She didn't let him finish. "That's a lie." Her voice was not excited. It carried the length of the room, and left no echoes. "Now, Dr. Haenlingen--" Rogier, Metals chairman and head of the meeting, began. "Don't soft-soap me," the old woman snapped. "I'm too old for it and I'm too tough for it. I want to look at some facts, and I want you to look at them, too." She paused, and nobody said a word. "I want to start with a simple statement. We're in trouble." "That's exactly the point," Willis began in his thin, high voice. "It's because we all appreciate that fact--" "That you want to tamper," the old woman said. "Precisely." The others were seated around the long gleaming table of native wood. Dr. Haenlingen stood, her back rigid, at one end, facing them all with a cold and knowing eye. "But I won't allow tampering in my department. I can't allow it." Rogier took a deep breath. The words came like marshmallow out of his overstuffed body. "I would hardly call a request for information 'tampering'," he said. "I would," Dr. Haenlingen told him tartly. "I've had a very good reason, over the years, to keep information about my section in my own hands." Rogier's voice became stern. "And that is?" "That is," Dr. Haenlingen said, "fools like you." Rogier opened his mouth, but the old woman gave him no chance. "People who think psychology is a game, or at any rate a study that applies only to other people, never to them. People who want to subject others to the disciplines of psychology, but not themselves." "As I understand it--" Rogier began. "You do not understand it," the old woman said flatly. "I understand it because I have spent my life learning to do so. You have spent your life learning to understand metals, and committees. Doubtless, Dr. Rogier, you understand metals--and committees." Her glance swept once more round the table, and she sat down. There was a second of silence before Dward, of Research, spoke up. Behind glassy contact lenses his eyes were, as always, unreadable. "Perhaps Dr. Haenlingen has a point," he said. "I know I'd hate to have to lay out my work for the meeting before I had it prepared. I'm sure we can allow a reasonable time for preparation--" "I'm afraid we can't," Rogier put in, almost apologetically. "Of course we can't," the old woman added. "First of all, I wasn't asking for time for preparation. I was asking for non-interference. And, second, we don't have any time at all." "Surely matters aren't that serious," Willis put in. "Matters," the old woman said, "are a good deal more serious than that. Has anyone but me read the latest reports from the Confederation?" "I think we all have," Rogier said calmly.