One of the reporters who had followed them in snatched his radio handphone from his belt and jabbered, then, realizing that the collapsium shielding kept him from getting out with it, he replaced it and bolted away. "Hold it!" Conn yelled at the others, who were also becoming hysterical. "Wait till I take a look at this thing." They managed to calm themselves. After all, he should know what it was; wasn't that why he'd gone to school on Terra? They followed him from machine to machine, first hopefully and then fearfully. Finally he turned, shaking his head and feeling like the doctor in a film show, telling the family that there's no hope for Grandpa. "This is not Merlin. This is the personnel-file machine. It's taped for the records and data of every man and woman in the Third Force for the whole War. It's like the student-record machine at the University." "Might have known it; this section in here's marked G-1 all over everything; that's personnel. Wouldn't have Merlin in here," Klem Zareff was saying. "Well, we'll just keep on hunting for it till we do find it," Kurt Fawzi said. "It's here somewhere. It has to be." The next level up was much smaller. Here were the offices of the top echelons of the Force Command Staff. They, unlike the ones below, had been used; from them, too, every scrap of writing or film or record-tape had vanished. Finally, they entered the private office of Force-General Foxx Travis. It had not only been used, it was in disorder. Ashtrays full, many of the forty-year-old cigarette ends lipstick tinted. Chairs shoved around at random. Three bottles on the desk, with Terran bourbon labels; two empty and one with about an inch of whisky left in it. But no glasses. That bothered Conn. Somehow, he couldn't quite picture the commander and staff of the Third Fleet-Army Force passing bottles around and drinking from the neck. Then he noticed that the wall across the room was strangely scarred and scratched. Dropping his eye to the floor under it, he caught the twinkle of broken glass. They had gathered here, and talked for a long time. Then they had risen, for a final toast, and when it was drunk, they had hurled their glasses against the wall and smashed them. Then they had gone out, leaving the broken glass and the empty bottles; knowing that they would never return. VIII