"You will make extra copies of the Quadrate's remarks for the--the Director's personal file. Forward them to his headquarters as soon following adjournment of this session as is possible." She nodded. He was still doing it right. But luck wasn't a consistent thing. "Until the Director clarifies the status of Quadrate Tayne, pending his review of this report of his insubordinate charges and my own recommendations for the severest penalty the law allows for such insubordination, we will consider the conference adjourned, gentlemen...." They stood at once, bowed, and flanked by their junior officers filed silently out. Doug remained seated. The secretary was gathering her equipment. He dared ask her--what? She startled him when she spoke. "I'll get the transcription coded and prepared for A priority transmission on the first open Venus channel. But if I may say so, Sir--not that he certainly hasn't deserved it ever since his brother got him appointed--it's too bad you could not have found some other way--I've always marvelled at the methods you've been able to devise to cope with him in the past. This was--but pardon me. I'm entirely out of place." "No, no it's all right. His brother?" "Why--yes of course, Gundar Tayne. The Director." CHAPTER VI He had thought like a child to have believed he could have done more than bluff. He had thought like a child to have taken the impossible gamble at all. Already he had committed a fatal error, and he knew that were it not for his physical appearance the farce would not have lasted ten seconds. Nonsense! Was not a high stake worth the toss of any dice? Perhaps he was slightly mad, but he had _not_ thought like a child. Slightly mad, mad enough to suppose that to win happiness there must be courage, and with the courage, success, somehow. He could feel the solidity of the corridor floor beneath his feet as he followed her toward the panel at its end upon which the words Office Of The Senior Quadrate stood boldly, with the insignia of the office inscribed beneath them. Fatal error be damned! He would satisfy Tayne! As soon as the panel of the large, private office slid shut behind them, he would countermand his order to the secretary and have her scrap the section of her records which was so much more damning to himself than it could ever be to Tayne. There would be some other way.... Yes, it was politics. But it was the only weapon he knew, and for the moment he would have to wield it more skillfully than he ever had in his life. And idly, he wondered what they would do if he failed. If, somehow they saw through the disguise of his body.... He knew what they would do. They would make him build a new Contraption, make him go. And the Contraption they would make him build--there was of course too great a chance that he and Dorothy would miss their own point in time, become hopelessly lost.... And wouldn't it be sheer idiocy to risk that?