ion Forty-nine and see what we come up with."

"All right ... but suppose we do find somebody who out-Gunthers us?"

"I'd a lot rather have it that way than the way it is now. I'll do the
hopping, you the checking. Here's the first one--what do you read?"

"N. G."

"And this one?"

"The same."

"And this?"

"Ditto."

Until, finally: "Clee, just how long are you going to keep this up?"

"Until we find something or run out of time for the meeting. Belle, I
really _want_ to find somebody who amounts to something."

"So do I, really, so go ahead."

* * *

But they did not run out of time. At planet number four-hundred-something,
Belle suddenly emitted a shriek--vocally as well as mentally. "Clee!
Hold it! Here's something, I think!"

"I'm sure there is, and I'm gladder to see you two people than can
possibly be expressed."

Belle whirled; so did Garlock. A man stood in the middle of the Main; a
man shaped very much like Garlock, but with long, badly-tousled hair and
a bushy wilderness of fiery-red whiskers.

"Please excuse this intrusion, Admiral--or should it be plural? Improper
address, I'm sure, but your joint tenure is a concept so new and so vast
that I am not yet able to grasp it fully--but you are working at such
high speed that I had to do something drastic. You will, I trust, remain
here long enough to discuss certain matters with my wife and me?"

"We'll be very glad to."

"Thank you. I will return, then, more decorously, and bring her. One
moment." He disappeared.

"_Wife!_" Belle exclaimed, more than half in dismay. "They must be,
then...."

"Yeah." The thought of a wife did not bother Garlock at all. "Talk about
_power!_ And _speed!_ To get all that stuff and 'port up here in the
millisecond or so we had the screens open? Baby Doll, there's a guy who
is what a Prime Operator _ought_ to be!"

In less than a minute the man reappeared, accompanied by a woman who was
very obviously pregnant--eight months or so. Like the man, she was
dressed in tight-fitting coveralls. Her hair, however--it was a natural
red, too--was cut to a uniform length of eight inches, and each hair
individually stood out, perfectly straight and perfectly perpendicular
to the element of the scalp from which it sprang.

"Friends Belle and Clee of Tellus, I present Therea, my wife; and
Alsyne, myself; of this planet Thaker. We have numbers, too, but they
are never used among friends."

Ac