the wrong character," said Maculay, sipping from his glass. "Doctor Clifford is the genius in the family; Cliff, the nephew, has only genius for getting into mischief without getting into trouble about it. To each his own," he chanted, lifting his glass in a toast.

Bardell was openly disappointed. "I'd hoped you might give us an idea of what was going on."

Maculay turned, rapped the bar with the heel of his glass to get attention, and then turned back to the captain. "I can," he said cheerfully. "But do you have the faintest idea of why nephew was relegated to the Outer Darkness?"

Everybody, listening to Cliff, shook their collective heads.

Maculay laughed. "They had me studying under him for years. Doctor Maculay is a slave driver and a martinet. Cigarettes, liquor, and wild women are annoying things that detract from the single-purposedness of life. Doctor Maculay is the kind of duck who would rather work overtime than make frolic with a dame—and he expects everybody who works with him to do the same. He also pays them accordingly, since a small room, a sterile diet, and a minimum of clothing are all that is necessary for any man dedicated to science."

"So?" asked Bardell, a bit angry at this man for belittling one of the solar system's greatest minds.

"So Cliff, the ne'er-do-well, used to take a few of Uncle Clifford's well-flanged ideas, add a character, stir well with a villain and a dame, and emerge regularly with a bit of science fiction. I was Ed Lomax, one of Larimore's cover names until John used the right name instead of the pseudonym, and people started to write fan letters to Clifford Maculay, MM, PhD, et al. Shortly afterwards I was out of a job."

"Then you do understand some of this?"

Maculay grinned and nodded.

"But Doctor Maculay will be able to figure this thing out?"

Cliff nodded again, and smiled. "Good thing, too," he chuckled. "He is the only man in the system that can handle it without going off half-cocked. Maculay may be a stuffed shirt but he is no imbecile. Tinkering with inverted space—or pouring a quart of nitric acid over a half-gallon of glycerine—might be deadly unless you understand what you're doing. Maculay is super-cautious about anything that he does not understand completely. I cannot say the same for his underlings, who casually point out that mankind had been 

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