It read: SRYAN OFF HELIJET CIRCA 2200 EDST. VACATION TIME. HAMESSAGE RESTRAINING TOO LATE. WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN--CANTSPR. Translated, it meant that S. Ryan had taken off in a helijet about 10 p.m., New York time, on an overdue vacation. A message from Hamilton asking that he delay his departure had arrived too late. Ryan’s present whereabouts was not known. Chief, Antarctic Science Projects Research. Hamilton said, “Damn!” in very forcible accents. Then, deciding the oath was still too mild and too trite for the occasion, he added a few more lurid expletives in several languages, including the Portuguese. These last he had picked up while doing a job as consulting biologist on the Amazon Delta Reclamation Plan--where his work had won him admission to SPR, class AAAA, and had led directly to his present job. He flipped the visicommunicator switch to Miss Alderman’s office, and received in return nothing but a blank screen. He next switched over to Shirley, the receptionist, and was instantly rewarded with a view of her flowerlike Eurasian face. She said, “Miss Alderman’s apartment does not answer. And she has not called in.” He flipped off with a scowl and lit a cigarette. His foreboding had been justified. He wondered just how his message to Ryan had been bungled in Antarctica. Or had Ryan simply defied restraint and taken off, and were Cantspr, Witherspoon and the rest down there covering for him? Exhaling wearily, he decided he could hardly blame either Witherspoon and his able staff, or Ryan himself. Sven Ryan was an inventor and a man of genius. As an inventor he had just successfully tested what might well prove the most important single development in human gadgetry since the long-haired discovery of the wheel. And, as a genius, he had to be given _some_ leeway. But Ryan, free-roaming and talking just now--Hamilton tried but failed to suppress a shudder at the thought. The visicommunicator hummed and he flipped it on again, hoping it would be the sorely needed Miss Alderman. Instead, it was Shirley. Impassively she announced in her sweet, thin voice, “Mr. Harris of the UN is here to see you, sir.” “Dammit, I _know_ Mr. Harris is from the UN!” Hamilton exploded. Then, noting her hurt look, “I’m sorry, Shirley. You’re not the target of my wrath. Send him in.” Ian Harris, as SPR high-level liaison man for the United Nations, had been working closely with Hamilton for almost five years. They had traveled together, wined and dined together both in public and private, golfed together, and explored each other’s minds and opinions in the closest harmony for hundreds of hours. And yet, at moments such as this, Harris had the knack of putting Hamilton on the defensive.