He spent a wakeful night and there was a haggardness about both body and soul when he sought and attained another interview with Presidential Assistant Jeffreys the next morning. Breckenridge was there, and though Lynn would have preferred a private conference, he could see the justice in the situation. It was obvious that Breckenridge had attained enormous influence with the government as a result of his successful Intelligence work. Well, why not? Lynn said, "Sir, I am considering the possibility that we are hopping uselessly to enemy piping." "In what way?" "I'm sure that however impatient the public may grow at times, and however legislators sometimes find it expedient to talk, the government at least recognizes the world stalemate to be beneficial. They must recognize it also. Ten humanoids with one TC bomb is a trivial way of breaking the stalemate." "The destruction of fifteen million human beings is scarcely trivial." "It is from the world power standpoint. It would not so demoralize us as to make us surrender or so cripple us as to convince us we could not win. There would just be the same old planetary death-war that both sides have avoided so long and so successfully. And all They would have accomplished is to force us to fight minus one city. It's not enough." "What do you suggest?" said Jeffreys, coldly. "That They do not have ten humanoids in our country? That there is not a TC bomb waiting to get together?" "I'll agree that those things are here, but perhaps for some reason greater than just mid-winter bomb-madness." "Such as?" "It may be that the physical destruction resulting from the humanoids getting together is not the worst thing that can happen to us. What about the moral and intellectual destruction that comes of their being here at all? With all due respect to Agent Breckenridge, what if They _intended_ for us to find out about the humanoids; what if the humanoids are never supposed to get together, but merely to remain separate in order to give us something to worry about." "Why?" "Tell me this. What measures have already been taken against the humanoids? I suppose that Security is going through the files of all citizens who have ever been across the border or close enough to it to make kidnapping possible. I know, since Macalaster mentioned it yesterday, that they are following up suspicious psychiatric cases. What else?" Jeffreys said, "Small X-ray devices are being installed in key places in the large cities. In the mass arenas, for instance--" "Where ten humanoids might slip in among a hundred thousand spectators of a football game or an air-polo match?" "Exactly." "And concert halls and churches?" "We must start somewhere. We can't do it all at once." "Particularly when panic must be avoided?" said Lynn. "Isn't that so? It wouldn't do to have the public realize that at any unpredictable moment, some unpredictable city and its human contents would suddenly cease to exist."