"Maybe her real anxiety was to be near somebody already assigned to the ship," the captain said. "I mean, we've got to consider all the possibilities. Somebody she knew there at E.H.Q." "Keep checking, Captain. I'll see if the Board wants to contact E McGinnis. Maybe he knows what's been going on around here that could lead us to the guy who's hiding her." "I'll keep checking, but she's not on board _my_ ship," the captain said. He sighed. Bill Hayes sighed. They broke connection. Hayes made contact with the Board chairman. It took only a few minutes to spin the latest tale of woe. Another minute for the Board to decide direct intervention. "Now they want me to make contact with the other ship," the operator said to the supervisor. "The Wheel himself wants to know if E McGinnis will talk to him." "Well, contact it, contact it," the supervisor commanded urgently. "I'm doing it! I'm doing it!" the operator quarreled back. The both of them listened in on the conversation, on the grounds that testing the quality of reception was a necessity. E McGinnis's pilot was quite explicit. "E McGinnis left orders that under no circumstances was he to be disturbed," the pilot said. "He, E Gray and Mrs. Gray are in his cabin, in conference." "E Gray! Mrs. Gray!" the chairman exploded. "Impossible. How the devil did they get into your ship?" "Don't ask me," the pilot said in a tired voice. "I just work here. I'm sitting here minding my own business. I see E McGinnis's door open. He leans out the door and gives me my orders. I look past him and I see E Gray and Mrs. Gray sitting in the room. Don't ask me how they got in there. I don't know. But I do know this, I'm going to get myself a nice quiet milk run to Saturn or someplace, soon as I get back to E.H.Q. If I ever do get back." "Now, now," the Board chairman soothed. "I'm sure there's a simple explanation." Crewmen willing to pilot an E around the universe were hard to find. "Yeah? After what I've seen out here, I don't think I'd even want to hear it," the pilot said, and without apology cut off the communication. 28 Had the pilot been able, a moment later, to look into the E's stateroom he would have seen still another visitor, another who had not entered his ship by any normal means. Attorney General Gunderson sat in a chair facing the two E's and Linda. He seemed stunned, frozen into immobility. Only his eyes were alive, darting here and there, unbelieving. There is limit to the number of shocks the mind can withstand, and the series had come too fast for him to adjust to them.