The Sci-Fi Stories - Cyril M. Kornbluth Edition. Cyril M. Kornbluth

privacy,” she said, again her own brisk self. “But I have a notion.”

      “She has a notion,” said Bartok expectantly.

      “Take it easy. Only a hunch—still—where do you suppose there’s enough room for a complete invasion-culture to develop without once coming into contact with the Earth culture till now, when it’s at its height?”

      “Space is plenty big, Babe. There’s room for a thousand colonial systems as big as ours that we’d never even know of.”

      “Okay. That establishes the very first postulate. Those things are real. Therefore one doesn’t have to be a psychic to investigate them. I am not psychic; ergo I can and will investigate them—in person.” The girl avoided Bartok’s eyes, and rattled on: “May be that my logic doesn’t hold water, but I think I can handle the job. You wouldn’t send me out there, and I know you’re on the verge of saying that you’ll go yourself.

      “Well, you’ll do no such damned thing, because they need you here as a relay center and someone whose statements to the public have some degree of authenticity. You’re the only one in the whole blasted navy that’s worth a whoop in hell, and our benighted citizens know that as well as that yellow-bellied Admiral of the Fleet Fitzjames. Now that it’s settled that you can’t be spared we’ll get around to the reasons why I, rather than any other agent from the wing, should be assigned to this job.”

      “We can dispense with that,” said Bartok wearily. “The fact is that next to me you’re the best worker we have. So go, my child, with the blessings of this old hand.”

      “Cut the kidding,” she snapped. “I mean business. Instead of the blessing of that old hand I’d like some advice from that old head.”

      “You can have my biography,” said Bartok. “ ‘Twenty Years a Spy, or, The Tale of a Voyeur Who Made Good’.” He took from his pocket a small package. “This,” he said, “I have been carrying for the moment when you’d pop your kind proposition. It’s lightly sealed. In a moment of supreme danger you are to open it and be guided accordingly.”

      “Thanks,” she said grimly. “Whatever it is, I believe I’ll need it.”