Sixty feet away and four stories above the concrete floor of Bed 52, a man stood by the curving window of Karrin's office and watched Rhiannon descend in the lift. He was a small, padded man with the sly look of the lower Mars suburbs about him. "Tubemonkey," he said, curling his lips over the word. Karrin raised his sober, business-man's eyes from their inspection of the briefcase on the desk before him. "He'll do perfectly, Lin. He's just idiot enough to get us there and back and then forget all about it. He got a dose of cosmics--sometimes he can't even remember his own name." "Yes?" Lin Janus' cold gaze followed Rhiannon as the big man went through the distant playground gate. Rhiannon was carrying Tweety on his shoulder and bouncing every other step into the air, and Tweety had wrapped indignant tentacles around his steed's head. A mud-colored puppy went scooting after them, yanked by jealousy from the quilted lay his master had prepared for him beneath Cradle Nine. "Can he still handle a boat?" "Not for combat." Karrin leaned far back in his chair and locked his hands behind his head with a dignity that made the awkward position seem very right. "He can still hit space, though." Janus turned away from the window. "You'd better make certain that he forgets," he said. Karrin shrugged; another killing wouldn't matter much. "Why do we need a pilot in the first place?" "You took me out last time," Janus said flatly, "and I damned near died of fright." He tapped the briefcase. "You're sure this is the right stuff? I can't tell from looking, you know--hyper-atomics are out of my line." Karrin smiled slightly and brought his body forward in the chair. "You're getting what you're paying me for." He took his time about lighting a cigarette and then laid it on the edge of the desk as he stood up. He took a leather folder from the briefcase, opened it to reveal a dozen closely printed and diagrammed sheets. "These," he said, "are Llarn's defenses. Take my word for it." Unlike most wars, this one had started formally and in good military taste. From their headquarters on Llarn's moon the Rebels had made their request for political autonomy, and denial had come promptly, through Llarn's Council, from the far off Earth Federation. The Rebels had announced their intent to revolt in force and the first engagement had occurred that very day--a space battle, fought competently by both sides, and a draw. Llarn, Earth's first extra-Solar pioneer world, threw up hyper-atomic shields--Llarn's moon did likewise--and the matter rested there in a checkmate of technological perfection. Subsequent space battles had been fought, but these mattered very little. It had boiled down to a secret service war; a deadlock to be broken by the first side skillful enough to spy out the plans of the enemy's defense set-up. Sabotage could then finish the job. * * * * *