"No--no I guess not. I see what you mean. If you come out with a really good question, there's always an answer for you right out of the Constitutional Commandments." "And of course no one dares challenge them!" "Doug!" "Oh, don't misunderstand, Jane." Almost, that time. He could feel the sweat start under his arms again. Dammit what an organization. They worshipped government, they were scrupulously careful to keep a perfect check-and-balance on political spheres of influence, they had such well-oiled machinery that even war was impossible. "Don't worry, I don't." "I just meant that sometimes it really makes me realize what a wonderful balance we've achieved. Education, population." "No form of birth control could ever have solved the problems of over-crowding and starvation and war as well as the games. You should know! Without work like yours, Doug, just think what the whole world could be like! There'd be the problem of enforcing the birth control laws again, knowing that every time they were violated the threat of unbalance would grow a little more." The games again. What kind of magic, what kind of panacea were they? He thought of the teeming, overcrowded millions in Europe, Asia--World War I, World War II, Korea, the Puerto Rican revolution in 1955. New York and her East Side slums, Chicago, and--whatever it was he headed, it solved these things. "Guess I'd better get back to the big job," he said then. "--Or Tayne'll be your new boss! And then--" "Doug what a perfectly awful thing to say! You've got to stop worrying. Sometimes you're hardly yourself--honestly, if I didn't know you better I'd think you'd lost the old self-confidence, the old strut! Your voice even sounds kind of different. You've got to relax, mister." "When I get things taken care of, maybe then.... And I think--I think I can give them something they can't say no to if I go over every detail once more--a whole re-study." He watched her face closely, nerves taut for the first tell-tale sign that he'd fallen on his face. But she nodded. "Probably help. Shall I bring in the whole file for last year? Checklists, film-strips, the works? "Yes," he said. "Yes. That's what I want--the works." * * * * * Neatly lettered on the file-tab of the heavy folder she brought were the words WAR GAMES, 1957, and he did not understand. _War Games, and she had said there was no war...._ Suddenly, he was afraid. Afraid to reach inside the folder, afraid to find what would tell him that for some fearful reason she had lied, that this beautiful, sparkling world was nothing but a lie.... He read the file-tab again. WAR GAMES, 1957, it said. No--no he did not understand. He drew out the four thick volumes of bound records, the square can containing the film-strips, the thin sheaf of checklists. And he opened the personal record titled _Senior Quadrate's Report. May 1, 1957-May 7, 1957. Blair._ And simply, directly, it began on the first page.