"It wouldn't sound quite so ludicrous, Commander, if it was her photograph they managed somehow to send him. Maybe they secured one from her brother without his knowing about it. But still--it wouldn't make much sense. Why should they fear her enough to put a secret agent on her trail? One helpless woman forty million miles from Mars. He couldn't have known she'd smuggle herself on board the rocket in a cybernetic robot ... because his rage when he discovered her precluded that. And why would he make the trip if he was out to get her and, for all he knew to the contrary, she was still somewhere in New Chicago?" "If he was trailing her he could have suspected she might be on board and may have been searching everywhere for her," Littlefield pointed out. "That would even explain his rage when he finally got his hands on her, if we remember the kind of sadistic human animal he was. Frustration alone could produce a rage as violent as that in a Wendel agent--days and nights of fruitless searching. But ... I agree with you that it doesn't make sense otherwise. The stumbling block, as you say, is the difficulty in imagining how Wendel Atomics could possibly regard her as that serious a menace. Or fear her at all, for that matter." That was as far as we got. The officer-section communication instrument on Littlefield's desk started buzzing and he swung about to pick it up, with an almost joyful eagerness. I was sure that at any other time he'd have accepted that call with no visible display of emotion, just as a routine necessity. But when you've reached a stone wall in a discussion of vital importance and the odds against your making any further progress seem insurmountable, for the moment at least, practically any interruption will be as welcome as sunlight after a drenching rain or a peasoup fog. It's certainly better than beating your head against stone. He listened for perhaps ten seconds with the instrument pressed to his ear, with no pronounced change of expression. Then his face blanched and a look of horror came into his eyes. He slammed the instrument down and headed for the door on the run, completely unmindful of his dignity. Then he seemed to remember that he owed me an explanation--a man of principle will usually take a second or two out for that even when his home is in flames--and turned a yard from the door to shout at me. "Someone got the nose-cone panel open, climbed outside and is crawling along the airframe toward the jet section! He's wearing magnetic boots and if I'm not mistaken he's equipped with everything he needs to blow the rocket apart." When he saw the look on my face he added reassuringly. "We've still got a good chance of stopping him in time, because he just climbed out. But we'll have to bring most of the airframe into sharp focus on the viewplate, and pinpoint his every movement."