at
was _wonderful_, sweetheart," she said then, shakily. "And I can _never_
thank you enough, Teddy. But we can't do this very often ... can we?"
The addendum fairly begged for contradiction.

"Not too often, I'm afraid," Hilton said, and Theodora agreed....

"Well," the man said, somewhat later, "I'll leave you two ladies to
your knitting, or whatever. After a couple of short ones for the road,
that is."

"Not looking like that!" Teddy said, sharply. "Hold still and we'll
clean you up." Then, as both girls went to work:

"If anybody ever sees you coming out of this office looking like
_that_," she went on, darkly, "and Bill finds out about it, he'll think
it's _my_ lipstick smeared all over you and I'll strangle you to death
with my bare hands!"

"And that was supposed to be kissproof lipstick, too," Temple said,
seriously--although her whole face glowed and her eyes danced. "You
know, I'll never believe another advertisement I read."

"Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to say that, if I were you." Teddy's voice
was gravity itself, although she, too, was bubbling over. "It probably
_is_ kissproof. I don't think 'kissing' is quite the word for the
performance you just staged. To stand up under such punishment as you
gave it, my dear, anything would have to be tattooed in, not just put
on."

"Hey!" Hilton protested. "You promised to be deaf and blind!"

"I did no such thing. I said 'could', not 'would'. Why, I wouldn't have
missed that for _anything_!"

When Hilton left the room he was apparently, in every respect, his usual
self-contained self. However, it was not until the following morning
that he so much as thought of the sheaf of papers lying unread in the
drawer of Theodora Blake's desk.

VII

Knowing that he had done everything he could to help the most important
investigations get under way, Hilton turned his attention to secondary
matters. He made arrangements to decondition Javo, the Number Two Oman
Boss, whereupon that worthy became Javvy and promptly "bumped" the Oman
who had been shadowing Karns.

Larry and Javvy, working nights, deconditioned all the other Omans
having any contact with BuSci personnel; then they went on to set up a
routine for deconditioning all Omans on both planets.

Assured at last that the Omans would thenceforth work with and really
serve human beings instead of insisting upon doing their work for them,
Hilton knew that the time had come to let all his BuSci personne