Newshounds and detectives questioned and peered and probed. They dug into morgues, tabulating and classifying. They recalled and taped and sifted all the gossip they had heard. They got a picture of sorts, but it was maddeningly confusing and incomplete. And, since it was certain that inter-systemic matters were involved, they could not extrapolate--any guess was far too apt to be wrong. Thus nothing went on the air or appeared in print; and, although the surface remained calm, all newsdom seethed to its depths. Wherefore haggard Banks and harried Evans greeted Garlock with shouts of joy when the four wanderers came back to spend the week end on Earth. "I'll talk to 'em," Garlock decided, after the long story had been told. "Have somebody get hold of Bundy and ask him to come out." "Get _hold_ of him!" Banks snorted. "He's here. Twenty-four hours a day. Eating sandwiches and cat-napping on chairs in the lobby. All you have to do is unseal that door." Garlock flung the door wide. Bundy rushed in, followed by a more-or-less steady stream of some fifty other top-bracket newspeople, both men and women. "Well, Garlock, perhaps _you_ will give us some screens-down facts?" Bundy asked, angrily. "I'll give you _all_ the screens-down...." "Clee!" "You're crazy!" "You can't!" "Don't!" Belle and all the Operators protested at once. * * * Ignoring the objections, Garlock cut his shield to half and gave the whole group a true account of everything that had happened in the galaxy. Then, while they were all too stunned to speak, a grin of saturnine amusement spread over his dark, five-o'clock-shadowed face. "You pestiferous gnats insisted on grabbing the ball," he sneered. "Now let's see you run with it." Bundy came out of his trance. "_What_ a story!" he yelled. "We'll plaster it...." "Yeah," Garlock said, dryly. "_What_ a story. Exactly." "Oh." Bundy deflated suddenly. "You'll have to prove it--demonstrate it--of course." "Of course? You tickle me. Not only do I not have to prove it, I won't. I won't even confirm it." Bundy glared at Garlock, then whirled on Banks. "If you don't give me this in shape to use, you'll never get another line or mention anywhere!" "Oh, no?" For the first time in his professional life Banks gloated, openly and avidly. "From now on, my friend, who is in the saddle? Who is going to come to whom? Oh, _brother_!" When the fuming newsmen had gone, Garlock said, "It'll leak, of course." "Of course," Banks agreed. "'It is rumored ...' 'from a usually reliable source ...' and so on. Nothing definite, but each one of them will want to put out the first and biggest." "That's what I figured. It'll have to break sometime and I thought easing it out would be best ... but wait a minute...." he thought for two solid minutes. "But we're going to need a lot of money, and we're just about broke, aren't we?" This thought was addressed to Frank Macey, the Galaxians' treasurer.