"You would--you're the type. However, I would have, too, if I had a panel full of them in _my_ office. Well, say it, you old space-hellion!" Lacy grinned again, albeit a trifle wryly. "Nothing to say, sawbones. You did a grand job, and you've got nothing to blow a jet about." "No? How would you like to have a red-headed spitfire who's scarcely dry behind the ears yet tell you to your teeth that you've got softening of the brain? That you had the mental capacity of a gnat, the intellect of a Zabriskan fontema? And to have to take it, without even heaving the insubordinate young jade into the can for about twenty-five well-earned black spots?" "Oh, come, now, you're just blasting. It wasn't that bad." "Perhaps not quite--but it was bad enough." "She'll grow up, some day, and realize that you were foxing her six ways from the origin." "Probably. In the meantime, it's all part of the bigger job. Thank God I'm not young any more. They suffer so." "Check. _How_ they suffer!" "But you saw the ending and I didn't. How did it turn out?" Lacy asked. "Partly good, partly bad." Haynes slowly poured two more drinks and thoughtfully swirled the crimson, pungently aromatic liquid around and around in his glass before he spoke again. "Hooked--but she knows it, and I'm afraid she'll do something about it." "She's a smart girl--I told you she was. She doesn't fox herself about anything. Hm-m-m. And separation is indicated, it would seem." "Check. Can you send out a hospital ship somewhere, so as to get rid of her for two or three weeks?" "Can do. Three weeks be enough? We can't send him anywhere, you know." "Plenty. He'll be gone in two." Then, as Lacy glanced at him questioningly, Haynes continued: "Ready for a shock? He's going to Lundmark's Nebula." "But he _can't_! That would take years! Nobody has ever got back from there yet, and there's this new job of his. Besides, this separation is only supposed to last until you can spare him for a while!" "If it takes very long he's coming back. The idea has always been, you know, that intergalactic matter may be so thin--one atom per liter or so--that such a flit won't take one tenth the time supposed. We recognize the danger. He's going well heeled." "How well?" "The best that we can give him." "I hate to clog their jets this way, but it's got to be done. We'll give her a raise when I send her out--make her sector chief. Huh?" "Did I hear any such words lately as 'spitfire,' 'hussy,' and 'jade,' or did I dream them?" Haynes asked, quizzically. "She's all of them, and more--but she's one of the best nurses and one of the finest women this side of Hades, too!" "QX, Lacy, give her her raise. Of course she's good, or she wouldn't be in on this deal at all. In fact, they're about as fine a couple of youngsters as old Tellus has produced." "They are that. Man, _what_ a pair of skeletons!" * * * * *