t it can't hurt
me." He stepped up his pace slightly, and in a moment they turned
abruptly into a darkened cul-de-sac.

Suddenly, they were moving _through_ the wall of the building into the
brilliantly lit lobby of the tall building. Harry gasped, but the
stranger led him without a sound toward the elevator, stepped aboard
with him, and sped upward, the silence broken only by the
whish-whish-whish of the passing floors. Finally they stepped out into a
quiet corridor and down through a small office door.

A man sat behind the desk in the office, his face quiet, his eyes very
wide and dark. He hardly glanced at Harry, but turned his eyes to the
other man.

"Set?" he asked.

"Couldn't miss now."

The man nodded and looked at last at Harry. "You're upset," he murmured.
"What's bothering you?"

"Webber," said Harry hoarsely. "He's following me here. He'll spot you.
I tried to warn you before I came, but I couldn't."

The man at the desk smiled. "Webber again, eh? Our old friend Webber.
That's all right. Webber's at the end of his tether. There's nothing he
can do to stop us. He's trying to attack with force, and he fails to
realize that time and thought are on our side. The time when force would
have succeeded against us is long past. But now there are many of us,
almost as many as not."

Harry stared shrewdly at the man behind the desk. "Then why are you so
afraid of Webber?" he asked.

"Afraid?"

"You know you are. Long ago you threatened me, if I reported to him. You
watched me, played with me. Why are you afraid of him?"

The man sighed. "Webber is premature. We are stalling for time, that's
all. We wait. We have grown from so very few, back in the 1940s and 50s,
but the time for quiet usurpation of power has not quite arrived. But
men like Webber force our hand, discover us, try to expose us."

Harry Scott's face was white, his hands shaking. "And what do you do to
them?"

"We--deal with them."

"And those like me?"

The man smiled lopsidedly. "Those like Paulus and Wineberg and the
rest--they're happy, really, like little children. But one like you is
so much more useful." He pointed almost apologetically to the small
screen on his desk.

Harry looked at it, realization dawning. He watched the huge,
broad-shouldered figure moving down the hallway toward the door.

"Webber was dangerous to you?"

"Unbelievably dangerous. So dangerous we would use any means to trap
him."

Suddenly the door bu