Actually, it was only minutes until the bird was outside the great
structure, and rapidly looking into windows. Lights were blazing in
almost every room, and Hanlon's mind knew thankfulness that so many of
the high officers were still at work.

Window after window the bird peered through in furious haste, searching
for an admiral's office. If it could get inside, Hanlon had thought of
several ways in which it might communicate ... providing the admiral was
not an orthodox brass hat.

But, he told himself to maintain courage, any man who could gain as high
a position as any of the various types of admirals would have had to
show his resourcefulness time and again. You just didn't get that high
in the Corps otherwise.

Luck and persistence achieved his ends, for he finally located the
offices of the Planetary Admiral, himself, and that officer and his
secretary were still inside at work.

Hanlon made the bird land on the window sill, and then begin tapping
with its beak on the glass. Time and again it did this, until the two
inside, attracted by the sound, looked about for its source.

"Look, Admiral Hawarden, it's a pigeon, tapping on the window," the
secretary laughed.

"Must think there's something to eat in here," the officer grinned back.

"It really acts as though it was trying to attract our attention," the
girl commented a few seconds later.

"Hmmm, I wonder," the admiral spoke half aloud, then as the bird kept up
its purposeful tapping he recognized the Inter-Stellar code S O S.
Quickly he rose, went to the window, opened it, and stepped back.

The bird, showing no fear of the humans, entered and flew to his desk.
The secretary had also risen, and now shrank back against the wall, her
hand at her mouth stifling a scream.

"It's magic," she said in fright. "No bird ever acted like that."

"It certainly is unusual," he said, and his eyes were puzzled. "I can't
make it out."

The bird flew toward the officer, and with fluttering wings poised in
the air before him, its beady, bright eyes peering directly into his.
Then it flew toward the door. When the admiral made no move to follow,
the bird repeated the performance.

"It seems almost as though it wanted me to go somewhere with it," the
officer said in a dazed manner. "Are we dreaming this, Thelma?"

"I ... I don't know, sir. We ... we must be," she stammered. "It just
couldn't be possible otherwise."

But now the bird apparently noticed someth