He swung his chair around to face the screen let into a side wall, and colors began to flicker and run in the field almost immediately. They steadied and sharpened, and the broadcast tape began to roll. Dateline: Dovenil, Sector Three, Day 183, 2417 GST. Your Topical News reporter on this small planet at the Union's rim was unable today to locate for comment any of the high officials of this alien civilization directly concerned with the order for the deportation of exchange student-observer Hubert Harrison, charged with theft and violent assault on the person of a Dovenilid citizen. Union citizen Harrison was unavailable for comment at this time, but Topical News will present his views and such other clues when more ensues. Marlowe grunted. Journalese was getting out of hand again. That last rhyming sentence was sure to stick in the audience's brains. It might be only another advertising gimmick, but if they started doing it with the body of the news itself, it might be well to feed Topical enough false leads to destroy what little reputation for comprehensibility they had left. [Illustration] He touched his interphone switch. "Uh ... Mary, what was the hooper on that broadcast?" "Under one per cent, sir." Which meant that, so far, the Body Politic hadn't reacted. "Thank you. Is there anything else coming in?" "Not at the moment, sir." "What's--" Cabbage. "What's Dalish ud Klavan doing?" "His residence is the Solar Hostel, sir. The management reports that he is still in his room, and has not reserved space on any form of long-distance transportation. He has not contacted us, either, and there is a strong probability that he may still be unaware of what's happened." "How many calls did he make yesterday, either before or after he was here, and to whom?" "I can get you a list in ten minutes, sir." "Do that, Mary." He switched off, sat slapping the edge of his desk with his hand, and switched on again. "Mary, I want the GenSurvs on the Dovenil area to a depth of ten cubic lights." "Yes, sir." "And get me Mr. Mead on the phone, please." "Yes, sir." Marlowe's lips pulled back from his teeth as he switched off. He snatched a candy bar out of his drawer, tore the film part way off, then threw it back in the drawer as his desk phone chimed. "Here, Chris." "Here, Mr. Marlowe." "Look, Chris--has Holliday left Earth yet?" "Yes, sir. Yes, Dave." "Where is he?" "Luna, en route to Karlshaven. He was lucky enough to have me arrange for his accidentally getting a ride on a GenSurv ship that happened to be going out that way, if you follow me." Mead grinned. "Get him back." The smile blanked out. "I can't do that, Mr. Marlowe! He'd never be able to take it. You should have seen him when I put him on the shuttle. We doped him up with EasyRest, and even then his subconscious could _feel_ the bulkheads around him, even in his sleep. Those shuttles are small, and they don't have ports."