If you won't tell me how to run my directorate, I won't tell you how to run your spacefleet. At least not very often. Fair enough?"

Again, he did not pause for an answer, but looked back at Roysland. "And you, you get out of that bed as soon as this twitch doctor lets you. You have a gun to build. A mindjammer. Get busy. I'll expect you in my office later. Good-by." He turned and stamped out.

Allerdyce stared at the closed door for a moment, then turned and grinned. "I guess I got told."

"You did," said Bilford, "and you're going to get told again. All of you. Clear out. The patient has had enough excitement for today. Scram."

It took the five men several more minutes to leave, but Bilford was finally alone with Roysland.

"Did you know that about Eckisster?" Bilford asked. "That he needles people with a purpose in mind?"

"Sure," said Roysland. "I've known it for years. I don't say that it works the way he thinks it does, but at least it keeps the job exciting. I think everybody needs a little needling now and then."

Bilford nodded. "I know you agree with him. You're a bigger needler than he is, any day."

"Me?" Roysland looked surprised.

"Yes, you. Eckisster's needling is effective in a limited way, but yours is not only effective, but efficient. You ask the kind of questions that make people think instead of the kind that make people mad. Where Eckisster jabs in all directions and people jump, you use your needle with the deftness and precision of a physician using a hypodermic. Eckisster doesn't know what he wants and he doesn't know how to get it. And he wants somebody else to do it for him, whatever it is. On the other hand, you know what you want and how to get it without making everybody hate you, and you'll do the job yourself, if necessary.

"You gave your staff men, Commander Allerdyce, even me, credit for finding out what the mindjammer effect was. But the credit belongs to you. If it weren't for your incessant needling, your ability to arouse interest in seemingly dull facts, your sometimes radical theories, and your propensity for asking searching questions, I doubt if we'd have our answer yet.

"The core of this problem wasn't just the fact that several phenomena combined to give the mindjammer; that was a purely 

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