"They're my business, Bill, not yours. However, to give you a little boost, I'll tell you. With the Navy, I'll give 'em the Fuel Bin if I have to. The Omans have been taking care of the Stretts for twenty-seven hundred centuries, so I'm not the least bit worried about their ability to keep on doing it for ten years more. And if the Board--or anybody else--sticks their runny little noses into Project Theta Orionis I'll slap a quarantine onto both these solar systems that a microbe couldn't get through!" "You'd go _that_ far? Why, you'd be ..." * * * * * "Do you think I wouldn't?" Hilton snapped. "Look at me, Junior!" Eyes locked and held. "Do you think, for one minute, that I'll let anybody on all of God's worlds pull _me_ off of this job or interfere with my handling of it unless and until I'm damned positively certain that we can't handle it?" Karns relaxed visibly; the lines of strain eased. "Putting it in those words makes me feel better. I _will_ sleep to-night--and without any pills, either." "Sure you will. One more thought. We all put in more than ten years getting our Terran educations, and an Oman education is a lot tougher." Really smiling for the first time in weeks, Karns left the office and Hilton glanced again at his clock. Pretty late now to see Teddy ... besides, he'd better not. She was probably keyed up about as high as Bill was, and in no shape to do the kind of thinking he wanted of her on this stuff. Better wait a couple of days. On the following morning, before breakfast, Theodora was waiting for him outside the mess-hall. "Good morning, Jarve," she caroled. Reaching up, she took him by both ears, pulled his head down and kissed him. As soon as he perceived her intent, he cooperated enthusiastically. "What _did_ you do to Bill?" "Oh, you don't love me for myself alone, then, but just on account of _that_ big jerk?" "That's right." Her artist's-model face, startlingly beautiful now, fairly glowed. Just then Temple Bells strolled up to them. "Morning, you two lovely people." She hugged Hilton's arm as usual. "Shame on you, Teddy. But I wish _I_ had the nerve to kiss him like that." "Nerve? You?" Teddy laughed as Hilton picked Temple up and kissed her in exactly the same fashion--he hoped!--as he had just kissed Teddy. "You've got more nerve than an aching tooth. But as Jarve would say it, 'scat, kitten'. We're having breakfast _a la twosome_. We've got things to talk about." "All right for _you_," Temple said darkly, although her dazzling smile belied her tone. That first kiss, casual-seeming as it had been, had carried vastly more freight than any observer could perceive. "I'll hunt Bill up and make passes at him, see if I don't. _That'll_ learn ya!" * * * * * Theodora and Hilton did have their breakfast _a deux_--but she did not realize until afterward that he had not answered her question as to what he had done to her Bill.