The Defense Secretary caught his breath and sat stiffly erect. "War?" he gasped. "Don't use that word." "Sorry, peace-effort." "No. At least I hope not. I want a gun aimed at them as a bargaining point. But I want it to be a damned _big_ gun, and one that's capable of shattering every major city in the East on a few hours' notice. How effective could you make it--if you had to?" The Secretary frowned doubtfully and tugged at his ear. "Well, John, our strategic command has kept a running plan in effect, revising it to allow for every tidbit of information we can get. Planning continental blitzes is a favorite past-time around high-level strategic commands; it keeps the boys in trim. A plan could probably be agreed upon in a very short time, but its nature would depend on your earliest deadline date." "Two dates," grunted the tragedy-mask. "The first is Seventhday, Fried Pie Week. I want a maximum possible effort readied by then, with a plan that allows for a possible stand-by at that date, and a continued build-up to a greater maximum--to be reached when the satellite station is in space and ready for battle. Include the station in the extended plan." "This is a very dangerous business, John." The mask whirled. "Do you presume to--?" "No, Sir. The strike-effort will be prepared as soon as possible." He bowed slightly, then left the presidential study-vault. Smith turned to gaze at his Stand-ins. "You will go," he said, "all of you, to the examining authorities for the standard loyalty tests and psych-phys rechecks." The nine masked figures glanced at one another in surprise, then nodded. There were no protests. The following day he had only seven Stand-ins; Four and Eight had been trapped in a burning building on the outskirts of the rabble city, and their remains had not been found. Smith kept a tight cork on his rage, but it seethed inside him and threatened to burn through as the time approached to speak again with Ivan Ivanovitch IX. The enemy's infiltration into the very ranks of the Presidency robbed him even of dignity. Furthermore, now that the two scoundrels were uncovered, and dead, he remembered a very unpleasant but significant fact: he had, even before his "election" by the rabble, discussed the televiewphone conferences with the Primaries. The idea of contacting Ivan had started, as most ideas start, from some small seed or other that could scarcely be remembered, some off-hand reference to the costly aspects of the Big Silence perhaps, and it had grown into the plan for contact. _But how_ had the idea first come to him? Had one of the guilty Stand-ins perhaps planted the seed in his mind? _After_ he proposed it, they had seemed demurring at first, but not too long. Grimly, he realized that the idea might have originated on the far side of the Pacific. "Who, pray, is the potter, and who the pot?" he grunted, glowering at the nearest Stand-in.