While the newcomer was finding his seat, Patricia said testily, "Actually, we are not quite happy about your reports, Don. We feel an ... if you'll pardon us ... an evasive quality about them. As though you aren't completely frank." "In short," Ross snapped, "have you been pulling things you haven't told us about?" Crowley grinned at them. "Now you folks are downright suspicious." Dr. Braun indicated some notes on the coffee table before him. "It seems hardly possible that your activities would be confined largely to going to the cinema, to the swankier night clubs and eating in the more famed restaurants." Crowley's grin turned into a half embarrassed smirk. Patricia thought of a small boy who had been caught in a mischief but was still somewhat proud of himself. He said, "Well, I gotta admit that there's been a few things. Come on over to my place and I'll show you." He looked at Braun. "Hey, Doc, about how much is one of them Rembrandt paintings worth?" Braun rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, "Great Caesar," he murmured. He came to his feet and looked around at the rest of them. "Let us go over there and learn the worst," he said. At the curb, before the hotel, Ross Wooley looked up and down the street for a cab. Crowley said, his voice registering self-deprecation, "Over here." Over here was a several toned, fantastically huge hover-limousine, a nattily dressed, sharp-looking, expressionless-faced young man behind the wheel. The three looked at Crowley. He opened the door. "Climb in folks. Nothing too good for you scientists, eh?" Inside, sitting next to a window with Patricia beside him and Dr. Braun at the far window, and with Ross in a jump seat, Crowley said expansively, "This is Larry. Larry, this is Doc Braun and his friends I was telling you about, Ross Wooley and Pat O'Gara. They're like scientists." Larry said, "Hi," without inflection, and tooled the heavy car out into the traffic. [Illustration] Ross spun on Crowley. "Don, where'd you get this car?" Crowley laughed. "You'll see. Take it easy. You'll see a lot of things." * * * They were too caught up in their own thoughts and in the barrage of demands they were leveling at Crowley to notice direction. It wasn't until they were already on the George Washington Bridge that Patricia blurted, "Don, this isn't the way to your hotel!" Crowley said tolerantly, "Take it easy, Pat. We're taking a short detour. Something I have to show you in Jersey." "I don't like this," Ross snapped. The redhead shifted his heavy shoulders in a reflexive protest against the confining tweed coat he wore. "Relax," Crowley told him reasonably. "I've been thinking things out quite a bit and I've got a lot to discuss with you folks." They were across the bridge now and Larry headed into the maze which finally unraveled itself to the point that it was obvious they were heading north. Larry hit the lift lever and they rose ten feet from the surface.