her eyes troubled. Then, suddenly, she seemed to change her mind. She leaned close to him and whispered: "You'd better leave by the promenade door. That man over there has been watching you. I know him very well. He's a Security Guard."

Corriston nodded and stared at her gratefully for a moment. He was more relieved than alarmed. It was far better to have a Security Guard watching him than a killer with a poisoned barb. He wasn't exactly happy about it, but he was confident he could elude the agent.

The waitress' eyes were suddenly warm and friendly again. "Space-shock?" she asked.

"So they claim," Corriston said. "I happen to think they're mistaken."

He started sipping the coffee. It was hot but not steaming hot. He could have tossed it off like a jigger of rye but he had some quick thinking to do.

"Tell me," he said. "Just where is that guard sitting?"

"At the other end of the counter," the waitress replied, the anxiety coming back into her eyes. "He's close to the door. You'd have to go past him. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think you want to get away from him. So you'd better go the way you came—by the promenade door."

"That's not too good an idea, I'm afraid," Corriston said. "He'd follow me and get assistance on the promenade. What's beyond the other door? Where does it lead to?"

"It opens on a corridor," the waitress said quickly. "If you can get past him you might have a better chance that way. There's nothing but a corridor with two side doors. One opens on an emergency stairway that goes down to the Master Sequence Selector compartments."

She seemed to take pride in her knowledge. Due to a space-shocked guy's difficulties, the Master Sequence Selector had become an important secret shared between them. Corriston wondered if she knew that the Selector functioned on thirty-two separate kinds of automatic controls.

If he ever got the chance, he'd come back and tell her exactly how grateful he was. Right at the moment one consideration alone dominated his thinking. If he could get past the guard he could hide out in an intricate maze of machinery. Even if they sent a dozen guards down to look for him it would take them some time to locate him. He could hide-out and gain a breathing spell.

The waitress had a very small hand. Abruptly Corriston clasped it and held it for an instant, his fingers 

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