He hesitated, wondering what would happen should he walk in and find that Lydman was physically present but not in a mood to recognize any one else's existence. Slowly, he walked back to the washroom on the opposite side of the hall. Washing his hands with deliberation, Westervelt decided that it might be best to get Lydman on the phone. He could not, in fact, understand why inside phone calls were not more popular in the office. He supposed that the face-to-face habit had grown up among the staff, probably reflecting Smith's preference for getting everyone personally involved in everything. There might even be a deeper cause--they were so often in contact with distant places by the tenuous beaming of interstellar signals that there must be a certain reassurance and sense of security in having within physical reach the person to whom one was speaking. "I'll have to watch for that if I stay here long enough," Westervelt told himself. "You don't have to be a prizefighter to get punchy, I guess." He examined himself critically in the mirror over the sink, thinking that he could do with a neater appearance. A coin in the slot of a dispenser on the wall bought him a disposable paper comb with which he smoothed down his dark hair. _I need a haircut almost as bad as Castor P._ he thought. _I wonder if that really stands for Pollux? What a thing for parents to do! On the other hand, from people that came up with one like him, you'd expect almost anything!_ No one came in while he was in the washroom, much as he would have welcomed an excuse for conversation. He dawdled his way through the door into the corridor, not liking the thought of inflicting his presence upon Beryl and Parrish. That meant he would have to walk back as far as the spare conference room to find a phone. "Of course, there's the lab," he muttered. That was only a few steps away, and he could hardly do much damage between the door and the phone. Reaching the end of the corridor once more, he decided to make one last try at Lydman's door. Again, there was no reply to his knock, so he turned away to the laboratory door and entered. He was faced by a vista of tables, workbenches with power tools, and diverse assemblies of testing apparatus, most of the latter dusty and presenting the appearance of gold-bergs knocked together for temporary use and then shoved aside until someone might need a part from one of them. By far the greater space, however, was occupied by shelves and crates and stacks of small cartons or loosely wrapped packages in which various gadgets seemed to be stored after plans of them had been transmitted to the field. Half a dozen large files for drawings and blueprints reached nearly to the ceiling. Racks of instruments in relatively recent use or consideration stood here and there among the tables and workbenches.