Blynn laughed without stopping for a full minute. "Do? I'll tell you what we're going to do. We're going to sit tight and wait for the staff ship." Two months later the staff ship came. Blynn radioed for the general and the secretary to come in a closed ground car. "But why?" the general's voice crackled plaintively over the com-unit. "I thought we didn't want them to know about ground cars--" "They know," Blynn said crisply. "They've got one of their own now, maybe more. Crazy-looking thing, but it works. You'll see it outside Headquarters when you get here. The letters on the side mean 'Earthmen, Go!' Form imperative impolite emphatic." Han Vollard strode into Headquarters, eyes ablaze. "Why didn't you send a report before trouble started? How could you allow an emergency situation to happen?" Neither Blynn nor Clarey said anything. "Very distressing thing," Spano declared. "Maybe it hit them so suddenly they didn't know it was building." "You and Blynn get over to the ship right away for deep-probing," Han Vollard ordered, as both began to speak at once. "It's the only way I'll be able to get a coherent report." After the results came through, her anger was cold, searing, unwomanly. "You knew a year ago that things were beginning to go wrong and you didn't even mention it on the tapes! I could have both of you broken for this." "If only that were all there was to worry about," Clarey sighed wistfully. * * * * * She whirled on him. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself!" The sudden loss of control in that dark amazon was more threatening than anything that had happened yet. "I'm not feeling sorry for myself," he said. "It's the Damorlanti I feel sorry for." "You feel sorry for them because you identify with them. That makes you sorry for yourself." She misunderstood his motives as she misunderstood everything he did or said, but their rapport wasn't at stake now. "What are you going to do?" he forced himself to ask. "The decision will have to be made on Earth. Unless you mean what's going to happen to you? That's simple--you'll go back with us. Blynn will stay here, pending orders." The colonel saluted. "But I thought I was going to stay here ten years," said Clarey. "Five to ten years," she corrected. "Apparently five was enough--" She cut herself short. "What's the matter with me?" she suddenly exclaimed. "I've been letting myself think in the same woolly way you do." Suddenly, almost frighteningly, she smiled. "Clarey, you _did_ the job we sent you out to do! You did it better than we expected! What threw me off was that we sent you out to act as an observer. Instead, you became a catalyst!" She seized his hand and wrung it warmly. "Clarey, I apologize. You've done a splendid job!" He wrenched his hand from her grasp. "I didn't act as a catalyst! It would have happened anyway." His voice rang in his own horrified ears--a voice begging for reassurance.