of data from me. I am going to open his desk and get that volume, and go to work on this thing myself. Were he here he would forbid me, but he is not here. I—"

"Why are you telling me this?" asked Hanson.

"Someone must be told, and I—" Redmond trailed off uncertainly. Then he nodded and left the office as abruptly as he had come in.

Ava blinked. "What do you make of him?" she asked uncertainly.

"Very simple. His is the case of not-quite-genius working at the feet of true genius. His pattern is poorly aped after Maculay's forcefulness, but obviously lacks Maculay's weight. He wants to give the impression that he is cut of the same cloth as Maculay. He is uncertain of himself, or he would not bluster and threaten; nor would he be so completely at sea without Maculay. He has a frustration; Maculay's secret data has been withheld from him. He is jealous of Maculay and also fears Maculay or he would not make a confession to me that he was about to break orders. Furthermore, he is convinced that he can solve this thing without Maculay's help, but wants other people to believe it also."

"But could he get into trouble?"

Hanson laughed tolerantly. "Any man who has lived beyond the age of eighteen months can get into trouble," he said. "And it's good for a man to get into a bit of trouble occasionally. Security is a fine goal, but it is danger that sharpens the wits and eventually sets the character into such self-confidence that his security comes from within rather than without."

He leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment. He was not quite correct in telling Redmond that he understood nothing of Maculay's work. During the hours Hanson had hypnotic rapport with Cliff, he had absorbed quite a bit of Maculay's theories. Not that Hanson could stand in Maculay's shoes—or even his baby slippers for that matter—but he had a fair idea of what Maculay was driving at. He took this on faith rather than a real understanding—as any man might nod his head and accept the formulation of the three degrees of infinity because some bright man told him that such existed, one still might not understand why the number of spots on a line and the number of spots on a plane—when a plane has an infinite number of lines and each line an infinite number of spots—were both of the same degree of infinity.

Something niggled at Hanson's mind—something important in just plain horse-logic that had come to him fouled up in 

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