rce. Now it's technology. But I wonder how
you'll use the ionization of air to protect yourself from kidnapers!
Don't tell me! I'd rather try to guess."

He waved his hand in cordial dismissal and an Embassy servant showed
Hoddan to his quarters. Ten minutes later another staff man brought him
tools such as would be needed for work on a vision set. He was left
alone.

* * * * *

He delicately disassembled the set in his room and began to put some of
the parts together in a novel but wholly rational fashion. The science
of electronics, like the science of mathematics, had progressed away
beyond the point where all of it had practical applications. One could
spend a lifetime learning things that research had discovered in the
past, and industry had never found a use for. On Zan, industriously
reading pirated books, Hoddan hadn't known where utility stopped. He'd
kept on learning long after a practical man would have stopped studying
to get a paying job.

Any electronic engineer could have made the device he now assembled. It
only needed to be wanted--and apparently he was the first person to want
it. In this respect it was like the receptor that had gotten him into
trouble. But as he put the small parts together, he felt a certain
loneliness. A man Hoddan's age needs to have some girl admire him from
time to time. If Nedda had been sitting cross-legged before him,
listening raptly while he explained, Hoddan would probably have been
perfectly happy. But she wasn't. It wasn't likely she ever would be.
Hoddan scowled.

Inside of an hour he'd made a hand-sized, five-watt, wave-guide
projector of waves of eccentric form. In the beam of that projector, air
became ionized. Air became a high-resistance conductor comparable to
nichrome wire, when and where the projector sent its microwaves.

He was wrapping tape about the pistol grip when a servant brought him a
scribbled note. It had been handed in at the Embassy gate by a woman who
fled after leaving it. It looked like Nedda's handwriting. It read like
Nedda's phrasing. It appeared to have been written by somebody in a
highly emotional state. But it wasn't quite--not absolutely--convincing.

He went to find the ambassador. He handed over the note. The ambassador
read it and raised his eyebrows.

"Well?"

"It could be authentic," admitted Hoddan.

"In other words," said the ambassador, "you are not sure that it is a
booby trap--an invit