"My darling Alina, I have something to tell you, and I am sure that you'll need something in your stomach to brace you when I tell it." Alina put her palms to her temples and looked at the ceiling.

"Oh, no! This is what comes of being a psych engineer! He comes in and makes a remark like that because he knows damned good and well that I would drop anything to find out what he's being so mysterious about!" She dropped her hands and looked back at Romm. "All right," she snarled in mock viciousness, "I'll come. But you can't get away with this forever!"

The Colonization Program Building filled better than a cubic mile of the city's space, housing every function of the operation that was taking man to the stars, trying to get the race of man there before the aliens beat them to it. The lift shaft took Parmay and his wife up to the top level, where the apartments and restaurants were. There, they could look out through the broad windows at the rolling meadows and forest that covered the city beneath.

They sat down in a booth in the main dining room and dialed a menu.

"Now, bub," said Alina impatiently, "do I have to wait for food, or do you talk now?"

"I talk now. Do you know the present Chief of Psychological Contact?"

Alina lifted an eyebrow. "No. I never even heard of the department. What is it? Top secret, or something?"

"Not particularly. I'm it."

"That's nice."

Parmay looked at the tips of his fingers. "Nice? Oh, yes. And on the same scale, S Doradus is a comfortable warm star."

"Oh?" Alina lifted both eyebrows this time. "Why did they fire you from your old job? Did you fluff up?"

Parmay glowered. "Do you want to listen to me or not? If you're bored, you can quit paying attention."

Alina's laughter broke out into the open. "But you'll go on talking just the same!"

Parmay's laughter joined hers. "All right, vixen, go ahead and use your psychological torture methods. Just be glad that I don't use some of the refinements on you. If I were a research man instead of an engineer, I'd probably use you as a project."

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