It had been shrewd of him, all right. He had made sure nothing could go wrong. If something happened to Lang and his crew on Venus--and it was quite possible, since word from them was a week overdue--it would be easy to say that the terraforming project was still in the planning stage. In the event of success, the excuse was that word of their progress had been withheld for "security reasons." And the same would apply to the space drive; if McLeod and his men vanished into the nether regions of interstellar space and never returned, FitzMaugham would not have had to answer for the failure of a project which, as far as the public knew, was still in the planning stage. It was a double-edged sword with the director controlling both edges. And now Walton was in charge. He hoped he would be able to continue manipulations with an aplomb worthy of the late Director FitzMaugham. The annunciator chimed. "Dr. Lamarre is here for his appointment with you, Mr. Walton." Walton was caught off guard. His mind raced furiously. _Lamarre? Who the dickens--oh, that left-over appointment of FitzMaugham's._ "Tell Dr. Lamarre I'll be glad to see him in just a few minutes, please. I'll buzz you when I'm ready." Hurriedly he gathered up the space-flight documents and jammed them in a file drawer near the data on terraforming. He surveyed his office; it looked neat, presentable. Glancing around, he made sure no stray documents were visible, documents which might reveal the truth about the space drive. "Send in Dr. Lamarre," he said. Dr. Lamarre was a short, thin, pale individual, with an uncertain wave in his sandy hair and a slight stoop of his shoulders. He carried a large, black leather portfolio which seemed on the point of exploding. "Mr. Walton?" "That's right. You're Dr. Lamarre?" The small man handed him an engraved business card. _T. ELLIOT LAMARRE_ _Gerontologist_ Walton fingered the card uneasily and returned it to its owner. "Gerontologist? One who studies ways of increasing the human life-span?" "Precisely." Walton frowned. "I presume you've had some previous dealings with the late Director FitzMaugham?" Lamarre gaped. "You mean he didn't _tell_ you?" "Director FitzMaugham shared very little information with his assistants, Dr. Lamarre. The suddenness of my elevation to this post gave me little time to explore his files. Would you mind filling me in on the background?" "Of course." Lamarre crossed his legs and squinted myopically across the desk at Walton. "To be brief, Mr. FitzMaugham first heard of my work fourteen years ago. Since that time, he's supported my experiments with private grants of his own, public appropriations whenever possible, and lately with money supplied by Popeek. Naturally, because of the nature of my work I've shunned publicity. I completed my final tests last week, and was to have seen the director yesterday. But--"