I managed to focus my eyes. Defoe was there, and a couple of other men. I recognized Gogarty, looking sick and dejected, and another face I knew--it was out of my Home Office training--an officer whose name I didn't recall, wearing the uniform of a lieutenant-general of expediters. That meant at least an expediter corps in Naples! I said weakly, "Hi." Defoe stood over me. He said, "I'm very glad to see you, Thomas. Coffee?" He steadied my hands as I gulped it. When I had managed a few swallows, he took the cup away. "I did not think you would resist arrest, Thomas," he said in a parental tone. I said, "Damn it, you didn't have to arrest me! I came down here of my own free will!" "Down?" His eyebrows rose. "Down from where do you mean, Thomas?" "Down from Mount--" I hesitated, then finished. "All right. Down from Mount Vesuvius. The museum, where I was hiding out with the ringleaders of the anti-Company movement. Is that what you want to know?" Defoe crackled: "Manning!" The lieutenant-general saluted and left the room. Defoe said, "That was the first thing I wanted, yes. But now I want much more. Please begin talking, Thomas. I will listen." I talked. There was nothing to stop me. Even with my body a mass of aches and pains from the tender care of the Company's expediters, I still had to side with the Company in this. For the Cobalt-bomb ended all loyalties. I left nothing important out, not even Rena. I admitted that I had taken Benedetto from the clinic, how we had escaped to Rome, how we had fled to Vesuvius ... and what I had learned. I made it short, skipping a few unimportant things like Zorchi. And Defoe sat sipping his coffee, listening, his warm eyes twinkling. I stopped. He pursed his lips, considering. "Silly," he said at last. "Silly? What's silly!" He said, "Thomas, I don't care about your casual affairs. And I would have excused your--precipitousness--since you have brought back certain useful information. Quite useful. I don't deny it. But I don't like being lied to, Thomas." "I haven't lied!" He said sharply, "There is no way to get fissionable material except through the Company!" "Oh, hell!" I shook my head. "How about a dud bomb, Defoe?" For the first time he looked puzzled. "Dud bomb?" Gogarty looked sick. "There's--there's a report on your desk, Mr. Defoe," he said worriedly. "We--well--figured the half-masses just got close enough to boil instead of to explode. We--" "I see." Defoe looked at him for a long moment. Then, disregarding Gogarty, he turned back to me, shoved the coffee at me. "All right, Thomas. They've got the warhead. Hydrogen? Cobalt? What about fuel?"