"Nurse? MacDougall? Oh, yes, the redhead. Let me see--did hear something about her the other day. Married? No, that wasn't it.... She took a hospital ship somewhere. Alsakan--Vandemar--somewhere; didn't pay any attention. She doesn't need thanks--or flowers, either--she's getting paid for her work. Much more important, don't you think, to get Operations straightened out?" "Undoubtedly, sir," Kinnison replied stiffly, and as he went out Lacy came in. The two old conspirators greeted each other with knowing grins. _Was_ Kinnison taking it big! He was falling, like ten thousand bricks down a well. "Do him good to undermine his position a bit. Too cocky altogether. But _how_ they suffer!" "Check!" * * * * * Kinnison rode toward the flagship in a mood which even he could not have described. He had expected to see her, as a matter of course--he wanted to see her--confound it, he _had_ to see her! Why did she have to do a flit now, of all the times on the calendar? She knew that the fleet was shoving off, and that he'd have to go along--and nobody knew where she was. When he got back he'd find her if he had to chase her all over the Galaxy. He'd put an end to this. Duty was duty, of course--but Chris was CHRIS--and half a loaf _was_ better than no bread! He jerked back to reality as he entered the gigantic teardrop which was technically the _Z9M9Z_, socially the _Directrix_, and ordinarily _GFHQ_. She had been designed and built specifically to be Grand Fleet Headquarters, and nothing else. She bore no offensive armament; but since she had to protect the presiding geniuses of combat, she had every possible defense. Port Admiral Haynes had learned a bitter lesson during the expedition to Helmuth's base. Long before that relatively small Grand Fleet got there he was sick to the core, realizing that fifty thousand vessels simply could not be controlled or maneuvered as a group. If that base had been capable of an offensive, or even of a real defensive, or if Boskone could have put their fleets into that star cluster in time, the Patrol would have been defeated ignominiously; and Haynes, wise old tactician that he was, knew it only too well. Therefore, immediately after the return from that "triumphant" venture, he gave orders to design and to build, at whatever cost, a flagship capable of directing efficiently a million combat units.