e'd married and gone on
with his research work. Now, after twenty-five years, he was the key
figure in the development of the drive. Undoubtedly his knowledge was
enough to allow Darzent to develop the drive if he should fall into
their hands. And he was not susceptible to the protective,
anti-interrogatory drugs. Reine himself had developed the vitally
important gold catalyst principle.

* * * * *

Reine's address was just a pair of top-secret geographical
coordinates, a thousand kilometers from the nearest feeder jet-line.
Thane looked down at the endless Norwegian forest, a thousand meters
below his rented anti-grav scout. He felt depressed. That was always
a reaction to be expected, of course, after an accelerated identity
change. But then too, there'd been the scene with Garth after he'd
left Medico-Synthesis.

Thane had strode past Garth's secretary and into the inner office
without a word. Garth was behind his desk, his back to the door,
studying a galactic wall map. He turned slowly.

"A bodyguard!" Thane exclaimed. "Is that your idea of the most
responsible job in the Galaxy? You pulled me off the Elron business
just when I was set to engineer the beginnings of a representative
government there. The whole project will be set back by years. And it
was touch-and-go as it was. And for what?"

Garth looked at him calmly for a moment, as he bit off the end of a
fresh cigar. "Thane," he finally said, with deliberation, "the
executive council of the Department of the Outside just doesn't like
your methods. You've put through some really brilliant maneuvers but
you've done it alone, taking chances. I've tried to go along with you
but the last report from Elron caused a real blow-up at the council.
One of the council members suggested your assignment to this bodyguard
job, as you call it, and they all agreed. I had to go along."

"Just why, then, is all this Onzar background necessary? Did you think
it would fool me?"

"I said I _had_ to go along," Garth answered impatiently, "but that's
not all. I also _wanted_ to go along with the idea. This is much more
important than it appears on the surface. We have reason to believe
that Reine is still connected with Onzar. We don't have much to go on,
but one of your jobs will be to get the details."

The coordinates on the lat-don dial had almost lined up, though the
forest was still completely unbroken below. A few hundred meters to
th