"Oh." Mac seemed abstracted, as he often did, and again Paul wondered about this man he knew so casually and who had never confided in him about anything--especially about his government job. "So I missed the ending," Paul said. "I guess it was near the end, anyhow. The space patrol was on the way, but the villain, that Hafitz, was just about to blast me with his gun and I don't know how I would have got out of that." "I remember that," Mac said. He laughed. "You must have been Positive all the way through. Like I was when I saw it. If you'd had any negative reactions--if you'd leaned back against the strap instead of forward--you'd have been at some other point in the multiplot and I wouldn't have recognized that part. Want me to tell you how it ends?" "Go ahead. Then if I do see it again I'll change the ending somewhere along the line with a lean-back." "Okay. There really wasn't much more. It takes so much film to provide all the plot choices that they can't make them very long. "Well, Hafitz blasts me and misses," Mac went on, "--or blasts _you_ and misses, to keep it in your viewpoint. When you jump back, you set off a bunch of controls. That was the control room, too, not just the communications room. Well, those controls you lean back against take the ship out of automatic pilot and send it into some wild acrobatics and that's why Hafitz misses. Also it knocks him out of the wheelchair so he's helpless and you get his gun. Also you see that the plans are still there--right where you put them, stuck to the bottom of his wheelchair." "So that was it," said Paul. "Yes," said Mac. "And then you cover Hafitz while he straightens out the ship and you rendezvous with the space control and they take you all into custody. You get a citation from the government. That's about it. Corny, huh?" "But what about the girl?" Paul asked. "Is she really a spy?" "Girl? What girl?" "Naomi, her name was," Paul said. "You couldn't miss her. She was in the vikie right at the beginning--that brunette in the fast car." "But there wasn't any girl, Paul," Mac insisted. "Not when I saw it." "Of course there was. There had to be--the vikies all start out the same way, no matter who sees them." "It beats me, pal. I know I didn't see her. Maybe you dreamed up the dame." "I don't think so," Paul said. "But of course it's possible." He yawned. "I wouldn't mind dreaming of her tonight, at that. Think I'll turn in now, Mac. I've got that long trip tomorrow, you know. Up to Canada to look over a new line of Marswool sport jackets at the All-Planets Showroom." "Driving or flying?" "The weather prognosis is zero-zero. I'll drive." "Good," said Mac. * * * * * Paul Asher woke up late. He had a confused recollection of a dream. Something about a beautiful brunette giving him a backrub. A look at the chrono sent the dream out of his head and he hurried through shaving and dressing.