"Shoot. All ears and no memory." He folded the uneven sheets of newsprint, crammed them in an inner pocket. "The story I've just given you, Carl, is a lot more important than it looks. At first glance it's just Sunday feature stuff--that's the way you'll play it in your column, and you'll probably just give it a tag-end spot on your program. And that's the way I want it played. But--it is important. I think you could call it a sort of--of a corner-stone story." "Thinking of a series, you mean? Hell, Doug, you've got the next elec--" "Not as a series, that's the point. Not so direct. More like a good propag--public relations campaign I mean. The development will be gradual, and not too regular--that part of it I'm going to leave up to you to some extent, I think--until it automatically becomes the top news." "Don't get it, Doug. I've told you before what's page one and what isn't. This thing you've just given me hasn't any big names in it, anything about money, taxes, or things to make anybody good and sick at heart. This is just--well, just opinion. Thoughtful analysis. The thoughtful stuff never makes the front pages, you know that." * * * * * The Quadrate smiled. "Precisely. I feel it should be pretty casually introduced. But don't worry--I won't ruin its news value. I think you'll agree with me when I'm ready for the top spot on your broadcast and for the front pages, I'll have something that will--how do you put it?--make people suddenly sick. Point is, I want them to be unconsciously thinking along the right lines first, so that when they get through being sick and stop to think about it, it will make sense." He was careful. It was difficult to maintain the curious bantering way of speech these people continually employed. An end-product, of course, of their emotional degeneration, and therefore as difficult to perfectly imitate as a provincial misuse of the language. But it was not as difficult as at first.... "Sure Doug--what you're talking about is done all the time, every day of the week. That part's easy enough--too damn easy. But--you keep saying 'it.' 'It' will make sense. What are you gunning at?" "Suppose I give you an example. The final development of that statement you weren't clear on. 'New sources of military manpower yet waiting to be tapped.' What it will mean, when the time comes, is the UMT drafting of children ten years old. Thirteen at first." "_The what?_" The man Grayson looked almost ludicrous. His mouth hung foolishly open, and there was no sound coming from it.