Pell sighed deeply, slowly looked into the viewer again and said, "Kronski and I'll be back on the next rocket, Chief." Chapter IV Back again in the underground offices of C.I.B., Agent Richard Pell plunged into his job. Up to his neck. It was the only way he could keep from brooding about Ciel. She was somewhere in the city at this very moment and if he really wanted to take the trouble he'd be able to find her easily enough--but he didn't want it to happen that way. She'd never really be his again unless _she_ came to _him_.... And so once more he found himself in the office late at night. Alone. Poring over the lab reports that had come in that afternoon, turning them over in his mind and hoping, he supposed, for a nice intuitive flash, free of charge. As a matter of fact the analysis of the vaccine he'd lifted from Wilcox's dispensary was not without significance. There was definitely an extraneous substance. The only question was just what this substance might be. Take a little longer to find that out, the report said. It made Pell think of the corny sign World Government officials always had on their desks, the one about doing the difficult right away and taking a little longer for the impossible. Some day, when he was a big-shot, he would have a sign on his desk saying: _Why make things difficult when with even less effort you can make them impossible?_ Of course, ideas like that were probably the very reason he'd never be a big-shot.... The Identifier humming. Someone coming again. He looked up, and then had the curious feeling of being jerked back in time to several nights ago. Chief Larkin and Theodor Rysland entered. "Hello, Dick," said Larkin, with a touch of studied democracy. He glanced at the government adviser as if to say: _See? Knew we'd find him here._ Pell made a sour face. "Some day I'm going to stop giving all this free overtime. Some day I'm not going to show up at all." Rysland smiled, dislodging some of the rock strata of his curiously pale face. He seemed a little weary this evening. He moved slowly and with even more than his usual dignity. He said, "I hope, Mr. Pell, that you'll wait at least until you finish this job for us. I understand you've made some progress." Pell shrugged and gestured at the lab report. "Progress, maybe--but I don't know how far. Just a bunch of new puzzles to be perfectly frank." Rysland sat down at the other desk and drummed on it with his fingertips. He looked at Pell gravely. "As a matter of fact, since we last talked to you the situation has become even more urgent. A Supremist congressman introduced a bill today before the world delegates which may prove very dangerous. Perhaps you know the one I refer to." "I was too busy to follow the news today," said Pell, looking meaningfully at Larkin. Larkin didn't seem to notice.