"... _under the strictest secrecy. Therefore you are ordered not to communicate_...." "Nothing can prevent it," observed the Viscount of Tharn somberly. He had already lost all interest in the game and was contemplating the ceiling tapestries. With a lurch she brought her telepathic probe to rest, ready to prepare a false front for his searching mind. She must keep him out a moment longer, or all was lost. "But it's my move, and I have no move," she objected, focussing her probe again. "... _signed, Perat, Viscount of Tharn, Commandant, Occupation Zone One_." Through that distant fragment of her mind she sensed that something was watching the doll with feral interest. The cat. "So? No move? Then you lose," replied Perat. "But my king isn't in check. You told me yourself that when my king was not in check, and I had no legal move, that I was stalemated, and the game was a draw." In that other room, her telepathic contact guided the little figure down the table leg. Slowly now, don't excite the cat into pouncing. She had only seconds left, but it should suffice to place the dispatch in Gorph's incoming box. The pompous little supervisor would send it by the first jet messenger without doubt or question, and the field crew would proceed to draw the five columns. Pain daggered into her right leg! [Illustration: _And then the cat pounced!_] * * * * * The cat had seized her homunculus by the thigh; she knew the tiny bone had been crushed. She caught fleet, dizzy impressions of the animal striding off proudly with the little creature between its jaws. The letter lay where it had fallen, under the dispatch machine, almost invisible. The doll ceased her blind writing and drew a tiny black cylinder from her belt. The cat's right eye loomed huge above her. Mentally, Perat studied the chessboard position with growing interest. "Idiotic Terran game," he growled. "Only a Terran would conceive of the idea of calling a crushing defeat a drawn battle. I'm sorry I taught you the game. It's really quite--_what was that?_" "Sounded like the cat, didn't it?" responded Evelyn. Her tiny alter ego had dropped from those destructive jaws and was dragging itself slowly back to the dispatch. It found the message and picked it up. "Do you think something could have hurt it?" asked Evelyn. The doll struggled toward Gorph's desk, leaving behind a thin red trail. Then several things happened. Hot swords sizzled in Evelyn's back, and she knew the enraged feline had broken the spinal column of the doll. With throbbing intuition she collapsed her telepathic tentacle. Too late. Perat's probe was already in her mind, and she knew that he had caught the full impact of her swift telepathic return. She lay there limply. Her rib, now almost healed, began to ache dully. The man continued to lie motionless, staring heavy-lidded at the ceiling. Gradually, his mind withdrew itself from hers.