place, the rest of the ship will go fast.

'// Miss Talaho wants me to,' he concluded, pointedly.

'Oh, I do, Jim - really I do!' At long last, stiff-backed Fao softened and bent. She seized both his hands. 'If you can, it'd be wonderful!'

'Okay. One question. Why are you building your ship so small?'

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"Why, it's plenty big enough for two,' Delcamp said. 'For four, in a pinch. Why did you make yours so big? Your Main is almost big enough for a convention hall.'

'That's what we figured it might have to be, at times,' Gar-lock said. 'But that's a very minor point. With yours so nearly ready to flit, no change in size is indicated now. But Belle and I have got to have another conference with the legal eagle.' He turned to James. 'So if you and Brownie will 'port whatever you need out of the Pleiades, we'll be on our way.

'So long - see you in a few days,' he added, and the Pleiades vanished; to appear instantaneously high above the stratosphere over what was to become the Galaxian Field of Earth.

'Got a minute, Gene?' he sent a thought.

'For you two Primes, as many as you like. We haven't started building or fencing yet, as you suggested, but we have bought all the real estate. So land the ship anywhere out there and I'll send a jeep out after you.'

'Thanks, but no jeep. Nobody but you knows that we've really got control of the Pleiades, and I want everybody else to keep on thinking it's strictly for the birds. We'll 'port in to your office whenever you say.'

'I say now.'

In no time at all the two Primes were seated in the private office of Eugene Evans, Head of the Legal Department of the newly reincorporated Galaxian Society of Sol, Inc. Evans was a tall man, slightly thin, slightly stooped, whose thick tri-focals did nothing whatever to hide the keenness of his steel-grey eyes.

'The first thing, Gene,' Garlock said, 'is this employment contract thing. Have you figured out a way to break it?'

'It can't be broken.' The lawyer shook his head.

'What! I thought you top-bracket legal eagles could break anything, if you really tried.'

'A good many things, yes, especially if they're long and complicated. The Standard Employment Contract, however, is short, explicit, and iron-clad. The employer can discharge the employee for any number of offenses, including ^insubordination - which, as a matter of fact, the employer himself is allowed to define. On the other hand, the employee can't quit except for some such fantastic reason as the non-tendering -

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not non-payment, mind you, but non-tendering - of salary.'

'I didn't expect that - it kicks us in the teeth before we get started,' Garlock got up, lit a cigarette, and prowled about the big room. 'Okay. Jim and I will have to get ourselves fired, then.'

Tired!' Belle snorted. 'Clee, you talk like a man with foam rubber inside his skull! Who else could run the Project? That is' - her whole manner changed - 'he doesn't know I can run it as well as you can - or better - but I could tell him. And maybe you think I wouldn't!'

'You won't have to. Gene, you can start spreading the news that Belle Bellamy is a real, honest-to-God Prime Operator in every respect. That she knows more about Project Gunther than I do and could run it better. Ferber undoubtedly knows that Belle and I have been at loggerheads ever since we first met - spread it thick that we're fighting worse than ever. Which, by the way, is the truth.'

'Fighting? Why, you seemed friendly enough...'

'Yeah, we can be friendly for about fifteen minutes if we try real hard, as now. The cold fact is, though, that her heart pumps 99 percent pure potassium cyanide...'

'I like thatl' Belle stormed. She leaped to her feet, her eyes shooting sparks. 'All my fault! Why, you self-centered, egotistical moron, I could write a book...'

That's enough - let it go - pleasel' Evans pleaded. He jumped up, took each of the combatants by a shoulder, sat them down into the chairs they had vacated, and resumed his own seat. "The demonstration was eminently successful. I'll spread the word, through several channels. Chancellor Ferber will get it all, rest assured.'

'And /'// get the job!' Belle snapped. 'And maybe you think I won't take it!'

'Don't worry, I believe it,' came Oarlock's searing thought. 'You'd sleep with Ferber to get it. And to keep it you'd go on the sofa whatever mornings he doesn't prefer one of his other girlfriends. Yeah -1 don't think.'

'Oh?' Belle's body stiffened, her face hardened. 'I've heard stories, of course, but I couldn't quite ... but do you suppose he'd actually think ... why, the bloated, obscene cockroach! But surely he can't be that stupid - to think he can buy me like

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so many pounds of calf-liver?'

'He surely is. He does. And it works. That is, if he's ever missed, nobody ever heard of it.'

'But how could a man in such a big job possibly get away with such foul stuff as that?'

'Because all that SSE is interested in is money, and Alonzo P. Ferber is a tremendously able top executive. In the big black-and-red money books he's always 'way, 'way up in the black.'

Belle, even though she was already convinced, glanced ques-tioningly at Evans.

'That's it, Miss Bellamy. That's it, in a precise, if somewhat crude, nutshell.'

'That's that, then. But just how, Clee - if he's as smart as you say he is - do you think you can make him fire you?'

'I don't know - haven't thought about it yet. But I could be pretty insurbordinate if I really tried.'

'That the understatement of the century.'

Til devote the imponderable force of the intellect to the problem and check with you later. Now, Gene, about the proposed Galactic Service, the Council, and so on. What is the reaction? Yours, personally, and others?'

'My personal reaction is immensely favorable; I think it's the greatest advance that humanity has ever made. I've been very cautious, of course, in discussing the matter, or even mentioning it, but the reaction of everyone I have sounded - good men; big men in their respective fields - has been as enthusiastic as my own.'

'Good. It won't surprise you, probably, to be told that you are to be this system's councillor and - if we can swing it, and I think we can - the first President of the Galactic Council.'

Evans was so surprised that it was almost a minute before he could reply coherently. 'I am surprised - very much so. I thought, of course, that you yourself would...'

Tar from it!' Garlock said. 'I'm not the type. You are. You're better than anyone else of the Galaxians - which means better than anyone else period. With the possible exception of Lola, and she fits better on our exploration team. Check, Belle?'

'Check. For once, I agree with you without reservation. That's a job we can work at all the rest of our lives, and

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scarcely start it."

'True - indubitably true. I appreciate your confidence in me and if the vote so falls I will do whatever I can.'

We know you will, and thank you. How long will it take to organize? A couple of weeks? And is there anything else we have to cover now?'

'A couple of weeks]' Evans was shocked. *You are naive indeed, young man, to think anything of this magnitude can even be started in such a short time as that. And yes, there are dozens of matters - hundreds - that should be discussed before I can even start to work intelligently.'

So discussions went on and on and on - and it was three days before Garlock and Belle 'ported themselves up into the Pleiades and the starship displaced itself again to Margonia.

Meanwhile, on Margonia, James James James the Ninth went directly to the heart of his job by leading Lola and Fao into Delcamp's office and setting up its Gunther blocks.

'You said you want me to build your starship. Okay, but I want you both - Fao especially - to realize exactly what that means. I know what to do and how to do it. I can handle your Operators and get the job done. However, I can't handle either of you, since you both out-Gunther me, and I'm not going to try to. But there can't be two bosses on any one job, to say nothing of three or seventeen. So either I run the job or I don't. If either of you steps hi, I step out and don't come back in. And remember that you're not doing us any favors - it's strictly vice versa."

'Jim!' Lola protested. Fao's hackles were very evidently on the rise; Delcamp's face was hardening. 'Don't be so rough, Jim, please. That's no way to...'

'If you can pretty this up, pet, I'll be glad to have you say it for me. Here's what you have to work on. If I do the job they'll have their starship in a few weeks. The way they've been going, they won't have it in twenty-five years. And the only way to get that bunch out there to really work is to tell each one of them to cooperate or else - and enforce the "or else".'

'But they'd quit!' Delcamp protested. They'll all quit!'

'With suspension or expulsion from the Society the conse-

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quences? Hardly.' James said.

'But you wouldn't do that - you couldn't'

'I wouldn't?'

'Of course he wouldn't,' Lola put in, soothingly, 'except as a very last resort And, even at worst, Jim could build it almost as easily with common labor. You Primes don't really have to have any Operators at all, you know; but all your Operators together would be perfectly helpless without at least one Prime.'

'Why?'

'Oh, didn't you know? After the ship is built and the fields are charged and so on, everything has to be activated - the hundred and one things that make it so nearly alive - and that is strictly a Prime's job. Even Jim can't do it.'

'I see ... or, rather, I don't see at all.' Fao said thoughtfully. She was no longer either excited or angry. 'A few weeks against twenty-five years ... what do you think of his time estimate, Deg?'

'I hadn't thought it would take nearly that long; but this "activation" things scares me. Nothing in my theory even hints at any such things. So - if there's so much I don't know yet, even in theory, it would take a long time. Maybe I'd never get it.'

'Well, anyway, I want our Celestial Queen done in weeks, not years,' Fao said, extending her hand to James and shaking his vigorously. 'So I promise not to interfere a bit. If I feel any such urge coming on, I'lTdash home and lock myself up in a closet until it dies. Fair enough?'

Since Fao really meant it, that was fair enough.

For a whole day James did nothing except study blueprints, going over in detail and practically memorizing every drawing that had been made. He then went over the ship, studying minutely every part, plate, member, machine and instrument that had been installed. He noted what each man and woman was doing and what they intended to do. He went over material on hand and material on order, paying particular attention to times of delivery. He then sent a few - surprisingly few -telegrams.

Finally he called all fourteen Operators together. He told them exactly what the revised situation was and exactly what

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he was going to do about it. He invited comments.

There was of course a riot of protest; but - in view of what James had said about suspensions and expulsions from the Galaxian Society - not one of them actually quit. Four of them, however, did appeal to Delcamp, considerably to bis surprise, to oust the interloper and to put things back where they had been; but they did not get much satisfaction.

'James says that he can finish building this starship in a few weeks,' Delcamp told them, flatly. 'Specifically, three weeks, if we can get the special stuff made fast enough. Fao and I believe him. Therefore, we have put him in full charge. He will remain in charge unless and until he fails in performance. You are all good friends of Fao's and mine, and we hope that all of you will stay with the project. If, however, we must choose now between you - any one of you or all of you - and James, there is no need to tell you what the choice will be.'

Wherefore all fourteen went back to work - grudgingly at first and dragging their feet. In a very few hours, however, it became evident to all that James did in fact know what he was doing and that the work was going faster and more smoothly than ever before; whereupon all opposition and all malingering disappeared. They were Operators, and they were all intensely interested in their ship.

Thus, when the Pleiades landed beside the now seething Celestial Queen, Garlock found James with feet on desk, hands in pockets, and scanner on head - apparently doing nothing at all. Nevertheless, he was a very busy man.

'Hey, Jim!' A soprano shriek of thought emanated from a gorgeous seventeen-year-old blonde. 'I can't read this funny-picture; it's been folded too many times. Where does this lead go to?'

'Data insufficient. Careful, Vingie; I'd hate to have to send you back to school.'

'Pardon me. Unit six, Sub-Assembly Tee Dash Ni-yun. Terminal Fo-wer. From said terminal, there's a lead - Bee Sub something-or-other - goes somewhere. Where?'

'B sub Four. It goes to Unit Seven. Sub-Assembly Q dash Three, Terminal Two. And watch your insulation - that's a mighty hot lead.'

'Okay, I got that Double Sink Mill Mill; Class Albert Dog

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Kittens. Thanks, boss!'

'Hi, Jim,' Garlock said. Then, to Delcamp: 'I see you're rolling.'

'He's rolling, you mean.' Delcamp had not yet recovered fully from a state of near-shock. 'So that's what an eidetic memory is? He knows every nut, bolt, lead, and coil in the ship!'

'More than that. He's checking every move everybody makes. When they're done, you won't have to just hope everything was put together right - you'll know it was.'

And Fao sidled over toward Belle. There was something new about the silver-haired girl, Belle decided instantly. The difference was slight - Belle couldn't put her finger on it at first. She seemed - quieter? Softer? More subdued? No, definitely. More feminine? No; that would be impossible. More ... more adult? Belle hated to admit it, even to herself, but that was what it was.

'Deg and I got married day before yesterday," Fao confided via tight beam.

'Oh - so you're pregnant \'

'Of course. I saw to that the first thing. I knew you'd want to be the first one to know. Oh, isn't it wonderful?' She seized Belle's arm and hugged it ecstatically against her side. 'Oh, I'm sure it is; and I'm so happy for you, Fao!' And it would have taken the mind of a Garlock to perceive anything either false or forced in thought or bearing.

Nevertheless, when Belle went into Oarlock's room that night, storm signals were flying high in her almost-topaz eyes.

'Fao Talaho Delcamp is pregnant!' she stormed, 'and it's all your fault I'

'Oh no,' he demurred, trying to snap her out of her obviously savage mood. 'Not me. Not a chance in the world. It was Deggi.'

'You know very well what I meant, Clee Garlock! If you hadn't given her that treatment she'd have kept on fighting with him and they wouldn't have been married and had any children for positively years. So now she'll have the first double-Prime baby and it ought to be mine. I'm older than she is - our group is 'way ahead of theirs - we have the first and only starship - and then you do that. And you wouldn't give me

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