The car gave a lurch and slid to a stop. They stepped out into a shiny tunnel filled with people emptying out of the huge building above. The two men waited to board an express surface elevator, and stepped off on the main concourse of the Condor Building. The last sunset rays made a dazzling golden display on the banks of heliomirrors, and Faircloth blinked, shielding his eyes a moment after the softer light below. Then he glanced at his watch. "Let's coffee up," he said. "We've got a few minutes." They slid into an eating booth on the concourse and dropped in coins for coffee. It was so clumsy, Faircloth thought. Three and a half weeks since the ship had been spotted down along the Mississippi, and they were still just learning how clumsy they were. They had even thought that the visitor, whoever he was, had been killed in landing until the first Security Team had gotten to the ship. They'd gotten to within just ten feet of it when it had exploded. And even then they hadn't realized what they'd found, until the report came from Des Moines, and they started following up leads. They had followed the alien, true, from the first farmhouse where he had stopped the night he landed, west through the farm country to Des Moines, then northeast to the great Chicago metropolis. But when it came to contacting the creature or capturing him--Faircloth shook his head. Clumsy just wasn't the right word. He glanced at Marino, and then readied across the booth and buzzed for a newstape. He glanced over the Washington news hurriedly. Another upheaval in the Liberal Council. The Northern Democrats were trying to drum up Civil Rights Party and One World Party support for their new South American Developement program, and they weren't getting to first base. And there was another vicious attack by Ben Towne on the Hoffman Center's training program for Psi-Highs. Towne had even named Reuben Abrams as a leader there, and worked in some high-grade anti-Semitic innuendo into the association. Paul went tense, searching for Jean's name. It was not mentioned. He took a deep breath. If that filthy dog ever dragged her name into public. He finished his coffee, and gave the repeat button a vicious jab. Then his eye caught a small item with a Des Moines dateline, well hidden down at the bottom of the backside of the tape. He read it, frowning: WOMAN CHARGES PSI-HIGH CONSPIRACY