"... and without whose services we'd have got exactly nowhere. Clever, subtle Caddy, whose most charming attainment in the ever-appreciative eyes of Papa Jan is her ability to handle every man in the neatest way imaginable and without a trace of real feeling. Kitty Kaddy, who...." "Very well," she said with a sigh. "I'll do it." "Of course you will," Jan said, drawing her hands back to his forehead. "And you'll begin right away by getting into your nicest sugar-and-cream war clothes. You and I are going to be the welcoming committee when that ape arrives this afternoon." "But what about Jorj? He'll want to see Willard." "That'll be taken care of," Jan assured her. "And what about the other dozen rocket physicists Jorj asked to come?" "Don't worry about them." * * * * * The President looked inquiringly at his secretary across his littered desk in his homey study at White House, Jr. "So Opperly didn't have any idea how that odd question about Maizie turned up in Section Five?" His secretary settled his paunch and shook his head. "Or claimed not to. Perhaps he's just the absent-minded prof, perhaps something else. The old feud of the physicists against the Thinkers may be getting hot again. There'll be further investigation." The President nodded. He obviously had something uncomfortable on his mind. He said uneasily, "Do you think there's any possibility of it being true?" "What?" asked the secretary guardedly. "That peculiar hint about Maizie." The secretary said nothing. "Mind you, I don't think there is," the President went on hurriedly, his face assuming a sorrowful scowl. "I owe a lot to the Thinkers, both as a private person and as a public figure. Lord, a man has to lean on _something_ these days. But just supposing it were true--" he hesitated, as before uttering blasphemy--"that there was a man inside Maizie, what could we do?" The secretary said stolidly, "The Thinkers won our last election. They chased the Commies out of Iran. We brought them into the Inner Cabinet. We've showered them with public funds." He paused. "We couldn't do a damn thing." The President nodded with equal conviction, and, not very happily, summed up: "So if anyone should go up against the Thinkers--and I'm afraid I wouldn't want to see that happen, whatever's true--it would have to be a scientist." * * * * * Willard Farquar felt his weight change the steps under his feet into an escalator. He cursed under his breath, but let them carry him, a defiant hulk, up to the tall and mystic blue portals, which silently parted when he was five meters away. The escalator changed to a slideway and carried him into a softly gleaming, high-domed room rather like the antechamber of a temple. "Martian peace to you, Willard Farquar," an invisible voice intoned. "You have entered the Thinkers' Foundation. Please remain on the slideway." "I want to see Jorj Helmuth," Willard growled loudly.