"He just left with his sister and George, the starman." Herb bent forward intently. Time telescoped. An hour was no longer a practical infinity. "Where did they go?" "I don't know, sir." To the spider ship, Herb thought. They came back to Washington. They came back--to give Bud his reward for betrayal.... Herb was at the door. He almost tore it from the hinges when he jerked it open. John picked up his telephone and placed a call to the C.I.D. "The starman, Herb," he said, "has just left Senator Council's office. You can pick him up outside. If you hurry." * * * * * Bud dismissed his bodyguard, and he and George supported Norma between them as they left the building by private elevator and subway to the garage. Bud's face was grey, his lips bloodless. The Oligarch had presented him with a choice. Tomorrow morning, some high government official would receive in the mail Frank's head, along with Bud's signed confession. If Bud did not, before then, speak the key words that would blow up the planet. Bud, in the first stunned instant, cried: "Take me with you!" But even as he spoke, he knew that he was doomed. Knowledge did not prevent appeal, but it helped develop resignation. Bud thrust out with entreaties and debased himself with cowardly promises, and seeing them fail, tried threats which failed equally. His mind splintered into a thousand shards and reality became abstracted fragments of himself: the world ceased then to exist for him, and he lived in a phantom land, and his ego seized upon icebergs that drifted across the chill sea of thought. He became noble. Norma came to consciousness as the car, driven inexpertly by the Senator, rolled toward the airport. Early afternoon sunlight slanted down across the Capitol. She lay very quiet in the back seat, listening to the hiss of the tires. Her neck was swollen and throbbing. _Don't kill her yet_, her own brother had said, and then, out of the silence of the car, came his own voice again, contradicting what had gone before. "Dearer to me than all gold," Bud said. "Child of my beloved mother." "We will take her with us," the starman answered soothingly, reassuringly. "She's all that's left," Bud said. Norma lay quiet, unmoving, not daring to open her eyes. "You can't know what she means to me," Bud said. "You must tell her that. You must promise to tell her." "I will do it. I promise you." Bud said intently, "You must promise, I must know." "I promise." "Nothing will happen to her? She's all I have left. All. Child of my beloved mother." Tension accumulated between Bud and the starman. Norma realized that her brother was no longer sane. The car slowed and stopped. Still Norma did not move. She was too terrified. They came to her door and opened it.