"You probably have been appointed to regulate the last batch of outgoing freighters enroute to various space stations, in order to relieve congestion and ease pressure of transportation. There may be something else ... eh?" "Master mind! But there's that last _something else_ that you'd never guess." "Inductive reasoning tells me that a freight coordinator would be assigned to freight problems ... let _me_ talk ... but this seems to be the last time that old Terra is going to send freight anywhere. I feel there's one last measure to be taken against the unpredictable--something calculated to checkmate a future result. Oh I know I sound as if I were talking gibberish, Palanth, but well ... it's still sort of foggy in my mind. I'll know more when I read my orders." "I've already read mine," Palanth said quietly. "I'm persuaded they're not very different from yours--in the last analysis. It's a gigantic game, Mark!" "Then you know?" "Yes!" It was almost a whisper, almost a telepathic assent. "But here's our energy center, let's go on in." * * * * * Once within the vast dining-hall, known as an Energy Center, they selected a table and from the menu the number of the meal that suited them, pressing the numerically corresponding stud on the panel above the table. The food came on a conveyor belt that passed beneath the floor and emerged from the center of the table which was hollow and had a panel that slid aside as the food arrived. "Well, what have you learned," Palanth asked Mark as they began their meal. Mark Lynn outlined what he knew and added a few conjectures of his own, and Palanth's face split gradually in a wide grin. "A pretty mess.... How many of you flesh-eating mammals are there left to transport ... the irreconcilables, I mean, the dissenters." "Roughly about five hundred million. They're an amazing mixture of Internationals, Philosophers and Ruralians--the three most individualistic strata!" "It would be easier to ray them down, let the Comet wipe them out in due time, than to go to all this trouble of persuading them to evacuate." Palanth retorted coldly. "Still, to my Martian mind, they're far more valuable than your herds of controlled sheep--at least, they can think for themselves!" "However, in a controlled, beneficent political economy such as the World State, any such benevolent treatment as raying them down, or abandoning them to sidereal extinction is outlawed," a quiet, mellow voice said behind them. Both Mark and Palanth looked up with a start to see the exquisite oval face with the serious, limpid hazel eyes of Doctor Fortun, in her purple scientist tunic. Palanth rose instantly and bowed, Mark was but a fraction of a second behind him. "It's a rare honor for Spacers to enjoy socially the company of a Scientist," Mark said gravely, but his eyes were dancing.