as he dissolved.

Roysland reached over and punched a button. "Where's Kiffer?" he asked.

"Eating at the mess hall, right now," said a voice.

"That's what I thought. Will you have him come here, to my place, as soon as he gets through? Say, in half an hour?"

"I'll tell him."

"Fine." Roysland lifted his finger and turned to the typer on his desk. He wasn't used to the makeshift office, and he found himself wishing he was back on Kandoris VI, in his own office.

He shrugged and began running his fingers over the typer. It took him only a few minutes to put down what he wanted to say. When he finished, he pulled the sheet from the printer tank and put it on his desk, in plain sight. At the top, he scrawled: "To Kiffer Samm." His own signature went at the bottom.

Then he put on his spacesuit and headed out, toward the outside air lock.

Half an hour later, Kiffer Samm was reading the note. He had stepped into Roysland's office and seen that it was empty. Assuming that his superior would be right back, he had sat down to wait. Then he'd seen the note.

He was halfway through it before it became perfectly clear what Roysland was doing.

"... So you may have to take over for the next twenty-five to thirty days. Naturally, I couldn't ask anyone else to take the risk.

"I think it may be a good idea if Bilford starts experimenting with subetherics in an effort to snap the rest of the boys out of this feedback loop thing. Maybe he can do it in less time.

"By the time you read this and get in a spacesuit and get out to the firing area, I will have finished the test; don't let me die of starvation, chum."

Kiffer punched at the communicator button, yelled orders into it, and grabbed a spacesuit out of the locker. By the time he reached the outer air lock, a jeep was waiting for him.

When the second jeep pulled up, Kiffer said: "You men stop at the gun emplacement and take a look at the weapon. We'll go on to the target tower and pick up 

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