dictating notes to his secretary on it. Her legs were crossed. Nice legs. Gorgeous legs...."
"How long that time, Delvin?"
"Indefinite. Till they took the girl away, sir."
Baxter cleared his throat loudly. "I understand, at last. Hence your slight antisocial rating. You avoid women in order to keep your job."
"Yes, sir. Even my secretary, Marge, whom I'd never in a million years think of looking at twice, except for business reasons, of course, has to stay out of my office when I'm working, or I can't function."
"You have my sympathy, son," Baxter said, not unkindly.
"Thank you, sir. It hasn't been easy."
"No, I don't imagine it has...." Baxter was staring into some far-off distance. Then he remembered himself and blinked back to the present. "Delvin," he said sharply. "I'll come right to the point. This thing is.... You have been chosen for an extremely important mission."
I couldn't have been more surprised had he announced my incipient maternity, but I was able to ask, "Me? For Pete's sake, why, sir?"
Baxter looked me square in the eye. "Damned if I know!"
I stared at him, nonplussed. He'd spoken with evidence of utmost candor, and the Chief of Interplanetary Security was not one to be accused of a friendly josh, but--
"You're kidding!" I said. "You must be. Otherwise, why was I sent for?"
"Believe me, I wish I knew," he sighed. "You were chosen, from all the inhabitants of this planet, and all the inhabitants of the Earth Colonies, by the Brain."
"You mean that International Cybernetics picked me for a mission? That's crazy, if you'll pardon me, sir."
Baxter shrugged, and his genial smile was a bit tightly stretched. "When the current emergency arose and all our usual methods failed, we had to submit the problem to the Brain."
"And," I said, beginning to be fascinated by his bewildered manner, "what came out?"
He looked at me for a long moment, then picked up that brochure again, and said, without referring to it, "Jery Delvin, five foot eleven inches tall--"
"Yes, but read me the part where it says why I was picked," I said, a little exasperated.
Baxter eyed me balefully, then skimmed the brochure through the air in my direction. I caught it just short of the carpet.
"If you can find it, I'll read it!" he said, almost snarling.
I looked over the sheet, then turned it over and scanned the black opposite side. "All it gives is my description, governmental status, and address!"
"Uh-huh," Baxter grunted laconically. "It amuses you, does it?" The smile was still on his lips, but there was a grimness in the glitter of his narrowing eyes.
"Not really," I said hastily. "It baffles me, to be frank."
"If you're sitting there in that hopeful stance awaiting some sort of explanation, you may as well relax," Baxter said shortly. "I have none to make. IC had 

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