"My friend, Morris here, and I and some colleagues have been doing so privately for some time...." John waited until the excited murmuring died away. "We thought David Adam Smith had discovered us. And that is really why we broke into his office ... and found you all there. But I now think he knows nothing about it. Subject to your agreement, I suggest we should keep him in ignorance, lock him in a quartz crystal here and continue the private migration without involving him." "Why not bring him to justice?" asked Higgins. "Because I doubt if the government would believe their eyes. You have built David Adam Smith into a legend that would be difficult to break. Also because they would certainly take the Institute from anyone else, hold up the experiments and delay everything. And I have a lot of friends out there in space trying to establish a planetary colony." Marrpole laughed. "Really," he said, "we have been providing all the brain power of this Institute for so long, we may as well continue. Speaking for myself, gentlemen, a few years free from any restraint whatever are exactly what I now need. I am in favor." There was a general mutter of agreement. "Thank you," John said. "And now, if you will follow me, there are excellent showers and a whole class of spare rooms." "You stay with me," I said to the bubble-dancer. I led her through the Institute to the classrooms where Director David Adam Smith was still plotting the courses of the missing stellar-reporters. They would be back soon, but he was never to know that. I took him from behind and held him off the floor by his elbows, then twisted him round in the air so that he could see us both. "Yes," I said. "She's out. And you're going in." He started to scream so I clipped him. Then I carried him out to his private labs. I made him unlock the door and unset the alarms, dumped him on the maxima plate of his own converter and shot him into a spare enlarged crystal he had on his desk, after taking off his hearing aid. He didn't need it. It was only an amplifier so that he could hear the advice of whoever was in there at the time. I put him in and clipped the mike onto my shirt. "What are you doing?" asked the bubble-dancer. "Look," I said. "This fella could do it. And someone's got to take the other lectures. And I'm never going to get to be a qualified professor any other way." "But I thought they said he didn't know anything?" the bubble-dancer asked. "He must remember some of it, or I'll oscillate him at a high frequency." Meanwhile, I thought I'd practice laughing, "hig, hig, hig." But the former Director did not seem to find it funny. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Solid Solution, by James Stamers