"Spare the gruesome details. They haven't changed in a couple of thousand years. How come you're not in the dog house?" Barbara smiled. "Because the woman in that kind of opus is always a sort of shady lady herself. It wouldn't do to have an innocent virgin for the companion of a buccaneer. So with my slightly tarnished reputation I'm a natural. What happened to you?" "The lie detector test." Barbara blinked. "Then didn't that prove your point?" "I thought it did. But I forgot one thing. Seems that the lie detector, no matter how good, is capable only of showing whether the character is telling a falsehood or not." Barbara smiled confidently. "So you were telling the truth. Weren't you?" "Sure," grunted Dusty. "Sure I was. But, quoting what's-his-name in the Bible: 'What is Truth?' One of the court psychologists pointed it out very clearly. If I firmly believe that the moon turned bright purple at ten o'clock last night, under a lie detector I'd be credited with a 'Truth' when I said so. In fact, the damned thing would say that I was telling a lie if I believed that the moon was purple and tried to cover up by saying that it hadn't changed. Follow?" "So what was the verdict?" "The verdict was to the effect that I was suffering under some hallucination--possibly induced by alcohol--which led me into this story. Therefore my lie-detector acquittal was valid only to prove that my call for help was, at the time, due to my personal conviction of danger. I was adjudged temporarily incompetent." "What kind of sentence? They didn't just let you go." "I've been two weeks in the observation ward of the federal looney locker. You see, to prove me guilty, they had to show that I had willfully and maliciously transmitted a false signal, with intent to deceive and/or for some personal reason. Willful tampering of this nature comes out as malicious mischief; malicious tampering becomes a federal offence. Maybe I've got my terms mixed up, but I think you get the idea, anyway. The end-up was this: Dusty Britton was convinced of his personal danger, his emission of a distress signal cannot be called malicious. I am no longer the top star I was once--in fact Gramer has cancelled my contract on the moral turpitude clause and the McDougall Office has black-balled me from all productions. So after a couple of weeks of observation at the spin-bin, they let me free with an admonition to leave the stuff alone. Barb, have you got a drink?" "Sure thing. Look, Dusty, I know what you must think, but please don't ask me to corroborate your story. Not again." * * * * * Dusty nodded soberly. "I won't. The first time I thought we could convince 'em. But not any more, kid. One of us in the mud is enough. We've got to find a new attack." Barbara handed Dusty a highball which he sipped before he said, "Barbara, we've got to do something." "Why?" He looked at her, stunned. "Why?" he cried.