sounds.

After him came the controller, the vice con and the deputy vice con, all in single file. They were frowning, too, and moving so rapidly we had to jump to catch the deputy. We got him at the door and swung him around. He was short and fat and trouble didn't sit well on his pudgy face. It made him look slightly lop-sided.

He said: "Not now, gentlemen."

"Just a minute, Mr. Klang," I said, "I don't think you're being fair to the press."

"I know it," the deputy said, "and I'm sorry, but I really cannot spare the time."

I said: "So we report to fifteen million readers that time can't be spared these days—"

He stared at me, only I'd been doing some staring myself and I knew I had to get him to agree to give us a release.

I said: "Have a heart. If anything's big enough to upset the stability of the chief stabilizer, we ought to get a look-in."

That worried him, and I knew it would. Fifteen million people would be more than slightly unnerved to read that the C-S had been in a dither.

"Listen," I said. "What goes on? What were you talking about upstairs?"

He said: "All right. Come down to my office with me. We'll prepare a release."

Only I didn't go out with the rest of them. Because, you see, while I'd been nudging the deputy I'd noticed that all of them had rushed out so fast they'd forgotten to close the office door. It was the first time I'd seen it unlocked and I knew I was going to go through it this time. That was why I'd wheedled that release out of the deputy. I was going to get upstairs into the Prog Building because everything played into my hands. First, the door being left open. Second, the man from the Trib not being there.

Why? Well, don't you see? The opposition papers always paired off. The Ledger and the Record walked together and the Journal and the News and so on. This way I was alone with no one to look for me and wonder what I was up to. I pushed around in the crowd a little as they followed the deputy out, and managed to be the last one in the room. I slipped back behind the door jamb, waited a second and then streaked across to the office door. I went through it like a shot and shut it behind me. When I had my back against it I took a breath and whispered: "Hyperman, here I come!"

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