"Not ready yet," the director answered. "They haven't been able to invent one that is safe enough for them and yet will handle the volume of work that has to be done. In the meantime, we're using these books. Cumbersome, but absolutely safe, they say, unless and until the enemy gets onto the idea. Then one group will go into the lethal chambers of the Patrol and the rest of us will use something else. Some say that this code can't be cracked without the key; others say any code can be read in time. Anyway here's your orders. Pass them along. Give me your stuff and we'll have supper and a few drinks." They ate. They drank. They enjoyed an evening and a night of high revelry and low dissipation, each to his taste; each secure in the knowledge that his thought-screen was one-hundred-percent effective against the one enemy he really feared. Indeed, the screens were that effective--then. The Lensman, having learned from the director all that he knew, had restored the generator to full efficiency in the instant of his relinquishment of control. Although the heads of the zwilniks, and therefore their minds, were secure against Kinnison's prying, the books of record were not. And, though his body was lying helpless, inert upon a drug-fiend's cot, his sense of perception read those books; if not as readily as though they were in his hands and open, yet readily enough. And, far off in space, a power-brained Lensman yclept Worsel, recorded upon imperishable metal a detailed account, including names, dates, facts, and figures, of all the doings of all the zwilniks of a solar system! The information was coded, it is true; but, since Kinnison knew the key, it might just as well have been printed in English. To the later consternation of Narcotics, however, that tape was sent in under Lensman's seal--the spool could not be opened until the Gray Lensman gave the word. * * * * * In twenty-four hours Kinnison recovered from the effects of his debauch. He got his keys from Strongheart. He left the asteroid. He knew the mighty intellect with whom he had next to deal, he knew where that entity was to be found; but, sad to say, he had positively no idea at all as to what he was going to do or how he was going to do it. Wherefore it was that a sense of relief tempered, with no small degree, the natural apprehension he felt upon receiving an insistent call from Port Admiral Haynes. Truly this must be something really extraordinary, for while during the long months of his service Kinnison had called the chief of staff scores of times, Haynes had never before lensed him. "Kinnison! Haynes calling!" the message beat into his consciousness. "Kinnison acknowledging Haynes, sir!" the Gray Lensman thought back. "Am I interrupting anything important?" "No, sir, not at all. I'm just doing a little flit."