That gives us a chance—but what in all nine of Palain’s purple _hells_ is that machine _doing_ with that data? He started to climb out of his bucket seat to go around to talk to Joan right then, but changed his mind at his first move. Even if Margie _could_ handle this little one it wouldn’t be a real test, and it’d be a crying shame to give Joan a success here and then kick her in the teeth with a flat failure next time. No, the next one, the only one left and Vegia’s worst, would be the one. If Margie could handle _that_, she could snuff anything the galaxy had to offer. Hence Cloud extinguished this one, too, himself. The _Vortex Blaster II_ darted to its last Vegian objective and lined itself up for business. Joan put Margie to work as usual; but Storm, for the first time, did not take his own place. Instead, he came around and stood behind Joan’s chair. “How’re we doing, little chum?” he asked. “Rotten!” Joan’s block was still up; her voice was choked with tears. “She’s come so close half a dozen times today—why—_why_ can’t I get that last fraction of a second?” “Maybe you can.” As though it were the most natural thing in the world—which in fact it was—Cloud put his left arm around her shoulders and exerted a gentle pressure. “Bars down, chum—we can think a lot clearer than we can talk.” “That’s better,” as her guard went down. “Your differential ’scope looks like it’s set at about one centimeter to the second. Can you give it enough vertical gain to make it about five?” “Yes. Ten if you like, but the trace would keep jumping the screen on the down-swings.” “I wouldn’t care about that—closest approach is all I want. Give it full gain.” “QX, but why?” Joan demanded, as she made the requested adjustment. “Did you find out something I can’t dig deep enough in your mind to pry loose?” “Don’t know yet whether I did or not—I can tell you in a couple of minutes,” and Cloud concentrated his full attention upon the chart and its adjacent oscilloscope screen. One pen of the chart was drawing a thin, wildly-wavering red line. A few seconds behind it a second pen was tracing the red line in black; tracing it so exactly that not the tiniest touch of red was to be seen anywhere along the black. And on the screen of the differential oscilloscope the fine green saw-tooth wave-form of the electronic trace, which gave continuously the instantaneous value of the brain’s shortage in time, flickered insanely and apparently reasonlessly up and down; occasionally falling clear off the bottom of the screen. If that needle-pointed trace should touch the zero line, however briefly, Margie the Brain would act; but it was not coming within one full centimeter of touching.