onest, too.
Theoretically, it is supposed to be nothing but a branch of the System
Census Bureau; it is supposed to do nothing but observe and tabulate
political trends. The actual fact that it is the Secret Service branch
of the United Nations Government is known only to relatively few
people.

I know it because I work for the Political Survey Division.

The PSD already had men investigating both Ravenhurst and Thurston,
but when they found out that Ravenhurst was looking for a confidential
expediter, for a special job, they'd shoved me in fast.

It isn't easy to fool sharp operators like Colonel Brock, but, so far, I'd
been lucky enough to get away with it by playing ignorant-but-not-stupid.

The steaks were brought, and I mentally saluted Ravenhurst, as I had
promised myself I would. Then I rather belatedly asked the colonel if
he'd eat with us.

"No," he said, with a shake of his head. "No, thanks. I've got to get
things ready for her visit to the Viking plant tomorrow."

"Oh? Hiding something?" I asked blandly.

He didn't even bother to look insulted. "No. Just have to make sure
she doesn't get hurt by any of the machinery, that's all. Most of the
stuff is automatic, and she has a habit of getting too close. I guess
she thinks she can talk a machine out of hurting her as easily as she
can talk a man into standing on his head."

Jack Ravenhurst was coming back to the table. I noticed that she'd
fixed her hair nicely and put on make-up. It made her look a lot more
feminine than she had while she was on the flitterboat.

"Well," she said as she sat down, "have you two decided what to do
with me?"

Colonel Brock just smiled and said: "I guess we'll have to leave that
up to you, Miss Ravenhurst." Then he stood up. "Now, if you'll excuse
me, I'll be about my business."

Jack nodded, gave him a quick smile, and fell to on her steak with the
voraciousness of an unfed chicken in a wheat bin.

Miss Jaqueline Ravenhurst evidently had no desire to talk to me at the
moment.

* * * * *

On Ceres, as on most of the major planetoids, a man's home is his
castle, even if it's only a hotel room. Raw nickel-iron, the basic
building material, is so cheap that walls and doors are seldom made of
anything else, so a hotel room is more like a vault than anything else
on Earth. Every time I go into one of the hotels on Ceres or Eros, I
get the feeling that I'm either a bundle of gold certific