The small control room was illuminated only with the soft wash of light emanating from the compact but complete instrument panel--an instrument panel at once strikingly similar to that of his own ship. A figure turned to meet him-- There were 40 years etched into a countenance that should have borne barely the hint of nine. The sag of the narrow shoulders told of the soul-breaking exhaustion that reflected dully from the sunken eyes more eloquently than the straight, bloodless mouth could ever have told. The gray lips were almost motionless as they parted. "Hello, Cragin," Lin Griffin said. "Greetings. My name is Randolph Cragin, Stellar Patrol. Your cooperation is appreciated, and was requested inasmuch as it is my duty to--to...." The light was so uncertain, yet--there was something about the face. The forehead--deep within the eyes-- "Yes. Patrolman?" "No," was all he could find to say. "No." He watched in an agonized disbelief as the suggestion of a smile mingled with the shadowed wrinkles of her ashen face. "Even as yourself, Cragin, I--eluded them. It took this long, for a woman lacks the ready brute strength which so often turns impending defeat into quick victory. I am glad that you were successful, that you're alive. It was worth heeding your call to see you again." "But I--I thought they. That is after I escaped they--their anger could have taken only one direction." "It was not anger, precisely. Just--shall we say, a rather intensive increase in police efficiency? No, it was not anger. Mine was the anger. But now--" She hesitated, turned her eyes toward the instrument banks, then back to his. "Now I've got the high cards, Patrolman." There was a subtle change deep within the sunken eyes, as though a smoldering candle flame had suddenly become a tiny bit of polished steel glinting in the rays of a new sun at noon. "But this time, don't follow." "I don't get it. Somehow you're still alive. But somehow--well, you--" "Aged? Gotten old? Don't be afraid to say it. The vibrokey did most of it. Residuary effect. It has potentialities that I'm sure even father never dreamed of." "Vibrokey? I don't--" "Think back. Remember how I located the entrance to the machine planet, how I opened it? How I told you that father had said that it could shake whole buildings down? How I explained that it experiments with all possible combinations and magnitudes of vibration speeds and patterns until any assigned pattern is matched--" Cragin scowled a little. Something stirred stealthily in his memory, and then the whole thing crept slowly back, piece by piece. "You mean you slammed your way out with that gadget?"