before, once on some other time-spiral, as the boys in SCWA would say. And her decision had been....

"It's sentimentality," she protested. "It isn't editing. This decision's right. I know it. And if I go and get another of these attacks and start to change my mind...."

She laid the posthumous Holt fragment on the coals. It caught fire quickly.

The next morning Raquel greeted her with, "Manningcita, who's Norbert Holt?"

Manning had slept so restfully that she was even tolerant of foolish questions at breakfast. "Who?" she asked.

"Norbert Holt. Somehow the name popped into my mind. Is he perhaps one of your writers?"

"Never heard of him."

Raquel frowned. "I was almost sure.... Can you really remember them all? I'm going to check those bound volumes of Surprising."

"Any luck with your ... what was it...? Holt?" Manning asked the girl a little later.

"No, Manningcita. I was quite unsuccessful."

... unsuccessful.... Now why in Heaven's name, mused Manning Stern, should I be thinking of martinis at breakfast time?

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