As he exerted pressure on the knob, a thin slit in the side of the intercom began feeding out a long sheet of paper; the new answer from the Brain. It reached a certain length, then was automatically sheared off within the intercom, and the sheet fell gently to the desktop. Baxter picked it up and swiftly scanned its surface. A look of dismay overrode his erstwhile genial features. I had a horrible suspicion. "Not again?" I said softly. Baxter swore under his breath. Then he reached across the desktop and tossed me the Amnesty. * * * * * "I hope you know what you're doing," said Baxter at the gleaming glass doorway of the spaceport. "Why a man who has absolute authority should choose to ride public transportation when he could have his pick of the fleetest government ships on Earth--" I didn't tell him it was because of little details like stereovision, autobars, and, not least of all, comfort, that I had chosen to ride the _Valkyrie_. She sat waiting even now, far out in the center of the landing strip, two hundred towering feet of silver, crammed with all the luxuries engineering ingenuity could put aboard her. I had, thanks to a government credit card, a private cabin. I intended to enjoy myself, this trip. I'd managed to convince Baxter that it was less likely the public would suspect there was anything amiss if I went to Mars incognito, with the Amnesty worn under my clothing, for use only in emergencies. An Amnesty-bearer arriving on Mars in a government ship might cause talk. Disastrous talk. Baxter was rattling on and on, giving me the names of my contacts on Mars for the seventeenth time, and I was giving him perfunctory nods as though I was paying attention, though I was actually watching the other passengers leaving the check-in desk. After all, I'd be in space with them for almost two days. You never know what might develop. The co-rider I had in mind was a girl, with hair like irridescent cornsilk, and a figure that made the stereovision starlets look 2-D in comparison. She had her back to me, but even before she turned around, I knew she was beautiful. It was just the way she stood there, facing the passenger-check robot. She--well, she _stood_ like a girl who is beautiful. Then she turned around, and I gave my instincts an A plus. Her eyes were the deepest of blues, actually a purple tone, and they were wide, serious and shining. There was a certain determination about the set of her jaw that I liked, and her lips were like soft red velvet. A man could kiss those lips and sink slowly into warm crimson seas; lose himself in the heated softness of their gentlest pressures. "Delvin!" Baxter's voice shattered my reverie, and I tore my eyes from the girl, though the after-effects of dreaming left my mind in confused fragments. "Huh?" I said, looking at his face and almost failing to recognize it.