The _electric clock_ whirred softly--like a breathless metronone keeping time with Curt Wing's pencil. The metal desk was littered with crumpled and half-crumpled sheets of paper. Wing's black hair was rumpled and awry, his face dirtier by a ragged growth of beard, and when he lifted his aching eyes to the clock, they were blood-shot and watery with strain. Behind him, the door sighed softly as it closed. Aware of a presence, but too weary to turn around Wing asked: "Dead-Eye?" "No," a quiet voice answered. Then a laugh, soft, so soft--like the whisper of leaves at nightfall, the murmuring of water sprites dancing on moonlit waters. Memory of a day--_that_ day. "Get out," Curt Wing said flatly. He did not look around. "I won't go, Curt." That voice again--_her_ voice. I didn't think it would ever hurt me again. I had it licked. I was living. Now-- Then that lovely, remembered presence was warming that ache, that cold, bitter ache in his heart, soothing it. But her words--those words which had turned him from science to adventure--stayed frozen in his heart. "_You're not a man, Curt Wing. You're a machine. You're too sufficient unto yourself. You don't need me. Your life is just a mixture of metal, paper and pencils. You just want me because you think a man should have a mate. So make one out of your metal, paper and pencils!_" * * * * * Curt Wing stared wryly at the pencil held motionless between his thumb and forefinger. He forgot for a moment that into those fingers had been given the solution of an impossible problem--forgot that to him had been delegated a task so important that every second he relaxed meant the blue flower of destruction was spreading and Zhan Nekel's Mercurian fleet sped closer to Earth. _She_ was his own personal problem, breaking out from beneath the hard shell of pain he had built up within him. But his problem meant nothing at all if Earth no longer belonged to Earthmen. He had wanted her so much--still wanted her!--that there were times when he wanted to break down and bawl like a baby. Like now.... Then Curt Wing was chuckling. I'm feeling sorry for myself! At a time when there's no time for self-pity or anything else but work. He turned around quickly. She still stood there just inside the door. She was more beautiful than he remembered! Her soft brown hair that felt like gossamer when it brushed against his lips; her blue eyes that could speak of love and hate, of pleasure and disgust so eloquently her lips need not move; the soft oval of her face--it was all that he remembered and more.... But he said, "Business, Miss Packer?" There was no softness in the harsh planes of his face and his dark eyes were blank. "No, Curt, not business." "If you'll excuse me then?" Wing said, raising his eyebrows. "There's no time for anything else." She smiled. "It won't take long, Curt. I just wanted to tell you something before it's too late.