They seated themselves in the cobwebby low-gee chairs around Chung's desk. Blades took out his pipe and filled the bowl with his tobacco ration for today. Wouldn't it be great, he thought dreamily, if this old briar turned out to be an Aladdin's lamp, and the smoke condensed into a blonde she-Canadian--? "Wake up, will you?" Chung barked. "Huh?" Blades started. "Oh. Sure. What's the matter? You look like a fish on Friday." "Maybe with reason. Did you notice anything unusual with that party you were escorting?" "Yes, indeed." "What?" "About one hundred seventy-five centimeters tall, yellow hair, blue eyes, and some of the smoothest fourth-order curves I ever--" "Mike, stop that!" Avis sounded appalled. "This is serious." "I agree. She'll be leaving in a few more watches." The girl bit her lip. "You're too old for that mooncalf rot and you know it." "Agreed again. I feel more like a bull." Blades made pawing motions on the desktop. "There's a lady present," Chung said. Blades saw that Avis had gone quite pale. "I'm sorry," he blurted. "I never thought ... I mean, you've always seemed like--" "One of the boys," she finished for him in a brittle tone. "Sure. Forget it. What's the problem, Jimmy?" Chung folded his hands and stared at them. "I can't quite define that," he answered, word by careful word. "Perhaps I've simply gone spacedizzy. But when we called on Admiral Hulse, and later when he called on us, didn't you get the impression of, well, wariness? Didn't he seem to be watching and probing, every minute we were together?" "I wouldn't call him a cheerful sort," Blades nodded. "Stiff as molasses on Pluto. But I suppose ... supposed he's just naturally that way." Chung shook his head. "It wasn't a normal standoffishness. You've heard me reminisce about the time I was on Vesta with the North American technical representative, when the Convention was negotiated." "Yes, I've heard that story a few times," said Avis dryly. "Remember, that was right after the Europa Incident. We'd come close to a space war--undeclared, but it would have been nasty. We were still close. Every delegate went to that conference cocked and primed. "Hulse had the same manner." * * * * * A silence fell. Blades said at length, "Well, come to think of it, he did ask some rather odd questions. He seemed to twist the conversation now and then, so he could find things out like our exact layout, emergency doctrine, and so forth. It didn't strike me as significant, though." "Nor me," Chung admitted. "Taken in isolation, it meant nothing. But these visitors today--Sure, most of them obviously didn't suspect anything untoward. But that Liebknecht, now. Why was he so interested in Central Control? Nothing new or secret there. Yet he kept asking for details like the shielding factor of the walls."