"... five horizontal columns of metallic trans-scythium nine hundred xedars long will be found in a Terran storeroom, our area code...."

"All right, then. Queen takes pawn."

"Pawn to queen knight seven," replied Evelyn. It was her sole remaining pawn, and she hoped to use it in an odd way.

Perat checked with his queen at queen bishop four, and Evelyn's king slid to safety at queen knight eight. Perat moved his rook from queen knight five to queen five.

"Do you intend to mate with rook to queen's square next move?" asked Evelyn demurely.

"... under the strictest secrecy. Therefore you are ordered not to communicate...."

"Nothing can prevent it," observed the Viscount of Tharn somberly. He had already lost all interest in the game and was contemplating the ceiling tapestries. With a lurch she brought her telepathic probe to rest, ready to prepare a false front for his searching mind. She must keep him out a moment longer, or all was lost.

"But it's my move, and I have no move," she objected, focussing her probe again.

"... signed, Perat, Viscount of Tharn, Commandant, Occupation Zone One."

Through that distant fragment of her mind she sensed that something was watching the doll with feral interest.

The cat.

"So? No move? Then you lose," replied Perat.

"But my king isn't in check. You told me yourself that when my king was not in check, and I had no legal move, that I was stalemated, and the game was a draw."

In that other room, her telepathic contact guided the little figure down the table leg. Slowly now, don't excite the cat into pouncing. She had only seconds left, but it should suffice to place the dispatch in Gorph's incoming box. The pompous little supervisor would send it by the first jet messenger without doubt or question, and the field crew would proceed to draw the five columns.

Pain daggered into her right leg!

And then the cat pounced!

The cat had seized her homunculus by the thigh; she knew the tiny bone had been crushed. She caught fleet, 

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