mentally. "I know it's a bit thick to swallow and I did give you
the wrong impression calling for an A-tech, but I just wanted to capture
your attention then; I didn't want to have to work on the bomb. Really,
Erich, would they have ordered Benson-Carter to pick us up unless one of
us were an A-tech? They'd be sure to include one in the bally
operation."

"When they're using patchwork tactics?" Erich grinningly quoted back at
him.

* * * * *

Kaby spoke up beside me and said, "Benson-Carter was a magician of
matter and he was going on the operation disguised as an old woman. We
have the cloak and hood with the other garments," and I wondered how
this cold fish of a she-officer could be the same girl who was giving
Mark slurpy looks not ten minutes ago.

"Well?" Erich asked, glancing at his Caller and then swinging his eyes
around at us as if there must be some of the old _Wehrmacht_ iron
somewhere. We all found ourselves looking at Lili and she was looking so
sharp herself, so ready to jump and so at bay, that it was all _I_
needed, at any rate, to make Erich's theory about the Maintainer a
rock-bottom certainty.

Bruce must have realized the way our minds were working, for he started
to struggle in earnest and at the same time called, "For God's sake,
don't do anything to Lili! Let me loose, you idiots! Everything's true I
told you--I can save you from that bomb. Sevensee, you took my side
against the Spiders; you've nothing to lose. Sid, you're an Englishman.
Beau, you're a gentleman and you love her, too--for God's sake, stop
them!"

Beau glanced up over his shoulder at Bruce and the others surging around
close to his ankles and he had on his poker face. Sid I could tell was
once more going through the purgatory of decision. Beau reached his own
decision first and I'll say it for him that he acted on it fast and
intelligently. Right from his kneeling position and before he'd even
turned his head quite back, he jumped Erich.

But other things in this cosmos besides Man can pick sides and act fast.
Illy landed on Beau midway and whipped his tentacles around him tight
and they went wobbling around like a drunken white-and-silver barber
pole. Beau got his hands each around a tentacle, and at the same time
his face began to get purple, and I winced at what they were both going
through.

Maybe Sevensee had a hoof in Sid's purgatory, because Bruce shook loose
from the satyr and trie