prove useful. We know something of their building techniques from Marsport."

"Well, you certainly appear to be well qualified," I said as courteously as possible. But somewhere a dim instinct warned that this was eye-wash. Why wasn't this joker with the other engineering boys up front?

"Thank you, Mr. Lasker," he said, equally courteous. End of interview.

I looked at Charley. He looked at me. Then he handed me his bottle. Trust Charley. "Have a slug, pal," he said cheerfully. "Stop working."

"I will, pal," I said. "Thanks."

It felt good going down and for the first time I realized I had a hangover from the night before. And the night before that. And then I saw that Deborah's green eyes were wide open and fixed on me.

I took another slug, over and above Charley's little pained exclamation. I didn't like the look in those green eyes.

"Hey, Steve," Debby called in that indecent voice of hers. "I want to talk to you."

"You see, my friend," I said to the owner of the bottle, "she wants to talk to me."

"That makes you lucky," Charley said. He was very carefully putting the top back on the bottle.

"So, talk," I said to her.

"No, you come over here for a change."

Then I knew something was wrong. In some crazy way Deborah and I operated on the same frequency. I could always sense things about her—and, I knew, she could about me, too. I grunted. I moved reluctantly. But I went over to her and sat down.

Her face was propped up by an elbow and about six inches from mine after she had drawn my head down for a real private tete-a-tete.

"Steve, I've got to talk to you."

She was real, damned pretty that close up. But that wasn't the reason I got the breathless feeling in my stomach. I wondered how much this was going to cost Universal. I was thinking in terms of money at that point.

"All right," I said. "I couldn't hit you even if I wanted to. What did you do this time?"

"Well. It's not awfully bad and it's not awfully good. It's a delicate situation. And I need your help."

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