is right hand, thumb and forefinger forming a circle.
"You're one point eight seven inches high, and off center point five
three inches to the north northeast by east. I hereby award each of you
the bronze medal of Marksman First. Shall I take her down now or do you
want to check in from here first?"

"Neither ... I think. What do you think, Belle?"

"Right. Not until you-know-what."

"Check. Until we decide whether or not to let them know just yet that we
can handle the ship. If we do, how many of our taped reports we turn in
and how many we toss down the chute."

"I get it!" James exclaimed, with a spreading grin. "_That_, my dear
people, is something I never expected to live long enough to see--our
straight-laced Doctor Garlock applying the Bugger Factor to a research
problem!"

"I prefer the term 'Monk's Coefficient,' myself," Garlock said, "from
the standpoint of mathematical rigor."

"At Polytech we called it 'Finagle's Formula'," Belle commented. "The
most widely applicable operator known."

"Have you three lost your minds?" Lola demanded. "That's nothing to joke
about--you wouldn't destroy official reports! All that astronomy and
anthropology that nobody ever even dreamed of before? You _couldn't_!
Not _possibly_!"

"Each of us knows just as well as you do how much data we have, exactly
how new and startling it is; but we've thought ahead farther than you
have. None of us likes the idea of destroying it a bit better than you
do. We won't, either, without your full, unreserved, wholehearted
consent, nor without your fixed, iron-clad, unshakable determination
never to reveal any least bit of it."

"That language is far too strong for me. I'd like to be able to go along
with you, but on those terms, I simply can't."

"I think you can, when you've thought it through. You've met Alonzo P.
Ferber, haven't you? Read him?"

"One glimpse; that was all I could stand. He pawed me mentally and
wanted to paw me physically, the first time I ever saw him."

"Check. So I'm going to ask you two questions, which you may answer as
an anthropologist, as Lola Montandon, as Mrs. James James James the
Ninth, as a member of our team, or as any other character you choose to
assume. Remembering that Ferber's a Gunther First--and pretends to be an
Operator whenever he can get away with it--should he, or anyone like
him, _ever_ be allowed to visit Hodell? Second question: if there is any
possible way for him to get there, ca