"Well, we could at least try it," said Vivian. We did, and Felder was right. McGuire seemed almost condescending in his sorrow for our inability to see that there was no _logical_ connection between their whispers and the voice of his Lord and Master, Daniel Oak. Vivian, who had been standing near Videnski while we were talking to McGuire, suddenly blew up when McGuire assured us that our whispering was a waste of time. She grasped her book--"Some Applications of Discontinuity in Pattern Theory"--and threw it at the wall speaker from which McGuire's voice came. It bounced harmless off the protective grill and fell to the floor. Vivian Devereaux burst into tears. I put my arm around her, gave Videnski and Felder the high sign to keep thinking, and led her to her room. As soon as I got her settled, I said: "Relax. No matter what happens, we'll get out of it alive. If we stretch our rations, we'll be able to make it to Titan without being more than underweight and hungry." "It's not that," she said tearfully, "it's the delay. All that time off the schedule." "But I thought that was what you wanted," I said gently. "Not any more. I--" She stopped suddenly and looked up at me, her eyes widening. "What are you talking about?" Her voice was as whispery as mine. "It was the insistence on meeting me at the _Seven Sisters_ that gave you away," I said. "Dyeing your hair and combing it straight back, and putting on that plexiskin mask and the contact lenses--none of that helped conceal that lush figure of yours. It can't be done under a union suit. So you had to put on jacket and shorts, and that meant you had to meet me in some plush restaurant like the _Seven Sisters_ or you'd look out of place. "I knew all that talk about being afraid of being overheard was just that--talk. A directional beam microphone could have picked up every word at our table. "What made you change your mind about delaying the work on McGuire?" "Buh-Buh-Brentwood. I duh-didn't know they'd go that far in trying to stop the work. Nuh-nuh-not kih-kidnapping and piracy." She took a deep breath and forced herself to stop sobbing. "I guess they didn't trust me, anyway. Otherwise they wouldn't have put Brentwood on the same job without telling me." * * * * * She didn't know that Brentwood was working for Baedecker rather than for the Thurston group. How could she? The difference lay in their tactics. Thurston wanted to take over Viking as a going concern--a little under the weather, perhaps, but still functioning. That meant that they wanted the work on McGuire delayed and complicated, but they didn't want to put him out of the picture completely, since they expected to take over the work as soon as they got control of Viking.