er, through three cups of coffee in the kitchen. What I was
neglecting in this reasoning was the splintered wood in the living
room.

I saw it on my way out. It hit me starkly, like the blasted section of
a eucalyptus trunk writhing up from the ground. I stopped dead in the
doorway and stared at it. Then I got out my knife and got at it.

I probed but it was going to take more than a pocket knife. The
ball--and it was just that--was buried a half inch in the soft pine of
the casing.

I closed the knife and went to the phone and got Information to ring
the museum.

"You people aren't missing a Brown Bess musket," I said. It was a
question, of course, but not now--not the way I had said it. "Nobody
stole anything out of the museum last night, did they?"

Sweat was oozing over my upper lip. I could feel it. I could feel
sweat wetting the phone in my hand. The woman on the other end told me
to wait. I said, "Yeah"--not realizing. I waited, not realizing, until
a man's voice came on.

"You were saying something about a Brown Bess musket, mister?" A cold
sharp voice--a gutter voice but with the masking tag of _official_
behind it. Like the voice of someone behind a desk writing something
on a blotter--a real police voice.

I put the phone down. I pulled all the shades in the living room, went
out the door, locked it behind me and drove as fast as you can make a
Buick go, out to the field. But _fast_!

The XXE-1 was ready. She'd been ready for weeks. There wasn't a
mechanical or electronic flaw in her. We hoped, I hoped, the man who
designed her hoped. The Doll's father--he hoped most of all. Even
lying quiescent in her hangar, she looked as sleek as a Napoleon hat
done in poured monel. When your eyes went over her you knew
instinctively they'd thrown the mach numbers out the window when she
was done.

I went through a door that had the simple word _Plotting_ on it.

The Doll's father was there already behind his desk, studying
something as I came in. He looked up, smiled, said, "Hi, guy."

I flipped a finger at him. I wondered if the Doll had told him about
last night.

"Wife and I were going to suggest a snack when we got home last night
but you had already gone, and Marge was in bed."

I didn't look at him. "Left early, Pop. Growing boy."

"Yeah. You look lousy, guy."

I put my teeth together. I still didn't look at him. "These nights," I
said vaguely.

"Sure."

I could feel something in his voice. I