"You seem to be doing pretty well," he said. "We were thinking of looking in the lab for something to cut the latch with, but it might have been waste motion. They should be getting the power on any minute now." "I think...." Lydman began. "Oh, I guess we could find something in the lists," pursued Smith. "If you'd rather we look...?" "I have several things we could use," said Lydman. He walked into the office proper and looked about for a chair. Westervelt stepped back of the center desk and brought him the chair of the vacationing secretary. Lydman sat down beside the partition screening the active files opposite Simonetta's desk. "In fact," continued the ex-space, "I got them out when I was trying to figure how much that door would stand. Then I decided that would only raise a commotion." Westervelt watched him with growing interest. Now that he had the man at closer range, he was sure that it was a tremendous effort of will that kept Lydman so relatively calm. The man seemed to be seething underneath his tautly controlled exterior. "What did you think of doing?" asked Smith carefully. "Oh, I dug out a better gadget, one that would do _me_ more good, anyhow," said Lydman. "It's a little rocket gun attached to a cannister of fine wire ladder." "Wire ladder?" repeated Smith. "Yeah. About six inches wide at the most. I opened a window and shot it up to the flight deck. Say--did you know some hijackers stole all three of our 'copters?" "Stole all three of...." Smith's voice dwindled away. When no one else broke the silence, he forced himself to resume. "Yes, I knew. What I would deeply appreciate, Robert, is your telling me how the hell _you_ knew!" He finished yelling. Westervelt thought that he looked at least as bad as Lydman. Anyone twenty feet away would have completely misjudged them. "Just as I said," answered Lydman with his tight calm. "I shot this ladder to the roof and climbed up." "You climbed up? _Outside the building?_" "Of course, outside," said Lydman, for the first time showing a trace of snappishness. "I couldn't stand it _inside_." He looked around at them again, surprised that there was the slightest hesitation to accept his statement. "We'll have to redesign that ladder, though," he said. "It's a mite too fine--cuts the hell out of your hands!" He held out his palms. Across each were several welts. One, on his right hand, had apparently resumed bleeding stickily since Lydman had come in. He fumbled out a handkerchief with his other hand and blotted it. Smith held his hands to his head. "I can't swallow it yet!" he groaned. "You feel ... uneasy ... in here, so you go out a window ninety-nine floors in the air--" "Only twenty-four above the set-back, really," Lydman corrected him. "It's enough, isn't it? So you go out, climb up to the helicopter roof, and _then_ climb down again and back through the window! And you pretend to feel better. I would have had a heart attack!"