s. He
jumped up and shook hands. "You must be Bronston. Call me Sid." He waved a
hand at a typed report he'd been reading. "Now I've seen them all. They've
just applied for entry to United Planets. Republic. What a name, eh?"

"What?" Ronny said.

"Sit down, sit down." He rushed Ronny to a chair, saw him seated, returned
to the desk and flicked an order box switch. "Irene," he said, "do up a
badge for Ronny, will you? You've got his code, haven't you? Good. Send it
over. Bronze, of course."

Sid Jakes turned back to Ronny and grinned at him. He motioned to the
report again. "What a name for a planet. Republic. Bunch of screw-balls,
again. Out in the vicinity of Sirius. Based their system on Plato's
_Republic_. Have to go the whole way. Don't even speak Basic. Certainly
not. They speak Ancient Greek. That's going to be a neat trick, finding
interpreters. How'd you like the Old Man?"

Ronny said, dazed at the conversational barrage, "Old Man? Oh, you mean
Commissioner Metaxa."

"Sure, sure," Sid grinned, perching himself on the edge of the desk. "Did
he give you that drink of tequila during working hours routine? He'd like
to poison every new agent we get. What a character."

The grin was infectious. Ronny said carefully, "Well, I did think his
method of hiring a new man was a little--cavalier."

"Cavalier, yet," Sid Jakes chortled. "Look, don't get the Old Man wrong.
He knows what he's doing. He always knows what he's doing."

"But he took me on after only two or three minutes conversation."

Jakes cocked his head to one side. "Oh? You think so? When did you first
apply for interplanetary assignment, Ronny?"

"I don't know, about three years ago."

Jakes nodded. "Well, depend on it, you've been under observation for that
length of time. At any one period, Section G is investigating possibly a
thousand potential agents. We need men but qualifications are high."

He hopped down from his position, sped around to the other side of the
desk and lowered himself into his chair. "Don't get the wrong idea,
though. You're not in. You're on probation. Whatever the assignment the
Old Man gave you, you've got to carry it out successfully before you're
full fledged." He flicked the order-box switch and said, "Irene, where the
devil's Ronny's badge?"

Ronny Bronston heard the office girl's voice answer snappishly.

"All right, all right," Jakes said. "I love you, too. Send it in when it
comes." He turned to Ronny. "What