en hair and the
statuesque figure.

"Thank you! I have met the Ambassador." The lovely voice was shaking
with restrained anger.

"Gail!" I exclaimed.

"Your father coming to the barbecue, Gail?" President Hutchinson was
asking.

"He ought to be here any minute. He sent me on ahead from the hotel. He
wants to meet the Ambassador. That's why I joined the line."

"Well, suppose I leave Mr. Silk in your hands for a while," Hutchinson
said. "I ought to circulate around a little."

"Yes. Just leave him in my hands!" she said vindictively.

"What's wrong, Gail?" I wanted to know. "I know, I was supposed to meet
you at the spaceport, but--"

"You made a beautiful fool of me at the spaceport!"

"Look, I can explain everything. My Embassy staff insisted on hurrying
me off--"

Somebody gave a high-pitched whoop directly behind me and emptied the
clip of a pistol. I couldn't even hear what else I said. I couldn't hear
what she said, either, but it was something angry.

"You have to listen to me!" I roared in her ear. "I can explain
everything!"

"Any diplomat can explain anything!" she shouted back.

"Look, Gail, you're hanging an innocent man!" I yelled back at her. "I'm
entitled to a fair trial!"

Somebody on the platform began firing his pistol within inches of the
loud-speakers and it sounded like an H-bomb going off. She grabbed my
wrist and dragged me toward a door under the platform.

"Down here!" she yelled. "And this better be good, Mr. Silk!"

We went down a spiral ramp, lighted by widely-scattered overhead lights.

"Space-attack shelter," she explained. "And look: what goes on in
space-ships is one thing, but it's as much as a girl's reputation is
worth to come down here during a barbecue."

There seemed to be quite few girls at that barbecue who didn't care what
happened to their reputations. We discovered that after looking into a
couple of passageways that branched off the entrance.

"Over this way," Gail said, "Confederate Courts Building. There won't be
anything going on over here, now."

I told her, with as much humorous detail as possible, about how
Thrombley had shanghaied me to the Embassy, and about the chase by the
Rangers. Before I was half through, she was laughing heartily, all
traces of her anger gone. Finally, we came to a stairway, and at the
head of it to a small door.

"It's been four years that I've been away from here," she said. "I think
there's a reading room of the Law