shoulder: "And that is where you come in."

"Me?" Lee asked, startled. "What you just told me, Dr. Scriven, it will
take me weeks to comprehend. At the moment I am at a loss to see how my
work could connect...."

The surgeon's sensitive hand patted Lee's shoulder as if it were the
neck of a shy horse. "You _will_ comprehend--in just another moment."

He pressed a button; in the entrance to the cabin in the sky the girl
appeared, like an apparition. She approached, her hair a golden halo,
her tunic transparent against the glare of the summer day. "Yes?"

"Oona, _please_"

She seemed familiar with the boss' code. With a smile on her lips she
walked over to one of the pillars, opened a hidden recess and brought
out the Scotch and syphon using an Egyptian clay tablet for a tray. With
surgical exactitude Scriven poured out a good two fingers for his guest
and an exceedingly small one for himself. "Stay with us for a moment,
Oona, please," he said. "I didn't tell you the idea behind my calling
Dr. Lee; you might be interested."

Wordlessly she slid into a seat, attentive and yet fading somehow into
the background, as if trying to remain unnoticed. In that she did not
succeed. Her beauty was such that its very presence changed the
atmosphere; it put Lee under a strain to keep his eyes off her. As to
Scriven, he seemed to address her almost as much as he did Lee.

"You have met Dr. Lee, haven't you, Oona; but do you know _whom_ you
have met? He probably wouldn't admit it; nevertheless Dr. Lee is the
most successful peacemaker on earth, I think. He has just put an end to
the oldest war in this world between the two most venerable
civilizations in existence. That war between the states of the ants and
the states of the termites has been waged with never abating fury for
millions of years--until Dr. Lee came along with the perfect solution of
the eternal dispute. All he did was to crossbreed the belligerents and
now we have "united nations", _Ant-termes-pacificus-Lee_ which lives up
to the spirit of its name. Elementary, isn't it?"

"So elementary," the girl said with ironical sweetness, "that the
so-called peacemakers of the international conferences must have
considered it below their dignity to stoop to it. How exactly did you do
it; I mean the crossbreeding?"

* * * * *

Lee felt his cheeks burn; it was extremely irritating that this should
happen to him every time Oona Dahlborg spoke