She said, “I only this minute got home--and I’ve got the mad Minnesotan with me. _Chief_, are you okay?” II Hamilton’s first reaction was one of utter disbelief. He said, “You’ve _what_, Nancy? If by any chance this is a joke--” “It’s not,” Miss Alderman assured him crisply. “How do you think I got these rings under my eyes? Sven Ryan is sleeping it off right here in my apartment. I didn’t dare turn on my communicator until he passed out.” “But where, and how did you ever get hold of him?” asked Hamilton, still half-incredulous. “Maybe you’d better come right over here, Chief,” she said. “I’ll explain when you get here. Do you know where I live?” “I do--and I’m on my way.” When Miss Alderman switched off, he flipped Shirley’s switch, and informed her he was leaving the office. “Call Mr. Harris and tell him everything is under control,” he directed. He left by the private door, thus avoiding the reception room and any potential holdups in the outer office. Emerging on the high-level ramp, he looked about warily for the rim repairmen and their ladder, and was relieved to discover that they had finished their work, and gone elsewhere. Since Miss Alderman, like everyone on SPR except its few top echelon members, lived within a mile of the Zeckendorf Plaza offices, Hamilton hopped a ramp-conveyor that carried him with gratifying celerity and an equally gratifying smoothness across the bottomless canyons of the incredible city. In less than fifteen minutes he had arrived at a high-level port in her own building, close to the lean green rectangle of Central Park. About him, unnoticed, passed the ever-changing kaleidoscopic vista of Manhattan with its familiar but fantastic metal and glass complexes of polychromatic spires, pyramids, ziggurats and domes. Although the trip had been incredibly brief, Miss Alderman looked as crisply and as trimly brunette as she had on the day when she had first stepped into his office to take up her difficult assignment as his personal secretary. Evidently she had found time to do a quite miraculous repair job on the circles under her eyes. He put an arm around her shoulders, and gave her a quick squeeze. He said, “If I forgot to say thanks over the communicator--thanks now, Nancy.” He stood back, looking at her with open admiration. “_How?_” he asked her. “Have some coffee,” she suggested, flushing with pleasure. She poured him a steaming black cupful from a glasspresso livingroom machine which was one of SPR’s most profitable patents. As they sat down, Hamilton could hear the faint sound of snoring from behind the closed bedroom door. He lifted an eyebrow, and nodded toward the sound. Miss Alderman nodded in return. “I’m waiting,” said Hamilton.