They looked at him thoughtfully, and he was horrified to see his joke being taken seriously. He squirmed in his chair by the window, wishing he had kept his mouth shut.

"I wonder ..." mused Smith. "If they can actually exchange thoughts...."

"They might have natural defenses," said Parrish tentatively.

"What could we bribe a fish with?" asked Lydman, but hopefully rather than derisively.

Smith made another note, then drummed his fingers on his desk top. The four of them sat in silence. Westervelt hoped that the others were engaged in more productive thoughts than his own. It was nice to have their attention, and get the reputation of a bright young man who came up with suggestions; but when they decided upon some reasonable course of action they might remember him for making a foolish remark.

"Willie," said Smith, coming to a decision, "circulate around and ask the others if they can stick it out a couple of hours tonight. Maybe there's time to pry some useful information out of Trident, and at least get something started before we close down. If I know some guy out in space is working on it, I can sleep anyway."

Westervelt left his place by the window and went into the outer office. He told Simonetta and Beryl. The latter acted less than thrilled. Westervelt wondered jealously what kind of date she had scheduled for the evening. He stopped at the window of the switchboard cubbyhole.

"Oh, it's you, Willie!" exclaimed Pauline.

"Yeah, you can turn on the projector again," he grinned. "What is it, a love movie?"

Pauline edged a small tape projector out from behind the side of her board.

"It's homework, if you have to know," she told him.

"That's right, you still go to college," Westervelt recalled. "Why don't you switch to alien psychology? Then you could qualify for office manager around here."

"When do we have alien visitors here? Once in a ringed moon!"

"Who is to say which are the aliens?" said Westervelt. "There are days when I think I could feel more understanding to something with twelve tentacles and a tank of chlorine than to a lot of the mentalities that get loose right in this office. There's a crash program on for the evening, by the way, and Smitty 

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