"Fred, don't make unnecessary trouble. You know—"

"Can it. I've only got a minute or two left of my lunch hour. I want to make myself perfectly plain with you. Are there any spy pickups in this corridor?"

Walton considered that. There were none that he knew of, and he knew of most. Still, FitzMaugham might have found it advisable to plant a few without advertising the fact. "I'm not sure," he said. "What's on your mind?"

Fred took a pad from his pocket and began to scrawl a note. Aloud he said, "I'll take my chances and tell you about it anyway. One of the men in the lab said another man told him you and FitzMaugham are both secretly Herschelites." His brow furrowed with the effort of saying one thing and writing another simultaneously. "Naturally, I won't give you any names yet, but I want you to know I'm investigating his background very carefully. He may just have been shooting his mouth off."

"Is that why you didn't want this to go into a spy pickup?" Walton asked.

"Exactly. I prefer to investigate unofficially for the time being." Fred finished the note, ripped the sheet from the pad and handed it to his brother.

Walton read it wordlessly. The handwriting was jagged and untidy, for it was no easy feat to carry on a conversation for the benefit of any concealed pickups while writing a message.

It said, I know all about the Prior baby. I'll keep my mouth shut for now, so don't worry. But don't try anything foolish, because I've deposited an account of the whole thing where you can't find it.

Walton crumpled the note and tucked it into his pocket. He said, "Thanks for the information, Fred. I'll keep it in mind."

"Okay, pal."

The lift tube arrived. Walton stepped inside and pressed twenty-nine.

In the moment it took for the tube to rise the one floor, he thought, So Fred's playing a waiting game.... He'll hold the information over my head until he can make good use of it.

That was some relief, anyway. No matter what evidence Fred had already salted away, Walton still had a chance to blot out some of the computer's memory track and obscure the trail to that extent.

The lift tube opened; a gleaming sign listed the various activities of the twenty-ninth floor, and at the 

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