that treatment. Oh, no - just to her] I'd like to strangle you to death with my own bare hands!'

'What a hell of a logic!' Garlock had been trying to keep his own temper in leash, but the leash was slipping. 'Assume I tried to work on you - assume I succeeded - what would you be? What would I have? What age do you think this is - that of the Vikings? When SOP in getting a wife was to beat her unconscious with a club and drag her into the longboat by her hair? Hardly, I do not want and will not have a conquered woman. Nor a spoiled-rotten mentally-retarded brat...'

'You unbearably, conceited jerk! Why, I'd rather...'

'Get out! And this time, stay out!'

Belle got out - and if the door and frame had not been built of super-steel, both would have been wrecked by the blast of energy she loosed in closing the door behind her.

In her own room, with Gunther blocks full on, she threw herself face down on the bed and cried as she had not cried since she was a child.

And finally, without even taking off her clothes, she cried herself to sleep.

EIGHT

Next morning, early, Belle tapped lightly on Garlock's door.

'Come in.'

She did so. 'Have you had your coffee?'

'Yes.'

'So have I.'

Neither Belle nor Garlock had recovered; both faces showed strain and drain.

'I think we'd better break this up,' she said quietly.

'Check. We'll have to, if we expect to get any work done.'

Belle could not conceal her surprise.

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'Oh, not for the reason you think,' Garlock went on, quickly. 'Your record as a man-killer is still one hundred point zero zero zero percent. I've been in love with you ever since we paired. Before that, even.'

'Like hell,' she snorted inelegantly. 'Why, I..."

'Keep still a minute. And I'm not going to fight with you again. Ever. I'm not going to touch you again until I can control myself a lot better than I could last night.'

'Oh? That was mostly my fault, of course. But in love? Oh no - I've seen men in love. You aren't, and I couldn't make you be, not with the best I could do. Not even in bed.'

'Perhaps I'm an atypical case. I'm not raving about your perfect body - you already know what that's like. Nor about your mind, which is the only one I know of as good as my own. Maybe I'm in love with what I think you ought to be ... or what I hope you will be. Anyway, I'm in love with something connected with you - and no other woman alive. Shall we go eat?'

'Okay; let's.'

They joined Lola and James at the table; and if either noticed anything out of the ordinary, neither made any sign.

And after breakfast, out in the Main —

'About three weeks, Jim, you think?' Garlock asked.

'Give or take a couple of days, yes.'

'And Belle and I would just be in the way - at least until time to show Deggi about the activation. And all those Primes to organize... We'd better leave you here, don't you think, and get going?'

'Ill buy that.'

Lola and James moved a few personal belongings planet-side; Garlock and Belle shot the Pleiades across a vast gulf of space to one of the planets they had scanned so fleetingly on their preliminary survey. Its name was, both remembered, Lizoria; its two Primes were named Rezdo Semolo and Mirea Mitala - male and female, respectively.

After sending down a very brief and perfunctory request for audience - which was in effect a declaration of intent and nothing else - Garlock and Belle teleported themselves down into Semolo's office, where both Lizorian Primes were.

Both got up out of their peculiar-looking chairs to face their

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visitors. Both were tall and peculiarly thin - not the thinness of emaciation, but that of bodily structure.

'On them it looks good,' Belle tight-beamed to Garlock

Both moved fast and with exquisite control; both were extraordinarily graceful. 'Snaky' was Belle's thought of the woman; 'sinuous' was Oarlock's of the man. Both were completely hairless, of body and of head - not by nature, but via electric-shaver clipping. Both wore sandals. The man wore shorts and a shirt-like garment of nylon or its like; the woman wore just enough ribbons and bands to hold a hundred thousand credits' worth of jewels in place. She appeared to be about twenty years - Tellurian equivalent - old; he was probably three or four years older.

'We did not invite you in and we do not want you here,' Semolo said coldly. 'So get out, both of you. If you don't, when I count three I'll throw you out, and I won't be too careful about how many of your bones I break. One... Two...'

'Pipe down, Rezdo!' the girl exclaimed. They have something we haven't, or they wouldn't be here. Whatever it is, we want it.'

'Oh, let him try, Miss Mitala,' Garlock said, through her hard-held block, in the depth of her mind. 'He won't hurt us a bit and it may do him some good. While he's wasting effort I'll compare notes with my partner here, Galactic Vice-Admiral Belle Bellamy. I'm glad to see that one of you has at least part of a brain.'

'... Three!' Semolo did his best, with everything he had, without even attracting Oarlock's attention. He then tried to leap at the intruder physically, despite the latter's tremendous advantage in weight and muscle, but found that he could not move.

Then, through Belle's solidly-set blocks, Garlock asked, 'How are you coming? Getting anywhere?'

'My God!' came Belle's mental shriek. 'What - how can -but no, you didn't give that to Fao, surely!'

'I'll say I didn't - nor to Delcamp. But you're going to need it, I'm thinking.'

'But can you? Even if you would - and I'm just beginning to realize how big a man you really are - can that kind of stuff be

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taught? I probably haven't got the braincells it takes to handle it.'

'I'm not sure, but I've reworked our Prime Fields into one and made a few other changes. Theoretically, it ought to work. Shall I come in and try it?'

'Don't be an idiot, darling. Of course!'

As impersonally as a surgeon exploring an organ, Garlock went into Belle's mind. 'Tune to the field ... that's it - fine! Then - I'll do it real slow, and watch me closely - you do it like so ... get it?'

'Oh, lovely!' Belle breathed excitedly. 'Got it!'

'Then this ... and this ... and there you are. You can try it on me, if you like.'

'Oh no. No sale. I don't need practice and I'd like to preserve the beautiful illusion that maybe I could crack your shield if I wanted to. No, I'll work on Miss Snake-Hips here -but say, I'll bet there's a bone in it. You can block even that, can't you?'

'Yes. The block works like this.' He showed her. 'It takes full mastery of the Prime Field, but I see you've got that.'

'Oh, wonderful! Thanks, Clee darling. But do you actually mean to say that I can now block you or any other Prime out completely?'

'You're going too far. Me, yes - but don't forget that there very well may be people - or things - as far ahead of us as we are ahead of pointer pups.'

'Hah! Like hell! I just know, Clee, that you're the absolute tops of the whole universe.'

'Well, we can dream, of course.' Garlock withdrew his mind from Belle's and turned his attention to the now quiet Semolo. 'Well, my overconfident and contumacious young squirt, are you done horsing around or do you want to keep it up until you addle completely what few brains you have?'

The Lizorian made no reply; he merely glared.

'The trouble with you half-baked, juvenile Primes is that you know too damned much that isn't true. As an old Tellurian saying hath it, you're "too big for your britches".

'Thus, simply because you have lived a few years on a single planet and haven't met anyone able to slap you down, you've sold yourself on the idea that there's nobody, anywhere, who

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can. You're wrong - in fact, you couldn't be wronger.

'What, actually, have you done? What, actually, have you got? Practically nothing. You haven't even started a starship; you've scarcely started making plans. You realize dimly that the theory is not in any of the books, that you'll have to dig it out for yourself, but that is work. So you're still just posing and throwing your weight around.

'As a matter of fact, you're merely a drop in a - not in a tubful, but a lake. There are thousands of millions of planets, and thousands of millions of Prime Operators. Most of them are probably a lot stronger than you are; many of them may be stronger than my partner and I are. I am not at all certain that you will pass even the first screening; but since you are without question a Prime Operator, I will deliver the message we came to deliver. Miss Mitala, do you want to listen or shall we drive it into you, too?'

'I want to listen to anyone or anything who has a working starship and who can do what you have just done.'

'Very well.' And Garlock told the general-distribution version of the story of the Galactic Service.

'Quite interesting,' Semolo said loftily, at its end. 'Whether or not I would be interested depends, of course, on whether there's a position high enough...'

'I doubt very much if there's one low enough,' Garlock cut in sharply. 'However, since it's part of my job, I'll get in touch with you later.'

Back in the Main - 'What a jerk!' Belle exclaimed. 'I simply marvel at your forbearance, Clee. You should have turned him inside out and hung him up to dry - especially behind the ears!' Then, suddenly, she giggled. 'But do you know what I did?'

'I can guess. A couple of shots in the arm?'

'Right. Next time he pitches into her she'll slap his ears right off!'

'Fine. But let's hop to Number Two - here it is.'

'Oh, yes,' came a smooth, clear, diamond-sharp thought in reply to Oarlock's introductory call. "This world as you have perceived, is Falne. I am indeed Baver 14WD27, my companion Prime is indeed Glarre 12WD91. You are, we perceive, Bearers of the Truth; of great skill and of high advancement.

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Your visit here will, I am sure, be of immense benefit to us and possibly, I hope, of some small benefit to you. We will both be delighted to have you 'port yourselves to us immediately.'

The Tellurians did so - to be attacked on the instant by a blast of force the like of which neither had even imagined. The two Falnian Primes, capable operators both, had built up their highest possible potentials and had launched both terrific bolts without any hint of warning.

Belle's mind, however, was already fused with Oarlock's. Their combined blocks were instantaneous in action; their counterthrust very nearly so. Both Falnians staggered backward until they were stopped by the room's wall.

'Ah, yes,' Garlock said then. 'You are indeed, in a small and feeble way, Seekers After the Truth; of which we are indeed Bearers. Lesser Bearers, perhaps, but still Bearers. You will indeed profit greatly from our visit. You err, however, in thinking that we may in any respect profit from you. You have nothing whatever that we have not had for long. Now let us, if you please, take a few seconds of time to get acquainted, each with the other.'

"That, indeed, is the logical and seemly thing to do.' Both Falnians straightened up and stepped forward - neither arrogantly nor apologetically, but quite as though nothing at all out of the ordinary had taken place.

Each pair studied the other. Physically, the two pairs were surprisingly alike. Baver was almost as big as Garlock and almost as heavily muscled. Glarre could have been cast in Belle's own mold.

With that, however, all resemblance ceased.

Both Falnians were naked. The man wore only a belt and pouch in lieu of pockets; the woman only a leather carryall slung from one shoulder - big enough, Garlock thought, to hold a week's supplies for an Explorer Scout.

His hair was thick, bushy, unkempt; sun-bleached to a nondescript blend of pale colors. Hers - long, heavy, meticulously middle-parted and dressed - was a startling two-tone job. To the right of the part it was searingly-brilliant red; to the left, an equally brilliant royal blue.

His skin was deeply tanned. The color of hers was completely masked by a bizarrely spectacular overlay of designs

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done in semi-indelible, multi-colored dyes.

'Ah, you are worthy indeed of receiving an increment of Truth. Hear, then, the message we bring.' And again Garlock told the story.

'We thank you, sir and madam, from our hearts. We will accept with joy your help in finishing our ship; we will do all that in us lies to further the cause of the Galactic Service. Until a day, then?'

'Until a day.' Then, to Belle, 'Okay - ready? Got'

And again in the Main :

'What a pair they turned out to be ! Clee, that simply scared me witless ! '

'It was a shock, all right.' Garlock jammed his hands into his pockets and prowled about the room, his face a black scowl of concentration.

Finally he pulled himself out of the brown study and said, 'I've been trying to think if there's any other thing, however slight, that I have and you haven't. There isn't. You've got it all. You're just as fast as I am, just as sharp and as accurate -and, since we now draw on the same field, just as strong.'

'Why, Clee! You're worrying about me! You've done altogether too much for me, already.'

'Anything I can do I've got to do ... Well, shall we go?'

'We shall.'

They visited four more planets that day. And after supper that night, standing in the corridor between their doors, Belle began to soften her shield, as though to send a thought. Almost instantly, however, she changed her mind and snapped it back up to full power.

'Goodnight, Clee,' she said.

'Goodnight, Belle.'

And each went into his own room.

The next day they worked nine planets, and the day after that they worked ten. They ate supper in friendly fashion; then strolled together across the Main to a davenport.

'It's funny,' Belle said thoughtfully, 'having this tremendous ship all to ourselves. To have a private conference right out here in the Main ... or is it?'

He triggered the shields; she watched him do it. 'It is now,' he assured her.

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'Prime-proof? Not ordinary Gunther blocks?'

'Yes. Two hundred kilovolts and four hundred kilogunts, backed by all the stuff of the Prime and Op fields and the full power of the engines. I told you I made some changes.'

'Private enough, I guess... What a mess those Primes are! And we'll have to make the rounds twice more - when we alert 'em and when we pick 'em up.'

'Not necessarily. This new setup ought to give us a galaxy-wide reach. Let's try Semolo, on Lizoria, shall we?'

'Okay, darling - lets.' 'Darling?'

'Yes. You said you weren't going to fight with me any more. Okay - I'm not going to try to lick you any more until after I've licked myself. I'm locked tight - you may fire when ready.'

They fired - and hit the mark dead center. Toplofty and arrogant and belligerent as ever, the Lizorian Prime took the call. T thought all the time you wanted something. Well, I neither want nor need...'

'Cut it,' you unlicked cub, until you can begin to use that half-liter of golop you call a brain,' Garlock said harshly. 'We're just trying out a new ultra-communicator. Thanks for your help.'

On the fourth day they worked eleven planets; the fifth day saw the forty-sixth planet done and the immediate job finished. All during the supper it was very evident that Belle had something unpleasant on her mind.

After eating, she went out into the Main and slumped down on a davenport. Garlock followed her. A cigarette leaped out of a closed box and into place between her lips. It came alight. She smoked it slowly, without relish, almost as though she did not know that she was smoking.

'Might as well get it out of your system, Belle,' Garlock said aloud. 'What are you thinking about at the moment?'

Belle exhaled; the half-smoked butt vanished. 'At the moment I was thinking about Gunther blocks. Specifically, their total inability to cope with that new Prime probe of yours.' She stared at him, narrow-eyed. 'It goes through them just like nothing at all.' She paused, and eyed him questioningly.

'No comment.'

'And yet you gave it to me. Freely. Of your own accord.

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Even before I needed it. Why?'

'Still no comment.'

'You'd better comment, Clee, before I blow my top.'

There is such a thing as urbanity.'

'I've heard of it, yes; even though you never did believe I ever had any. But it doesn't apply in this case. You talk a good game of urbanity, but your brand of it would never carry you that far...'

She paused. He remained silent. She went on:

'Of course, it does put a lot of pressure on me to develop myself.'

'I'm glad you used the word "develop" instead of "treatment".'

'Oh, sometimes - at rare intervals - I'm not exactly dumb. But you must have known what a horrible risk you took in making me as powerful as you are.'

'Some, perhaps, but very definitely less risky than not doing it.'

'Damn it, getting information out of you is harder than pulling teeth the old way. Clee Garlock, I want to know why 1'

'Very well,' Oarlock's jaw set. 'You've had it in mind all along that this is some kind of a lark; that you and I are Gunther tops of the universe. Or did that belief weaken a bit when we met Baver 14WD27 and his lady-love?'

'Well, perhaps - a little. However, the probability is becoming greater with ever planet we visit. After all, some race has to be tops. Why shouldn't it be us?'

'What a hell of a logic - excuse me, please. Skip it.'

'Oh, you really meant it when you said you weren't going to fight with me any more?'

'I'm going to try not to. Now remembering that I don't consider your premise valid, just suppose that when we visit some planet some day, you get your mind burned out and I don't -solely because I had something I could have given you and wouldn't. What then?'

'Oh. I thought that was what you ... but suppose that I can't...'

'We won't suppose anything of the kind. But that wasn't all that was on your mind. Nor most.' 'How true. Those Primes - the women. Honestly, Clee, I

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never imagined such a bunch of exhibitionistic, obnoxious, swell-headed, spoiled-rotten bitches in my whole life. And every day it was borne in on me more and more that I'm exactly like the rest of them.'

Garlock was wise enough to say nothing, and Belle went on:

'I've been talking a good game of licking myself, but this time I'm going to do it.'

She jumped up and doubled her fists. 'If you can do it, I can,' she declared. 'Like the ancient song - "Anything you can do I can do better; I can do anything better than you."' She tried to be jaunty, but the jauntiness did not ring quite true.

'That's an unfortunate quotation, I'm afraid. The trouble is, I haven't.'

'Huh? Don't be an idiot, Clee. You certainly have - what else do you suppose put me so far down in the dumps?'

'In that case, you certainly will. So come on up out of the dumps.'

'Okay - I certainly will. But for a woman who's been talking so big, I feel low in my mind. A goodnight kiss, Clee darling? Just one; and just a little one, at that?'

There were more than one, and none of them was very little. Eventually, however, the two stood, arms still around each other, in the corridor between their doors.

'But kissing's as far as it goes, isn't it,' Belle said. The remark was not a question; nor was it quite a statement.

That's right.'

'So goodnight, darling.'

'Goodnight.'

And when they next saw each other, at the breakfast table, Belle was apparently her usual dauntless self.

'Hi, darling; sit down,' she said gaily. 'Your breakfast is on the table.'

They ate in silence for a few minutes; then her hand crept tentatively across the table. He pressed it warmly. 'You look great, Belle. Out of the dumps?'

'Pretty much - in most ways. One way, though, I'm in deeper than ever. You see, I know exactly what you did to Fao Talaho - and why neither you nor anybody else could do it to me. Or if they could, what would happen if they did.'

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'I was hoping you would. I couldn't very well tell you, before, but..."

'Of course not. I see that.'

'... the fact is that Fao, and all the others we've met, are young enough, unformed enough - yes, damn it, weak enough - to bend. But you are tremendously strong, and twelve numbers Rockwell harder than a diamond. You wouldn't bend. If enough stress could be applied - and that's decidedly questionable - you'd break. I can't figure it. You're a little older, of course, but certainly not enough to ...'

'How about the fact that I've been banging myself for eight years again Cleander Garlock, the top Prime of the universe? That might have something to do with it, don't you think?'

'Indefensible conclusions drawn from insufficient data,' Garlock countered. 'That's just what I've been talking about. No matter how we got the way we are, though, the fact is that you and I have got to fight our own battles and bury our own dead.'

'Check. Like having a baby, but worse. There's nothing anybody else can do - even you - except maybe hold my hand, like now.'

'That's about it. But speaking of holding hands, would it help if we paired again?'

Belle studied the question for two full minutes; her fine eyes clouded. Then she shook her head. 'No. I'd enjoy it too much, and you'd ... well, it would...'

'What?'

'Oh, physically, of course; but that isn't enough, or good enough, now. You see, I know what your personal code is. It's unbelievable, almost - I never heard of one like it, except maybe a priest or two - but I admire you tremendously for it. You would never, willingly, pair with a woman you really loved. That was why you were so glad to break ours off. You can't deny it.'

T won't try to deny it. But you can't bluff me, Belle, so please quit trying. Basically, your code is the same as mine. Why else did you initiate our break?'

Her block went on solid, and Garlock said hastily, aloud, 'Excuse it, please. Cancel. I've just said, and know as an im-pirical fact, that you've got to do the job alone - but I can't

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seem to help putting my foot in it by blundering in anyway. Let's get to work, shall we?'

'What at? Interview the Primes, I'd say - tell them to hold themselves in readiness to attend...'

'On very short notice...'

'Yes. To attend the big meeting on Tellus. We'll have to make a schedule. It shouldn't be held until after Fao and Deg get their ship built - it can't be held, of course, until after you and Jim are out of SSE. Have you got that figured out yet?'

'Pretty much.' He told her his plan.

Belle listened, then burst into laughter. 'So I'm in it, too? Wonderful!'

'You have to be. If we make him mad enough he'll fire you, too.'

'Without hiring me first? He couldn't.'

'He could - very easily. He doesn't know one-tenth of one percent of his people. If we work it right he'll assume that you're one of us wage-slaves, too. Lola, too, for that matter.'

'Careful, Clee. You and I think this is funny, but Lola wouldn't. She'd be shocked to her sweet little core, and she'd louse up the whole idea. So be very sure she doesn't get in on it.'

'I guess you're right... Well, shall we go out and insult our touchy young friend Semolo? Ready ... go?'

'Oh it's you again. I tell you...' the Lizorian began.

'You will tell me nothing. You will listen. Link your mind to Mitala's." The fused Tellurian minds enforced the order. 'In about two weeks the Primes of many worlds will meet in person on Tellus. Arrange your affairs so that on ten minutes' notice you can both leave Lizoria for Tellus aboard our star-ship, the Pleiades. That is all.'

'He'll come, too,' Belle chortled.

'You couldn't keep him away," Garlock agreed.

On the next planet, Falne, the procedure was a little different. The information was the same, but - 'One word of warning,' Garlock added. 'It is to be a meeting of minds, not a contest to set up a pecking-order. If you try any such business you will be disciplined - sharply and in public.'

'Suppose that, under such conditions, we refuse to attend the meeting?'

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'That is your right. There is no coercion whatever. Whether or not you come will depend upon whether or not you two are in reality Seekers after Truth. Until a day.'

And so it went. Planet after planet. On not one of those worlds had any Prime changed his thinking. Not one was really interested in the Galactic Service as an instrument for the good of all mankind. There were almost as many attitudes as there were Primes; but all were essentially self-centered and selfish.

'That tears it, Belle - busts it wide open. The two of us together can do either job - that is, either be top boss and run the thing or put in full time beating some sense into those hard, thick skulls. We can't do both.'

'On paper, we should,' Belle said, thoughtfully. 'You're Galactic Admiral; I'm your Vice. One job apiece. But we're not going to be separated. Besides...'

Two minds are much better than one,' he said.

Belle laughed. That settles that. The Garlock-Bellamy fusion is Galactic Admiral - so we need a good Vice. Who? Deggi and Fao? They're cooperative and idealistic enough, but... Oh, I don't know exactly what it is they lack. Do you?'

'No; I can't put it into words, or thoughts. Probably the concept is too new for pigeonholing. It isn't exactly strength or hardness or toughness or resilience or brisance - maybe a combination of all five. What we need is a pair like us but better.'

'There aren't any.'

'Don't be too sure.' Belle glanced at him in surprise and he went on: 'Not that we've seen, no. But each of those worlds centers a volume of space containing thousands of planets. Including the Tellurian and the Margonian, we now have forty-eight regions defined. Let's run a very fast search-pattern of Region Forty-Nine and see what we come up with.'

'All right - but suppose we do find somebody who out-Gun-thers us?'

'I'd a lot rather have it that way than the way it is now. I'll do the hopping, you the checking. Here's the first one - what do you read?'

'No good.'

'And this one?'

The same.'

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'And this?'

'Ditto.'

Until, finally: 'Clee, just how long are you going to keep this up?'

'Until we find something or run out of time for the meeting. Belle, I really want to find somebody who amounts to something.'

'So do I, really, so go ahead.'

But they did not run out of time. At planet number four-hundred-something Belle suddenly emitted a shriek-vocally as well as mentally.

'Clee! Hold it! There's something here, I think!'

'I'm sure there is, and I'm gladder to see you two people than can possibly be expressed.'

Belle whirled; so did Garlock. A man stood in the middle of the Main - a man shaped very much like Garlock, but with long, badly-tousled fiery-red hair and a bushy wilderness of fiery-red whiskers.

'Please excuse this intrusion, Admiral - or should it be plural? Improper address, I'm sure, but your joint tenure is a concept so new and so vast that I am not yet able to grasp it fully - but you are working at such high speed that I had to do something drastic. You will, I trust, remain here long enough to discuss certain matters with my wife and me?'

'We'll be very glad to.'

Thank you. I will return, then, more decorously, and bring her along. One moment.' He disappeared.

'Wife!' Belle exclaimed, more than half in dismay. Then they must be...'

'Yeah.' The thought of a wife did not bother Garlock at all. Talk about power! And speed! To get all that stuff and 'port up here in a fraction of a second? There's a guy who is what a Prime Operator ought to be!'

In a few seconds the man reappeared, accompanied by a woman who was very obviously pregnant - eight months or so. Like the man, she was dressed in tight-fitting coveralls. Her hair, however - it was a natural red, too - was cut to a uniform length of eight inches, and each hair individually stood out, perfectly straight and perfectly perpendicular to the element of the scalp from which it sprang.

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'Friends Belle and Clee of Tellus, I present Therea, my wife ... and Alsyne, myself ... of this planet Thaker. We have numbers, too, but they are never used among friends.'

Acknowledgments were made and a few minutes of conversation ensued, during which the two couples studied each other.

"This looks mighty good to me,' Garlock said then. 'Shall we go screens half-down, Alsyne, and cry in each other's beer?'

In thirty seconds of flashing communication each became thoroughly informed. Those minds could send, and could receive, an incredibly vast amount of information in an incredibly brief space of time.

'Your ship should work and doesn't,' Garlock said. 'Show me, in detail.'

Alsyne showed him.

'Oh, I see. You didn't work out quite all the theory. It has to be activated. Like this ...' Garlock showed Alsyne.

'I see. Thanks.' Alsyne disappeared and was gone for some ten minutes. He reappeared, grinning hugely behind his flaming wilderness of beard. 'It works perfectly - for which our heartfelt thanks. And now that my mind is at complete peace with the universe, we will consider the utterly fascinating subject of your proposed Galactic Service. You two Tellurians, immature although you are, have made two tremendous contributions to the advancement of the Scheme of Things - three, if you count this starship, which is comparatively unimportant - each of such import that no human mind can foresee any fraction of its consequences. First, your Prime Field, the probe and its screen...'

'Clee!' Belle drove the thought. 'You didn't give him that, surely!'

'Tut-tut, my child,' Therea soothed her. 'You are alarming yourself about nothing.'

"The only trouble with you two youngsters is that you aren't quite - very nearly, of course, but very definitely not quite -grown up.' Alsyne smiled again ... not only with mouth and eyes, but with his whole hairy face. 'To the mature mind there is no such thing as status. Each knows what he can do best and does it as a matter of course.

'Second, the unimaginably important contribution of the

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ability to combine two dissimilar but intimately compatible minds into one tremendously effective fusion. While Therea and I have had only a few moments to play with it, we realize some of its possibilities. Thus, since she is a Doctor of the Humanities...'

'Oh,' Belle interrupted. 'That's why you knew what I was thinking about, even though I tight-beamed the thought and my screens were tight?"

'Exactly so. But to continue. With her sympathy and empathy, and my driving force and so on, the job of licking these young Primes into shape is precisely right for us. It is a truly delicious thought.

'You two, on the other hand, have much that we lack. Breadth and depth and scope of imagination and of vision; yet almost incredible will-power and stamina and resolve...'

'That's the word I was trying to think of - will-power!' Belle flashed a thought at Garlock.

'... qualities virtually always mutually exclusive; but the combination of which makes your fusion uniquely qualified to lead and direct this new and magnificent movement. But Therea and I have been idle and frustrated far too long. We can be of most use, at the moment, on Margonia, working with the Fao-Deggi unit. Therefore, with renewed deep thanks, we go.'

Man and wife disappeared; and, then seconds later, the Thakern starship vanished from its world.

'Well, what do you think of that?' Belle gasped. 'I was actually afraid to think, even behind a Prime screen. I don't know yet whether I want to kiss 'em or kill 'em.'

'I do. That guy is really a Prime, Belle. He's older, bigger, and a lot better than I am.'

'Oh no,' she said-positively. 'Older, yes. More mature - you baby, you!' She laughed. 'If he hadn't included you in that crack I'd've stabbed him, so help me, even though it wasn't true. He said himself it's you who has got what it takes to lead and direct, not him.'

'The two of us, not just me.'

'Right - the two of us, now and forever. Anyway, he wants us to, and we want to, so everything's lovely - let's get to work on Fatso and his Foster. I think we ought to have some fun for

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a change and that'll be a lot. When do we want to hit him?' 'Any   day   Monday   through   Friday.   Nine-fifteen   A.M.

Eastern Daylight Time. Plus or minus one minute.' 'Nice! Catch him in flagrante delicto. Lovely!'

On a Wednesday morning, then, at twelve minutes past nine EDT, the Pleiades hung poised high over the Chancellory of Solar System Enterprises, Incorporated.

'Remember, Belle!' Garlock was pacing the Main. To keep 'em staggering we'll have to land slugging and beat 'em to every punch. You did a wonderful job on her last time, and it's been eating on her ever since. She's probably been rehearsing in front of a mirror just how she's going to tear you apart next time and just how she's going to spit out the pieces. Last time, you were cold, stiff, rigidly formal, and polite. So this time it'll be me, and I'll be hot and bothered, dirty, low, coarse, lewd, and very, very rough.'

Belle threw back her head and laughed. 'Rough? Yes. Vicious contemptuous, or ugly; yes. A master of profanity; yes. But low or dirty or coarse or lewd, Clee? Or any one of the four, to say nothing of them all? Oh no. Ferber's a filthy beast, of course; but even he knows you're one of the cleanest men that ever lived. They'd know it was an act.'

'Not unless I give 'em time to think - or unless you do, before he fires Jim - in which case we'll lose the game anyway. But how about you? If I can knock 'em too groggy to think, can you carry on hard enough to keep 'em that way?'

'Oh, just watch me! I never tried anything like that, but I'll guarantee to be just as low, dirty, coarse, lewd, and crude as you are. Probably more so, because in this particular case it'll be fun. You see, you're a man - you can't possibly despise and detest that slimy Ferber either in the same way or as much as I do.'

'This ought to be good. Cut the rope, Jim.'

Even before the starship came to rest, Garlock drove a probe into the sanctum sanctorum of the Chancellory - an utterly unheard-of act of insolence.

'Foster! This is the Pleiades coming in. Garlock calling. Hot up the tri-di and the recorder, and put Fatso on - and snap into it!'

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Why, I... you...'

'Stop stuttering and come to life, you halfwit! Gimme Ferber and hurry it up! This ship's trickier'n hell!'

'Why, you ... I never...' Ferber's outraged First Secretary could scarcely talk. 'He ... he is..."

'I know, babe, I know - "Chancellor Ferber is in conference and can not be disturbed,"' he mimicked. 'What is it this time? Has he got a naked file-clerk on the davenport because you're getting too old and fat to do a good job on him any more? Listen, you worn-out battle-axe - didn't you get your tits far enough into the wringer when you tangled with Belle Bellamy? This is me, not her, and I haven't got time to waste on you, or any of the rest of Fat Stuff's sofa-partners. Put him on now - but quick - or I'll 'port down there and slap 'em clear off. Now ]ump!'

Bella, seated cross-legged on the floor, was rocking back and forth with both hands jammed into her mouth. James was standing up, gesticulating fervently with hands clasped high above his head. Lola, who had not been completely informed, was staring in wide-eyed, horrified amazement.

The tri-di tank brightened up, Chancellor Ferber's image appeared. He was disheveled, surprised, and angry; but Gar-lock gave him no chance to speak.

'Well, Fatso - at last! Where the hell have you been all morning? I want some stuff, just as fast as God will let you get it together.' And he began to read off, as fast as he could talk, a long list of highly technical items.

Ferber tried for many seconds to break in, and Garlock finally allowed him to do so.

'Are you crazy, Garlock?' he shouted. 'What in hell's name are you bothering me with that stuff for? You know better than that - make out your requisitions and send them through regular channels!'

'Channels, hell!' Garlock shouted back. 'Hasn't it got through your four-inch-thick skull yet that I'm in a hurry? I don't want this stuff week after next; I want it day before yesterday - this damned junk-heap is apt to fall apart any second. So quit goggling and slobbering at me, you slimy fat toad, and get that three hundredweight of suet into action -hump yourself!'

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'You... you... Why, I was never so insulted...'

'Insulted? You?' Garlock out-roared him. 'Listen, Fatso. If I ever really set out to insult you, you'll know it - it'll blister all the plastic off the walls. All I'm trying to do now is to get you off that fat butt of yours and get some action. Tell that woman on the sofa to put her clothes back on and get to hell out!'

'Woman!' Ferber yelled, pounding his desk. There's no woman here, you God damned insubordinate son of a..."

'The hell there isn't!' Garlock yelled louder and pounded harder. 'It's nine-seventeen - and besides, I'm a Prime, not a lousy dumb low First, like you. So put the filthy pictures and nasty pamphlets back in the drawer. Start rounding up this stuff - but fast - or I'll come down there and take your job away from you and do it myself - and for your own greasy hide's sake you'd better believe I'm not just blowing wind, either.'

'You'll whatr Ferber screamed. 'YOU'RE FIRED!'

'You fire meV Garlock mimicked the scream. 'And make it stick? You'd better write that one up for the funnies. Why, you lard-brain, you couldn't fire a cap-pistol."

'Foster!' Ferber yelled. 'Terminate Garlock as of now. Insurbordination, misconduct, abuse of position, incompetence, malfeasance - everything else you can think of - blacklist him all over the system!'

At the word 'fired' Belle had leaped to her feet and had stopped laughing.

'Miss Bellamy!' Ferber snapped.

'Yes, sir?' she answered, sweetly.

'You are hereby promoted to Head of the...'

'Oh, yeah?' Belle said, her voice fairly reeking with contempt. 'You filthy slob - you unprincipled, lascivious, lecherous hitler \ Have you got the unmitigated gall to take me for a whore? To think you can add me to your collection of bootlicking, round-heeled tramps?

'Me? Take you on? No, thanks. Just looking at you with your corset and all your clothes on makes me sick at the stomach - if I actually had to touch your sloppy carcass I'd vomit all over the floor. Oh no! Instead of promoting me you can take the job I've got now and stick it!'

'You're fired and blacklisted, too!'

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'How nice! You know, I don't know of anything I'd rather have happen to me?'

'Get James on there. You, James ...'

'You don't need to fire me, you fathead,' James said contemptuously. 'I've already quit - the exact second you fired Clee.'

'No you didn't!' Ferber screamed. 'Resignation not accepted. You're fired. Dishonorably discharged - blacklisted everywhere - you'll never get another job - anywhere*. And here's your slip, too!' Miss Foster was very fast on the machines.

James 'ported his slip up into the Pleiades, just as Garlock and Belle had done with theirs, and disappeared with it as they had; reappearing almost instantly.

'Montandon!'

'Chancellor Ferber, are you completely out of your mind? You can't discharge either Miss Bellamy or me.'

'I can't?' he gloated. 'Why not?'

'Because neither of us is employed. By anybody.'

'That's right, Fatso,' Belle jeered. 'We just came along. Just to keep the boys company. It's lonesome, you know, 'way out in deep space."

Miss Foster ripped a half-filled-out termination form out of her machine and hurled it into a waste-basket. Ferber's jaw dropped and his eyes stared glassily, but he rallied quickly.

'I can blacklist her, though, and maybe you think I won't. Belle Bellamy will never get another job in this whole solar system as long as" she lives, except through me! Maybe I'll hire her some day, for something, and maybe I won't. Are you listening, Bellamy?'

'Not only listening, I'm revealing in every word." Belle laughed derisively. 'I hate to shatter such wonderful dreams -or do I? You see, the Pleiades really works, and the Galaxians own her in fee simple and lock, stock, and barrel. You wouldn't have any part of her, remember? Insisted on payment for every nut, wire, and service? Now, they want to hire us four for a big operation with this starship. Since you only loaned Garlock and James to them, you might have made some legal trouble on that score, but now that you've fired them both - and in such conclusive language! - we're all set.

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So when you blacklist us with the Society, please let me know - I want to take a tri-di in technicolor of you doing it!'

Til see about that!' Ferber stormed. 'We'll have an injunction out in an hour!'

'Go ahead,' Garlock said, with a wide grin. 'Have fun - the Galaxians have lawyers too, you know. One thing Belle forgot. Just in case you recover consciousness some time and want to steal our termination papers back - especially Belle's; what a howler that was! - don't try it. They're in a Gunther-blocked safe.'

Then, as comprehension began to dawn on Ferber's face:

The Pleiades disappeared.

NINE

The Pleiades landed on Margonia's Glaxian Field, where the Tellurians found the project running smoothly, a little ahead of schedule. Delcamp and Fao were working at their fast and efficient pace, but the hairy pair from Thaker seemed to be, literally, everywhere at once.

'Hi, Belle,' Fao 'ported up and shook hands warmly. 'I thought I was going to have the first double-Prime baby, until she appeared on the scene.'

'Didn't it make you mad? I'd've been furious."

'Maybe a little at first, but not after I'd talked with her for half a minute. She'd never even thought of that angle. Besides she thinks the whole galaxy is fairly crawling with double-Primes.'

'That's funny - so does Clee. But there are other things -strictly not angles - that she hasn't thought of, too. If those coveralls were half an inch tighter they'd choke her to death. You'd think she'd ...'

'What?' Fao interrupted. 'You should scream - oh, that

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ridiculous Tellurian prud —'

'It isn't ridiculous!' Belle snapped. 'And it isn't prudishness, either - not with me, anyway. It's just that' - she ran an indicative glance over Fao's trim flanks and hard flat abdomen - 'it spoils your figure. It's only temporary, of course, but...'

'Spoils it! Why, how utterly idiotic! Why, it's magnificent! Just as soon as it starts to show on me, Belle, I'm going to start wearing only half as many clothes as I've got on now.'

'You couldn't.' Belle eyed the other girl's bathing-suit-like garment. Except for being blue instead of yellow, it was the same as the one she had worn before.

'Hey, you two!' came Delcamp's hail. 'How about getting some work done?'

With six Prime Operators on the job the work went on very rapidly, yet without error. The Celestial Queen was finished, tested, and found perfect, one full day ahead of James' most optimistic estimate for construction alone. The six Primes conferred.

'Do you want us to help you pick up the other Primes?* Delcamp asked. 'Your Main, big as it is, will be crowded, and we have three ships here now instead of one.'

'I don't think so ... no,' Garlock decided. 'We told 'em we'd do it, and in the Pleiades, so we'd better. Unless, Alsyne, you don't agree?'

'I agree. The point, while of course minor, is very well taken. We and our Operators - we brought six along; experts in their various fields - can serve best by working on Tellus with its Galaxian Society in getting ready for the meeting.'

'Oh, of course,' Fao said. 'Probably Deg and I should do the same thing?'

'That would be our thought.' The two Thakerns were thinking - and lepping - in fusion. 'However,' they went on carefully, 'it must not be and is not our intent to sway you in any action or decision. While not all of you four, perhaps, are as yet fully mature, not one of you should be subjected to any additional exterior stresses.'

'I hope you don't think that way about all Primes,' Garlick said grimly. Tm going to smack some of those kids down so hard that their shirt-tails will roll up their backs like window shades.'

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'If you find such action either necessary or desirable, we will join you quite happily in it. We go.'

The four remaining Primes looked at each other in puzzled surprise.

'What do you think about thatT Garlock asked finally, of no one in particular.

'I don't understand them,' Fao said, 'but they're mighty nice people.'

Belle nibbled at her lower Up. 'Clee, do you suppose we're going off on the wrong foot with uniforms and admirals and things? That with really adult Primes running things the Galactic Service would run itself? No bosses or anything?'

Garlock frowned heavily. 'I hope not. Or do I? Anyway, not enough data yet to make speculation profitable. But I wonder, Miss Bellamy, if it would be considered an unjustifiable attempt to sway you in any action or decision if I were to suggest that if we're going to be busy tomorrow morning then we ought to get some sleep right now.'

'Considering the source, as well as and/or in connection with the admittedly extreme provocation' - Belle straightened up into a regal pose - 'you may say, Mister Garlock, without fear of successful contradiction, that in this instance no umbrage will be taken, at least for the moment.' She broke the pose and smiled. 'So goodnight, all.'

Belle was still sunny and gay when the Pleiades reached Lizoria; Garlock was inwardly happy and outwardly content Semolo, however, was his usual intransigent self. In fact, if it had not been for Mirea Mitala, and the fact that she - metaphorically - did pin Semolo's ears back, Garlock would not have taken him aboard at all.

Thus, after loading on only one pair of Primes, that auspiciously-beginning day had lost some of its luster; and as the day wore on it got no better fast Baver of Falne had not learned anything, either - only Oarlock's intervention saved the cocky and obstreperous Semolo from a mental blast that would have knocked him out cold.

Then there were Onthave and Lerthe of Crenna; Korl and KM of Gleer; Parleof and Ginseona of Pasquerone; Atnim and Sotara of Flandoon; and eighty others. Very few of them were as bad as Semolo; some of them, particularly the Pas-168

queronians and the Gleerans, were almost as good as Delcamp and Fao.

This was the first time that any pair of them had ever come physically close to any other Prime. Many of them had not really believed that any Primes abler than themselves existed. The Pleiades was crowded, and Garlock and Belle were not giving to any of them the deference and consideration and submissive respect which each considered his unique due.

Therefore the undertaking was neither easy nor pleasant, and both Tellurians were tremendously relieved when, the last pair picked up, they flashed the starship back to Tellus and Del-camp, Fao, and the Thakerns 'ported themselves aboard.

'Give me your attention, please,' Garlock said crisply. Then, after a moment, 'Any and all who are not tuned to me in five seconds will be returned immediately to their home planets and will lose all contact with this group...

That's better. For some of you this has been a very long day. For all of you it has been a very trying day. You were all informed previously as to what we had in mind. However, since you are young and callow, and were thoroughly convinced of your own omniscience and omipotence, it is natural enough that you derived little or no benefit from that information. You are now facing reality, not your own fantasies.

'Each pair of you has been assigned a suite of rooms in Galaxian Hall. Each suite is furnished appropriately; each is fully Gunthered for self-service.

"This meeting has not been announced to the public and, at least for the present will not be. Therefore none of you will attempt to communicate with anyone outside Galaxian Hall. Anyone making any such attempt will be surprised.

The meeting will open at eight o'clock tomorrow morning in the auditorium. The Thakerns and the Margonians will now inform you as to your quarters.' There was a moment of flashing thought. 'Dismissed.'

At one second before eight o'clock the auditorium was empty. At eight o'clock, ninety-eight human beings appeared in it - six on the stage, the rest occupying the first few rows of seats.

'Good   morning,   everybody,'   Garlock   said   pleasantly.

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'Everyone being rested, fed, and having had some time in which to consider the changed reality faced by us all, I hope and am inclined to believe that we can attain friendship and accord. We will spend the next hour in becoming acquainted with each-other. We will walk around, not teleport. We will meet each other physically, as well as mentally. We will learn each other's forms of greeting and we will use them. This meeting is adjourned until nine o'clock - or, rather, the meeting will begin then.'

For several minutes no one moved. All blocks were locked at maximum. Each Prime used only his eyes.

Physically, it was a scene of almost overpowering perfection. The men were, without exception, handsome, strong, and magnificently male. The women from heroically-framed Fao Talaho to surprisingly slender Mirea Mitala, all were arrest-ingly beautiful, breathtakingly proportioned, spectacularly female.

Clothing varied from complete absence to almost complete coverage, with a bewildering variety of intermediate conditions. Color was rampant.

Hair - or lack of it - was also an individual and highly variant matter. Some of the women, like Belle and Fao, were content with one solid but unnatural shade. One shaven head -Mirea Mitala's - was deeply tanned, but unadorned, even though the rest of her body was almost covered by precious stones. Another was decorated with geometrical and esoteric designs in eye-searing colors. A third supported a structure - it could not possibly be called a hat - of spun metal and gems.

Among the medium- and long-hairs there were two-, three-, and multi-toned jobs galore. Some of the color-combinations were harmonious; some were sharply contrasting, such as black and white; some looked as though their wearers had used the most violently-clashing colors they could find.

The prize-winner, however, was Therea of Thaker's enormous, inexplicable mop; and it was that phenomenon that first broke the ice.

The girl with the decorated scalp had been glancing ques-tioningly at neighbor after neighbor, only to be met by uncompromising stares. Finally, however, her gaze met another as interested as her own. This second girl, whose coiffure was a

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high-piled confection of black, white, yellow, red, blue, and green, half-masted her screen and said:

'Oh, thanks Jethay of Lodie-Yann. I'm glad everybody isn't going to stay locked up all day. I'm Ginseona of Pasquerone. They call me "Jin" whenever they want to call me anything printable. And this" - she dug a knuckle into her companion's short ribs, whereupon he jumped, whirled around, lowered his screen, and grinned - 'is my ... the boyfriend, Parleof. Also of Pasquerone, of course. Par, both Jethay and I...'

'Call me "Jet" - everybody does,' Jethay said ... almost shyly, for a Prime.

'Both Jet and I have been wondering about that woman's hair - over there. How could you possibly give a head of hair a static charge of fifty or a hundred kilovolts and not have it leak off?'

'You couldn't, unless it was a perfectly-insulated wig ... but it looks as though she did, at that...' Parleof paused in thought.

'Maybe Byuk would have an idea or two.' And Jet uttered aloud a dozen or so crackling syllables that sounded as if they could have been ladylike profanity. Whatever they were, Byuk jumped, too, and tuned in with the other three.

'Oh, it's quite easy, really,' Therea said then. 'Look.' Her mass of hair cascaded gracefully down around her neck and shoulders. 'Look again.' Each hair stood fiercely out all by itself, exactly as before. 'All you young people will learn much more difficult and much more important things before this meeting is over. I can not tell you how glad I am that so many of you are here.'

And so it went, all over the auditorium. Once cracked, the ice broke up fast

Fao and Delcamp worked hard; so did Belle and Garlock. Alsyne was a potent force indeed - his abounding vitality and his tremendous smile broke down barriers that logic could not affect. And Therea worked near-miracles, did more than the other five combined. Her sympathy, her empathy, her understanding and feeling, were as great as Lola's own, but her operative ability was much greater than Lola's.

Thus, when half of the hour was gone, Garlock heaved a profound sigh of relief. He wouldn't have half the trouble he

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had expected - it was not going to be a riot. And when he called the meeting to order he was more pleasant and friendly than Belle had ever seen him before.

'While I am calling this meeting to order, it is only in the widest possible sense than I am its presiding officer, for we have as yet no organization by the delegated authority of which any man or any woman has any right to preside. Yesterday I ruled by force, simply because I am stronger than any one of you or any pair of you. Today, in the light of the developments of the last hour* that rule is done; except, perhaps, for one or two isolated and non-representative cases which may develop today. By this time tomorrow, I hope that we will be forever done with the law of claw and fang. For, as a much abler man has said - "To the really mature mind, the concept of status is completely invalid."'

'He's putting that as a direct quote, Alsyne, and it isn't.' Belle lanced the thought.

'He thinks it is,' Alsyne flashed back. 'That is the way his mathematician's mind recorded it.'

This meeting is informal, preliminary, exploratory - a meeting of minds from which, we hope, a useful and workable organization can be developed. Since you all know what we think it basically should be, there is no need to repeat it.

'I must now say something that a few of you will construe as a threat. You are all Prime Operators. Each pair of you is the highest development of a planet, perhaps of a solar system. You can learn if you will. You can cooperate if you will. Any couple here who refuses to learn, and hence to cooperate, will be returned to their native planet and will have no further contact with this group.

'I now turn this meeting over to our first moderators: Alsyne and Therea of Thaker, the oldest and ablest Prime Operators of us all.'

'Thank you, Garlock of Tellus. One correction, however, if you please. I who speak am neither this man nor this woman standing here, but both. I am the Prime Unit of Thaker. For brevity, and for the purposes of this meeting only, I could be called simply "Thaker". Before calling for general discussion I wish to call particular attention to two points, neither of which has been sufficiently emphasized.

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'First, the purpose of a Prime Operator is to serve, not to rule. Thus, no Prime should be or will be "boss" of anything, except possibly of his own starship.

'Second, since we have no data we do not know what form the proposed Galactic Service will assume. One thing, however, is sure. Whatever power of enforcement or of punishment it may have will derive, not from its Primes, but from the fact that it will be an arm of the Galactic Council, which will be composed of Operators only. No Prime will be eligible for membership.'

Thaker went on to explain how each pair could obtain instruction and assistance in many projects, including star-ships. How each pair would, when they were mature enough, be coached in the use of certain abilities they did not as yet have. He suggested procedures and techniques to be employed in the opening up of each pair's volume of space. He then asked for questions and comments.

Semolo was the first. 'If I'm a good little boy, and do exactly as I'm told, and take over the region you tell me to and not the one I want to, what assurance have I that some other Prime, just because he's a year older than I am, won't come along and take it away from me?'

'Your question is meaningless,' Thaker replied. 'Since you will not "take over", or "have", or "own", any region, it cannot be "taken away" from you."

Then I will...' Semolo began.

'You will keep still!' came a clear, incisive thought, just as Garlock was getting ready to intervene. Miss Mitala then switched from thought, which everyone there could understand, and launched a ten-second blast of furious speech. Semolo wilted and the girl went on in thought: 'He'll be good - or else.'

A girl demanded recognition and got it. 'Semolo's right. What's the use of being Prime if we can't get any good out of it? We're the strongest people of our respective worlds. I say we're bosses and should keep on being bosses.'

Garlock got ready to shut her up, then paused, holding his fire.

'Ah, yes, friend Garlock, you are maturing fast,' came Thaker's thought; and, in answer to Oarlock's surprise, he

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went on, This situation will, I think, be self-adjusting; just as will be those in the as yet unexplored regions of space.'

The girl kept on. 'I, at least, am going to keep on bossing my own planet, milking it just as I...'

Her companion had been trying to crack her shield. Failing in that, he stepped in close and tapped her - solidly, but with carefully-measuring force - behind the ear. Before she could fall, he 'ported her back up into their quarters. This happens all the time,' he explained to the group at large. 'Carry on.'

Discussion went on, with less and less acrimony, all the rest of the day. And the next day, and the next. Then, argument having reached the point of diminishing returns, the three star-ships took the forty-six couples home.

The six Primes went into Evans' office, where the lawyer was deeply engaged with Gerald Banks, the Galaxians' Public Relations Chief. Banks was holding his head in both hands.

'Garlock, maybe you can tell me,' Banks demanded. 'How much of this stuff, if any, can I publish? And if so, howT

'Nothing,' Garlock said flatly.

'What do you think, Thaker?' Belle asked. 'You're smarter than we are.'

'What Thaker thinks has no bearing,' Garlock said.

Belle, Fao, and Delcamp all began to protest at once, but they were silenced by Thaker himself.

'Garlock is right. My people are not your people; I know not at all how your people think or what they will or will not believe. I go.'

Then that lets Deg and me out, too,' Fao said with a grin, 'so we'll leave that baby on your laps. We go, too.'

Garlock smiled quizzically at Belle. 'Well ... you grabbed the ball - what are you going to do with it?'

'Nothing, I guess...' Belle thought for a minute. 'We couldn't stuff any part of that down the throat of a simple-minded six-year-old. We haven't really got anything, anyway. Time enough, I think, when we have six or seven hundred planets in each region, instead of only one planet. Maybe we'll know something by then. Does that make sense?'

'It does to me,' Garlock said, and the others agreed.

That Thakern "we go" business sounds rough at first, but it's contagious. Fao and Deggi caught it, and I feel like I'm

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coming down with it myself. How about you, Clee?' 'We go,' Belle and Garlock said in unison, and vanished.

Aboard the Pleiades, the next few days passed quietly enough. James set up, in the starship's memory banks a sequence to mass produce instruction tapes and blueprints. Garlock and Belle began systematically exploring the Tellurian Region. Now, however, their technique was different. If either Prime of any world was not enthusiastic about the project —

'Very well; think it over,' they would say. 'We will get in touch with you again in about a year.' And the starship would go on to the next planet.

On Earth, however, things became less and less tranquil with every day that passed. For, in deciding not to publish anything, Garlock had not considered at all the basic function and the tremendous ability, power, and scope of The Press. And Galax-ian Hall had never before been closed to the public, not for any hour of any day of any year of its existence. A non-profit organization, dependent upon the public for its tremendous income, the Galaxian Society had always courted that public in every possible ethical way.

Thus, in the first hour of closure, a bored reporter came out, read the smoothly-phrased notice, and lepped it in to the desk. It might be worth half an inch, he figured.

Later in the day, however, the world's most sensitive news-nose began to itch. Did, or did not, this quiet, unannounced closing smell ever-so-slighfly of cheese? Wherefore Benjamin Bundy, the newscaster who had covered the starship's maiden flight, went out himself to look the thing over. He found the Whole field closed. Not only closed, but Gunther-blocked impenetrably tight. He studied the announcement, his sixth sense - the born newsman's sense for news - probing every word.

'Regret ... research ... of such extreme delicacy ... vibration ... temperature control ... one one-hundredth of one degree Centigrade...'

He sought out his long-time acquaintance Banks, finding him in a temporary office half a block away from the Hall. 'What's the story, Jerry?' he asked. 'The real story. I mean.'

'You know as much about it as I do, Ben. Garlock and James don't waste time trying to detail me on that kind of

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business you know.'

This should have satisfied any newshawk, but Bundy's nose still itched. He mulled things over for a minute, then probed, finding that he could read nothing except Banks' outermost, most superficial thoughts.

'Well ... maybe ... but...' Then Bundy plunged. 'All you have to do, Jerry, is tell me screens-half-down that your damn story is true.'

'That's the one thing I can't do,' Banks admitted; and Bundy could not detect that any part of his sheepishness was feigned. 'You're just too damned smart, Ben.' 'Oh - one of those things?' 'Yup. I told Evans it might not work.'

That should have satisfied the reporter, but it didn't. 'Now it doesn't smell just a trifle cheesy; it stinks like rotten fish. You won't go screens-down on that one, either.' 'No comment.'

'Ha!' Bundy said. 'This must be a story! So big that Gerald Banks, the top press-agent of all time, actually doesn't want publicity! The starship works - this lack-of-control stuff is the bunk - from here to another star in nothing flat - Oarlock's back, and he's brought - what have you got in there, Jerry?'

"The only way I can tell you is in confidence, for Evans' release. I'd like to, Ben, believe me, but I can't.' 'Confidence, hell! Do you think we won't get it?' 'In that case, no comment.' The interview ended and the siege began.

Newshounds and detectives questioned and peered and probed. They dug into morgues, tabulating and classifying. They recalled and taped and sifted all the gossip they had heard. They got a picture of sorts, but it was maddeningly confusing and incomplete. And, since it was certain that inter-systemic matters were involved, they could not extrapolate -any guess was far too apt to be wrong. Thus nothing went on the air or appeared in print; and, although the surface remained calm, The Press seethed to its depths.

Wherefore haggard Banks and harried Evans greeted Gar-lock with a good deal of joy when the four wanderers came back to spend the weekend on Earth. Til talk to 'em,' Garlock decided, after the long story had

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been told. 'Have somebody get hold of Bundy and ask him to come out.'

'Get hold of him!' Banks snorted. 'He's here. Twenty-four hours a day. Eating sandwiches and cat-napping on chairs in the lobby. All you have to do is unseal that door.'

Garlock flung the door wide. Bundy rushed in, followed by a more-or-less steady stream of some fifty other top-bracket newspeople, both men and women.

'Well, Garlock, perhaps you will give us some screens-down facts?' Bundy asked angrily.

'I'll give you all the screens-down —'

'Clee - you can't!' Belle and all the Operators protested at once.

Ignoring the objections, Garlock cut his shield to half and gave the whole group a true account of everything that had happened in the galaxy. Then, while they were all too stunned to speak, a grin of saturnine amusement spread over his dark, five-o'clock-shadowed face.

'You pests insisted on grabbing the ball,' he said. 'Now let's see you run with it.'

Bundy came out of his trance. 'What a story!' he yelled. 'We'll plaster it..."

'Yeah,' Garlock said dryly. 'What a story. Exactly.'

'Oh.' Bundy deflated suddenly. 'You'll have to prove it -demonstrate it - of course.'

'Of course? You tickle me. Not only do I not have to prove it, I won't. I won't even confirm it.'

Bundy glared at Garlock, then whirled on Banks. 'If you don't give me this in shape to use, you'll never get another line or mention anywhere!'

'Oh, no?' For the first time in his professional life Banks gloated, openly and avidly. 'From now on, my friend, who is in the saddle? Who is going to come to whom?'

When the fuming newsmen had gone, Garlock said, 'It'll leak, of course.'

'Of course,' Banks agreed. ' "It is rumored ..." and "from a usually reliable source ..." and so on. Nothing definite, but each one of them will want to put out the first and biggest.'

'That's what I figured. It'll have to break sometime and I thought easing it out would be best... But wait a minute.' He

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thought for two solid minutes. 'We're going to need a lot of money, and we're just about broke, aren't we?' This thought was addressed to Frank Macey, the Galaxians' treasurer. 'Worse than broke - much worse.'

'I could loan you a couple of credits, Frank,' Belle said brightly. 'But go ahead, Clee.'

'People like to be sidewalk superintendents. Suppose they could watch the construction of an outpost so far away that nobody ever dreamed of ever getting there. Could you do anything with that, Jerry?'

'Could I!' Banks said, and whistled.

'That's the first good idea any one of you crackpots has had for five years.' Macey said suddenly. 'But wouldn't transportation of material and so on present problems?'

'No; just buying it,' Garlock said soberly. 'Or, rather, paying for it'

'No trouble there...'

'What?' Belle exclaimed. '"No trouble, it says here in fine print? How the old skinflint has changed - instead of screaming his head off about spending money he's actually offering to. Frank, I'll loan you three credits!'

'Quiet, the menfolks are talking business. Look, Clee. We'll use the Pleiades at first, while we're building a regular transport. A hundred passengers per trip, one thousand credits one way...'

'Woe!' Belle said. 'Our ex-skinflint is now a bare-faced, legally-protected robber.'

'By no means, Belle,' Evans said. 'How much would that be per mile?'

'Say ten round trips per day. That would be twenty million a day gross for a small ship not intended for passenger service. When we get ships built ... and the extras ...' The money-man went into a financial revel of his own.

'Lots of extras,' Banks agreed. 'And oh, brother, what a public-relations dream of heaven!'

'Maybe I'm dumb,' Garlock broke in, 'but just what are you going to use for money to get started?'

The minute we confirm any part of the story, the credit of the Galaxian Society will jump from X-O to AA-A1.' 'Oh. So Belle and I will have to lose our Pleiades for awhile.

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I don't like that, but we do need the money ... but we can have her for this coming week?'

'Of course.'

'So maybe we'd better break the story now, instead of letting it leak.'

'Can you, after what you just told them?'

'Sure I can.' He set his mind and searched. 'Bundy, this is Garlock...'

'So what am I supposed to do - burst into tears of joy?'

'Save it. I changed my mind. You can break it as fast and as hard as you like. I'll play along.'

'Yeah? Why the switch? What's the angle?'

'Strictly commercial. Get it from Banks.'

'And you'll - personally - go on my hour with it?'

'Yes. Also, we'll demonstrate - take you to any star-system in the galaxy. You and all the rest of the newshawks who were here and any fifty VIP's you want to invite. Tomorrow morning.'

'You, personally, in the Pleiades!' Bundy insisted.

'Better than that. The other two starships, too. You've got them - particularly those four Primes - clearly in mind?'

'Not exactly, there was so much of it. Refresh my memory a bit, okay?' Garlock did so. "Thanks, pal, for the scoop. I'll crash it right now, and follow up with Banks. 'Bye!'

'Think you can deliver on that, Clee?' Banks asked.

'Sure. Both Deggi and Alsyne will need a lot of extra money, fast. They'll play along.'

They did; and that three-starship tour - which visited twenty solar systems instead of one - was the most sensational thing old Earth had ever spawned.

Belle and Garlock did not spend that weekend on Earth. 'We go,' they said, as soon as the Pleiades was empty of pressmen, and they took James and Lola along. 'If we never see another such brawl as this is going to be,' Belle told Banks, who was basking in glory and entreating them to stay on for the show, 'it will be exactly twenty minutes too soon.'

Thus it came about that Earth's first four deep-spacemen were completely out of reach when unexpected developments began.

Alonzo P. Ferber was one of the VIP's on Bundy's person-

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ally conducted tour of the stars. He was a very able executive, with an extremely keen profit-sense. This new thing simply reeked of money. SSE would have to get in on it.

Ferber was not thin-skinned; where money was concerned it would never occur to him to cherish grudges or to retain animosities. Wherefore SSE's purchasing department suggested to the Galaxian Society that negotiations be opened concerning licenses, franchises, royalties, and so on. These suggestions were politely but firmly brushed off. Then emissaries were sent, of ever-increasing caliber and weight. Next, Ferber himself tried the tri-di; and finally he came in person.

Rebuffed, he made such legally-sound threats that Evans and Macey agreed to a meeting - stating flatly, however, that no commitments could possibly be made without the knowledge and approval of the Society's president, Cleander Garlock. Thus, at the meeting, the Galaxians made only two statements that were even approximately definite. One was that Garlock would probably return to Earth during the afternoon or evening of the following Friday; the other that they would take the matter up with Garlock as soon as they could.

After that meeting Macey was unperturbed, but Evans was a deeply worried man.

'You see,' he explained, 'the real crux wasn't even mentioned.'

'No. What is it, then?'

'Operators, Primes, and the practically nonexistent laws pertaining to their ... what? Labor? Skill? Genius? For instance, could Garlock be forced to do whatever it is that he does? On the other hand, if Ferber offered Belle Bellamy five million credits a year to "work" for SSE, is there anything we could do about it?'

'Oh, I thought all there was to it was that you'd delay 'em for a year or so and that'd be it.'

'Far from it. To date I have listed fifty-eight points for which, as far as we can learn, there are no precedents.' And the lawyer called a meeting of his staff.

For Belle and Garlock, the week went quickly. On Friday afternoon, high above Earth's Galaxian Field, Garlock said, more than half regretfully, 'No more fun. Back to the desk. Back to the salt-mines.' James frowned in puzzlement. 'Why

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the sob-and-moan routine, Clee, from a guy who's going to be monarch of all he surveys?'

'His conscience aches him,' Belle explained. 'This monarch-ing business is tough if you haven't thought up how to monarch it, and he hasn't. Have you, Clee?'

'No.' Garlock smiled slightly. 'I've been busy.'

'You better start to,' she advised darkly. 'You aren't busy now, and we've got about an hour. We better confer - I'll make like a slave-driver.'

'Conferring with slave-drivers is the fondest thing I am of,' Garlock said.

They 'ported into his room and he set the blocks. His attitude changed instantly. 'Nice act, Belle. What was it all about?'

'That theory of yours. Your predictions are too uncannily accurate to be guesswork, and the more times you dead-center the bullseye the worse scared I get. I really want to know, Clee.'

'Okay. It isn't complete - I need a lot more data - but 111 show you what I have. It's fairly strong medicine and it comes in big chunks.'

'It would have to - it covers the whole macrocosmic universe, doesn't it?'

'Yes. I'll start with the striking fact that, on every out-galaxy planet we visited, the human beings were Homo Sapiens to N decimal places - fertile with each other and, according to expert testimony, with us. All planets had humanoid "guardians", the Arpalones and Arpales. Some, but not all, had one or more non-human, more-or-less-intelligent races. Such as the Fumapties, the Lemarts, the Sencors, and so on. These other races never seemed to fight each other, but both races of Guardians fought any and all of them, on sight and to the death. What do those facts mean to you?'

'Nothing beyond face value. I've gnawed at them and others - "nibbled" might be a better word - but I haven't been able to come up with anything.'

'I have.' He unrolled a sheet of drafting paper covered with diagrams, symbols, and equations.' But before I go into this stuff, consider the human body. How many red cells are there in your blood stream?'

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'Billions, I suppose.'

'And there are billions of human beings on billions of planets, each having red blood cells identical, as far as we know, with yours and mine. Also white cells. Also, sometimes, various kinds of pathogenic microorganisms, such as staphs streps, viruses, spiros, and so on.

'Okay. My thought is that the Lemarts, Ozobes, and the like are analogous to disease-producing organisms. We saw the full range of effects - from none at all up to death itself.'

'But the Ozobes and so on died, too.'

'How long do disease germs live in a human body after they've killed it?'

'But that horrible Dilipic - the golop. They don't seem to fit.'

'Try that on for size as cancer. Also, the Arpalones typed us before they'd let us land on any planet. Why didn't we blast them out of the way and land anyway?'

'Why, we didn't want to. It wasn't worthwhile.'

'We couldn't Psychic Block. And if we had, we would have died. Different blood-types don't mix.'

'So you and I are merely two red cells in the blood-stream of a super-galactic super-monster? Like hell!' she snorted. 'That chestnut was propounded a thousand years ago. Are you trying to take me for a ride on that old sawhorse?'

'That's the attitude I had at first. So now we're ready for the chart.' He pointed to a group of symbols. 'We start with symbolic logic; manipulating like so to get this.' There was a long mathematical dissertation, a mind-to-mind, rigorous, point-to-point proof.

'Q.E.D.' Garlock concluded.

'I see your math, and if I believed half of it I'd be scared witless. Those few pieces fit, but they're scattered around in vast areas of blackness and you're just jumping around between them. And how about our own galaxy, the most important piece of all? It's different, and we're different, mentally. That wrecks your whole theory.'

'No. I told you I need a lot more data. Also, beyond a certain point the analogy appears to get looser.'

'Appears to! It's as loose as it can get!'

'Think a minute. Is it actually lose, or are we getting up into

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concepts that no human mind can grasp?'

'Oh... You're quite a salesman, Clee, but I'm still not buying.'

'Our galaxy is a bit of specialized tissue - part of a ganglion, maybe. Over here, see? I'll have to leave it dangling until we find some more like it.'

'I see. But anyway, you haven't a tenth's worth of real material on that whole sheet. Feed everything you have there into a computer and it'd just laugh at you.'

'Sure it would. The great advantage of the human brain is its ability to arrive at valid conclusions from incomplete data.'

'The brain of a Newton or an Einstein, yes.' Belle thought for a minute, then grinned at him impishly. 'Now watch the brain of a Bellamy perform. Get into high gear, brain... I wish I knew something about biochemical embryology; but I read somewhere that ova are sterile, so our galaxy in an ovum. Therefore our super-monster is a female - which accounts for and explains rigorously the long-known truth that women always have been, are now, and always will be vastly superior to men in every quality, aspect, and ...'

'Hold it!' Garlock snapped. His face hardened into intense concentration. Then: 'Do you think you're kidding, Belle?'

'Why, of course I'm kidding...'

'Look here, then.' He picked up a pencil and filled in blank after blank after blank. 'I'm making one unjustifiable assumption - that the Pleiades is the first intergalactic starship. The super-being is a female, and she is just becoming pregnant...'

'Nonsense! There are no blood cells in a sperm, and I don't think there are any in an ovum.'

'I didn't mention either sperm or ovum. The analogy is so loose here that it holds only in the broadest, most general terms. The actual process of reproduction is unknowable. But wherever we went, we changed things. Not only by what we actually did, but also as a catalyst - no...'

'No, not a catalyst. A hormone.'

'Exactly. Each of these changes would cause others, and so on. An infinite series. Calling the first three terms alpha, beta, and gamma, we operate like this...' Garlock's pencil was flying now. 'Following me?'

'On your tail.' Belle was breathing hard; as the blank spaces

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became fewer and fewer her face began to turn white.

'From this we get that... and that makes the whole bracket tie into the same conclusion I had before. So, except for that one assumption, it's solid.'

'My God, Clee!' Belle studied the chart. 'I mentioned Newton and Einstein ... add to that the brains of a Garlock, better than either."' Then seeing his reaction, she said, 'You're blushing. I didn't think ...'

'Cut the comedy. You know I couldn't carry either of their hats to a dog-fight.'

'And I would never have believed that you were basically modest'

'I said cut out the kidding, Belle.'

'I'm deadly serious. A brain that could do that' - she waved at the chart - '... well, even / am not enough of a heel to belittle one of the most tremendous intuitions ever achieved by man. Not that I like it. It's horrible. It denies mankind everything that made him come up from the slime - everything that made him man.'

'Not at all. Nothing is changed, a man's own frame of reference. It merely takes our thinking one step farther. That step, of course, isn't easy.'

'That is the understatement of all time. What it will do, though is set up an inferiority complex that would wipe out the whole human race.'

There might be some slight tendency. Also, since my basic assumption can't be justified, the whole thing may be fallacious. So I'm not going to publish it.' He glanced at the chart and it vanished.

'Clee!' Belle stared, almost goggle-eyed. 'With your name? The tremendous splash ... I see. You're really grown up.'

'Not all the way, probably; but pretty nearly -1 hope.'

'But some of the ... not exactly corollaries, but...' Belle's face, which had regained some of its color, began again to pale.

'Which one of the many?'

'The most shattering one, to me, concerns intelligence. If it is true that our vaunted mentality is only that of one blood cell compared to that of a whole brain ... and that intelligence is banked, level upon level ... well, it's simply mind-wrecking.

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I've been trying madly not to think of that concept at all, but I can't put it off much longer.'

'Now's as good a time as any. Probe. I'll hold your hand.'

'You'd better hold more of me than that, I think.'

'I'll do even that, in a good cause.' He put his arms around her and held her close. 'Go ahead. Face it. All the way down and all the way up. You've got what it takes. You'll come back sane and it'll never bother you again.'

She closed her eyes, put her head on his shoulder. Her every muscle went tense.

Neither of them ever knew how long they stood there, close-clasped and motionless in silence; but finally her muscles loosened. She lifted her head; raised her brimming eyes.

'All the way down?' he asked.

To almost a geometrical point.'

'And all the way up?'

'I touched the fringe of infinity.'

'Intelligence all the way?'

'All the way. I couldn't understand any of them, of course, but I looked each one squarely in the eye.'

'Good girl. And you're still sane.'

'As much so as ever ... more so, maybe.' She disengaged herself, sat down on the bed, lit a cigarette and smoked half of it. Then she stood up. 'Clee, if anything in the whole universe ever knocked hell out of anything, that did out of me. I'm going to do something that will take about ten minutes. Will you wait right here?'

'Of course. Take all the time you want.'

When she came back Garlock leaped to his feet and stared speechlessly. Belle's hair was now its natural deep, rich chestnut, her lipstick was red, her nails were bare, and she wore a white shirt and an almost-knee length crimson skirt.

'Here's what I'm going to do,' she said quietly. 'I'm going to be a plain, ordinary brownette. I'm going to marry you as soon as we land - registered permanent family. I'm going to have six kids and spoil them rotten. In short, I have grown up - at least partly.'

'Plain?' he managed to say, finally. 'Ordinary? You? Yes -like a super-nova going off under a man's feet!' With a visible effort, Garlock pulled himself together. 'I don't need to tell

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you what a surprise this is, and can't tell you what it means to me. But you never have said you love me. Hadn't you better?'

'I'm afraid to. Our next kiss will be different. I'd spoil all this nice new makeup.' She tried to grin in her old-time fashion, but failed. She sobered, then, and went on with a completely new intensity. 'Listen, Clee. I'm all done - forever - with lying and pretending to you. I love you so much that... well, there simply aren't any thoughts. And when I think of how I acted, it hurts - God, how it hurts! I don't see how you can love me at all. I'd take a miracle.'

'Miracles happen, then.' He put both arms around her, very gently. 'For the first time in my life I'm cutting my screens to zero. Come in!'

'What?' For a moment she was unable to believe the thought. Then, cutting her own shield, she went fully into his mind. 'Oh, I didn't dare hope you could possibly feel ... oh, this is wonderful, Clee - simply wonderful!'

As the two fully-opened minds met and joined she threw both arms around him and their embrace tightened as though their bodies were trying to become as nearly one as were their minds. Finally she pulled herself away and put up a solid block.

'What a mess!' she said, shakily. 'Lipstick all over you ...'

'Why words, sweetheart? That was perfect.'

'Oh, it was ... but wide open, with such a mind as yours...' She paused, then came back to normal almost with a snap. '... But say; I'll bet that's what Therea and Alsyne were doing. That "fusion" thing. Well practice it tonight.'

He pondered briefly. 'Sure it was.'

'But he said they learned it from us. How could he have, when we... Oh, we did, of course, in moments of high stress ... but we didn't actually know it...' She paused.

We wouldn't admit it, you mean, even to ourselves.'

'Maybe; and of course it never occurred to us that it could be done for more than a microsecond at a time. Or that two people could ever, possibly, live that way.'

'Or what a life it would be. So let's chop this and get back to you and me.'

'Okay, let's,' she agreed, but in a severely practical tone. 'You've got lipstick even on your shirt. So change it and I'll go

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put on a new face and bring over some stuff and clean you up.'

While she cleaned, she talked. 'I told you our next kiss would be different, but I had no idea ... woe! That will be as much different, too, I'm sure ... hmmmm?' Again she pressed herself against him - this time in a somewhat different fashion.

'Stop that, you little devil, or 111 ...' His arms came up of themselves, but he forced them back down. '... No I won't We'll save that for tonight, too.'

Til behave myself!' She laughed, pure joy in voice, eyes and smile. 'I bet myself you wouldn't and I won! You're tall, solid gold, Clee darling - the absolute top.'

'Thanks, sweetheart. I wish that were true,' he said, soberly. 'But I can't help wondering if two such hellions as you and I are can make a go of marriage - no, cancel that We'll do it -all we have to figure out is how.'

'I know what you mean. Not at first - it'll be purely wonderful then. After five years, say, when the glamor has worn off and I've had three of our six children and two of them are in beck sick and I'm all frazzled out and you're strung up tight as a bowstring with overwork and...'

'Hold it! No. If we can live together six months - or even six weeks - without killing each other, we'll have it made. It's at first that it'll be rugged. No matter how rugged it gets, though, we'll know one thing for sure. We couldn't live apart. That'll give us enough leverage. Right?'

'Yes,' she laughed. 'I'll take care of any and all situations, whatever they are, that arise in the first six months. You'll be responsible for the next sixty years. That's a perfectly fair and equitable division of responsibility. Now kiss me and well go.'

When Garlock cut the Gunther blocks, however, James' thought came instantly in: 'Been trying to get you for twenty minutes.'

And in a couple of seconds he brought Garlock and Belle up to date. '... So Fatso's been waiting in Evans' office. He's throwing fits all over the place and Evans and Macey are both going quietly mad.'

'He'll have to wait,' Garlock decided instantly. 'No matter how many fits he has, no such decision is going to be made

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until there's enough of a Galactic Council to make it.¹

'Well, you'll have to tell him that yourself. In person.'

'I'll do just that, and tell him so he'll stay told.'

'Okay, but hurry —*

Belle and Garlock 'ported out into the Main, arms around each other like a couple of college freshmen.

Both James and Lola stared thunderstuck at them.

'Belle!' Lola shrieked. 'Why - Belle - Bellamy!'

'What goes on here?' James demanded.

'Nothing much,' Garlock replied, although he blushed almost as deeply as Belle did. 'Cut the rope, Jim, and let the old bucket drop.'

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