To say that the Secret Service man was flabbergasted is to put it very mildly indeed. Cordeen had told him, with much pounding on his desk and in searing, air-blueing language, what to expect-or, rather, to expect _anything_, no matter what and with no limits whatever--but he hadn't believed it then and simply could not believe it now. Goddamn it, such things _couldn't_ happen. And this beautiful, beautifully-stacked, half-naked woman--girl, rather, she couldn't be a day over twenty-five--even if it had been their black-browed, toplofty leader, Captain Garlock himself.... "I am twenty-three of your years old, not twenty-five," she informed him, coldly, "and I will permit no distinction of sex. In your primitive culture the women may still be allowing you men to believe in the fallacy of the superiority of the male, but know right now that I can do anything any man ever born can do and do it better." "Oh, I'm ... I'm sure ... certainly...." Avengord's thought was incoherent. "If you want me to work with you you had better start believing right now that there are a lot of things you don't know," Belle went on relentlessly. "Stop believing that just because a thing has not already happened on this primitive, backward, mudball planet of yours, it can't happen anywhere or anywhen. You do believe, however, whether you want to or not, things you see with your own eyes?" "Yes. I can _not_ be hypnotized." "I'm very glad you believe that much." Avengord did not notice that she neither confirmed nor denied the truth of his statement. "To that end you will go now into the hospital room and see the bandaging going on. You will see and hear the news broadcast going out as I prepared it." He went, and came back a badly shaken man. "But they're sending it out exactly as it happened!" he protested. "They'll all scatter out so fast and so far we'll _never_ catch them!" "By no means. You see, the amputees didn't believe that they would lose their hands. Their superiors didn't believe it, either; they assured each other and their underlings that it was just capitalistic bluff and nonsense. And since they are all even more materialistic and hidebound and unbelieving than you are, they all are now highly confused--at a complete loss." "You can say _that_ again. If I, working with you and having you pounding it into my head, couldn't more than half believe it...." "So they are now very frightened, as well as confused, and the director of their whole spy system is now violating rule and precedent by sending out messengers to summon certain high agents to confer with him in his secret place." "If you'll tell me where, I'll get over to my office...." "No. We'll both be in your office in plenty of time. We'll watch Lola get started. It will be highly instructive for you to watch a really capable Operator at work." * * *