she was out for was blood—not me."

"So you invited her up to your room to see your veins," Vega said. "Etchings—veins—what's the difference?"

"I got witnesses," Manning said desperately.

"I'll say you have," Vega said bitterly. "Billions of them. Do you know how many women called up to see if I'd been watching the visicast? And to think that I had to be holding little Barnaby up to look at the screen at that very moment."

"Look, honey, that dame—hell, you couldn't even call her a dame—was really dangerous. She was helping Dtilla Raishelle, but on the side she'd already helped herself to ten Regulusians. I was next on the list—"

Just then the door-announcer chimed. Before either of them could go to answer it, they heard the door open.

"Anybody home?" a voice called. It was J. Barnaby Cruikshank.

"Come in here," Manning yelled.

J. Barnaby appeared a moment later, his face beaming and his clothes looking so well-groomed he was hardly recognizable. "Manning, my boy," he said expansively, "you did it."

"I'll say he did," muttered Vega.

"You were magnificent," J. Barnaby continued before Manning could say anything. "I've read all the reports and you were never better. The way you reasoned that Dtilla Raishelle visited the Achernarian Ambassador three times in order to familiarize himself with the lock so he'd have no trouble picking it when he returned to toss that Denebian inside—it was superb."

"J. Barnaby—" began Manning.

"And," interrupted J. Barnaby, "I will never know how you managed to figure out that the Acruxian was carrying a Denebian in that box, or how you knew the Denebian could see through the box. It was superlative!"

"Oh, it wasn't much," said Manning, caught off-guard for the moment. "I knew that the Acruxians had used Denebians before and the fact that Dtilla covered the box when he went to the Achernarian Embassy made it easy to guess the box was made with one-way-vision plastic. After that, it was only a matter of learning the value of (n-k)! and—to hell with (n-k)!! J. Barnaby, you've got—"

"My boy," interrupted J. Barnaby, "we owe you more than we can ever pay you. 

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