"Yes, Millie, I think you have a job," he said. "Your help here will be appreciated, of course. But what we really need is a way of bridging the gap between ourselves and the rest of the personnel before it gets too wide. How's your P.R. these days?" "That's something I learned in a hard school, public relations," she answered nonchalantly. "De-segregation was just beginning when I was a girl back in Georgia. But maybe I'd better know what the gap is." * * * * * The two began to talk, interrupting each other, incoherently outlining the Confusor and the various forces it exerted, and the--what Mike kept calling the inertial fish hook. Finally Mike took over. "To put it simply," he said, "our pet didn't do at all what we expected--it hooked in on inertia and it took us off. A confusing little Confusor--but Millie--it's a space drive! A real, honest-to-gosh space drive!" Millie gulped. It was far, far more than she had expected. Perhaps this was another form of disguise like the magneto-ionic.... "Are you sure?" Then she answered her own doubts. "Of course you're telling the truth now. That's not something you two would play games about." Then in awe--"You've really got it!" "But why, then," she said, uncomprehending, "are you hiding it?" But before they could answer, she answered her own question again. "You'd have to. Of course. Otherwise it'll be strangled in red tape. Otherwise nobody'll let you work on it any more, except as head of a research team stuck off somewhere. Otherwise, Budget Control would take it over and make a fifteen-year project out of it--and the two of you will probably have it in practical operation...." She looked at the molds and wiring taking form all across the machine shop. "Oh, no! You'll have it in operation--soon!" "Yes, soon--and we hope soon enough." Ishie sighed, then grinned impudently. "There is," he said, "the little matter of the fact that--in all innocence but nevertheless quite actually--we wiped out Thule Base. "If we don't get the big Confusor in operation very soon, it may be that we shall spend a good deal of time in Earth's courts proving our innocence while someone else botches most thoroughly the job of creating a Confusor that could take us to the stars. And that," he added mournfully, "neither of us would enjoy. We might not even be able to prove our innocence, for there would be many very anxious to prove us sufficiently guilty to keep us out of the way for many years. "So you see," he said, "you have a very real P.R. problem. Our assistants here could work better if they knew what they were doing. The people aboard the wheel would be most excited by a space drive, and would give us every aid. "But what the law says, it says--and the captain would have no choice but to put us in irons if he heard, though I think our captain is such that he would not want to do it.