wants the staff to hang on a while."

A look of dismay flashed over Pauline's youthful features.

"I know; you have a class tonight," Westervelt deduced. "Chuck it all. Stay in the file room with Mr. Parrish and you'll learn twice as much."

Pauline offered to throw the projector at him, but laughed. Westervelt told her that no one would miss her if she connected a few of the main office phones to outside lines and hooked up the communications room with Smith's desk.

He left her wondering if she ought to stay anyhow, and headed for the hall. Halfway along to the communications room, he heard the elevator doors open and close. He stopped and looked back.

Around the corner strolled one of the TV men, Joe Rosenkrantz. Westervelt looked at his watch and realized that it was a shift change for the communications personnel, who kept touch with the universe twenty-four hours a day.

In case someone somewhere makes a dumb mistake like Harris, thought Westervelt. They overdo it a little, I think. I suppose it's the typical pride and joy of Terran technical culture to signal halfway across the galaxy to fix something that might have been cured beforehand when Harris was a little boy. I wonder what the psychologists should have done about me to keep me out of a place like this?

"Hello, Willie," said Rosenkrantz, catching up. "Going to the com room?"

Westervelt admitted as much, and gave the operator a brief outline of the afternoon's developments. Rosenkrantz remained unperturbed.

"Hope they don't get intoxicated with ingenuity, and insist on sending messages all over," he grunted. "I was looking forward to a quiet night shift."

They went in to tell Colborn, who took it well. He pointed out to Westervelt that he would in no case have been concerned with the overtime operation. When he was relieved, he was relieved—period.

"I forget this crazy place the minute the elevator door closes behind me," he said grinning, having handed over to Rosenkrantz his log and a few unofficial comments about traffic he had heard during recent hours. "There are some who wait till they hit the street, but I believe in a clean cut. I walk in, push 'Main Floor,' and everything else goes blank."

He went out the door, refusing to dignify their 

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