A few minutes later, he was in Eileen Sands' apartment. It was not his first visit. Eileen seldom danced or sang, anymore, herself. She was different, now. She wore an evening dress--soft blue, tasteful. Here, she was the cool, poised owner, the lady. "Tiflin hasn't been around here for a long time, Frank," she was saying. "You know that his buddy entertained for me for a while. I have an interested nature, but Tiflin never gave me anything but wisecracks. There are lots of Tovies around--there's even a center for runaways. I don't ask questions of customers usually. And technically, all I can require of a comic is talent. This Igor had a certain kind. What is the difficulty now?" Frank Nelsen looked at Eileen almost wearily for a second. "Just that Tiflin is somehow involved with most of the bad luck that I've ever had out here," he said, grimly. "And if Pallastown were destroyed, everybody but the Tovies might as well go home from the Belt. The timing seems to me to be about right. They'd risk it, feeling we're too scared to strike back at home. The Jolly Lads--who are international--could be encouraged to do the job for them." Sudden hollows showed in Eileen's cheeks. "What are you going to do?" she asked. "Nothing much for me to do," he answered. "I only happened to notice, while I was coming in to Pallas, that all the guard stations, extending way out, were quietly very alert. But is that enough? Well, if they can't cope with an attack, what good am I? We're vulnerable, here. I guess we just sit tight and wait." She smiled faintly. "All right--let's. Sit, relax, converse. Stop being the Important Personage for a while, Frank." "Look who's talking. Okay--what do you know that's new to tell?" "A few things. I keep track of most everybody." He took her slender hand, brown in his angular fist, that was pale from his space gloves. "Gimp, first," he said. "Still on Mercury, with Two-and-Two. Two-and-Two was a bricklayer, a good beginning for a construction man. That seems to be paying off, as colonists move in. Gimp is setting up solar power stations." "Encouraging information, for once. Here's a hard one--Jig Hollis. The real intelligent man who stayed home. I've envied him for years." "Hmmm--yes, Frank. Intelligent, maybe--but he never quite believed it, himself. His wife stayed with him, even after he turned real sour and reckless. One night he hit a big oak tree with his car. Now, he is just as dead as if he had crashed into the sun at fifty miles per second. He couldn't take knowing that he was scared to do what he wanted." "Hell!" Nelsen said flatly.