A fast flitter took him to the hundred-story pile of stainless steel and glass which was the Co-ordinator's office. He strode along a corridor, through an unmarked door. "Hi, Phyllis--the boss in?" "Good morning, Chief. Yes, sir ... no, I mean...." His startled secretary touched a button and a door opened; the door of his private office. "Hi, Kim--back so soon?" Vice Co-ordinator Maitland also showed surprise as he got up from the massive desk and shook hands cordially. "Good! Taking over?" "Emphatically no. Hardly started yet. Just dropped in to use your plate, if you've got a free high-power wave. QX?" "Certainly. If not, you can free one fast enough." "Communications." Kinnison touched a stud. "Will you please get me Thrale? Library One; Principal Librarian Nadine Ernley. Plate-to-plate." This request was surprising enough to the informed. Since the Co-ordinator practically never dealt personally with anyone except Lensmen, and usually Unattached Lensmen at that, it was a rare event indeed for him to use any ordinary channels of communication. And as the linkage was completed, subdued murmurs and sundry squeals gave evidence that intense excitement prevailed at the other end of the line. "Mrs. Ernley will be on in one moment, sir." The operator's business was done. Her crisp, clear-cut voice ceased, but the background noise increased markedly. "Sh ... sh ... sh! It's the Gray Lensman, himself!" Everywhere upon Klovia, Tellus, and Thrale, and in many localities of many other planets, the words "Gray Lensman", without surname, had only one meaning. "Not the _Gray Lensman_!" "It can't be!" "It _is_, really ... I know him ... I actually _met_ him once!" "Let _me_ look ... just a peek!" "Sh ... sh! He'll _hear_ you!" "Switch on the vision. If we've got a moment, let's get acquainted," Kinnison suggested, and upon his plate there burst into view a bevy of excitedly embarrassed blondes, brunettes, and redheads. "Hi, Madge! Sorry that I don't know the rest of you, but I'll make it a point to get acquainted--before long, I think. Don't go away." The principal librarian was coming on the run. "You're all in on this. Hi, Nadine! Long time no see. Remember that bunch of squirrel food you rounded up for me?" * * * * * "I remember, sir." What a question! As though Nadine Ernley, nee Hostetter, could ever forget her share in that famous meeting of the fifty-three greatest--and least stable--scientific minds of all Civilization. "I'm sorry that I was out in the stacks when you called."