el as if Leibowitz liked
him, and approved of him. He grinned back.

"But a coat of paint isn't very much," Malone said.

"It doesn't have to be very much," Leibowitz said. "Not these days.
I've often told Emily--that's my wife, Mr. Malone--that I could hide a
TV circuit under her lipstick. Not that there would be any use in it;
but the techniques are there. Mr. Malone. And if your conjecture is
correct, someone is using them."

"Oh," Malone said. "Sure. But you _can_ find the circuits, if they're
there?"

Leibowitz nodded slowly. "We can, Mr. Malone," he said. "They betray
themselves. A microcircuit need not be more than a few microns thick,
you see--as far as the conductors and insulators are concerned, at any
rate. But the regulators-transistors and such--have to be as big as a
pinhead."

"Enormous, huh?" Malone said.

"Well," Leibowitz said, and chuckled, "quite large enough to locate
without trouble, at any rate. They're very hard to conceal. And the
leads from the brain to the power controls are even easier to
find--comparatively speaking, of course."

"Of course," Malone said.

"All the brain does, you see," Leibowitz said, "is control the
mechanism that steers the car. But it takes real power to steer--a
great deal more than it does to compute the steering."

"I see," Malone, who didn't, said desperately. "In other words, unless
something radically new has been developed, you can find the
circuits."

"Right," Leibowitz said, grinning. "It would have to be something very
new indeed, Mr. Malone. We're up on most of the latest developments
here; we've got to be. But I don't want you giving me the credit for
this."

"No?" Malone said.

"Oh, no," Leibowitz said. "All I do is work out the general
application to theory, as far as actual detection is concerned. It's
my partner, Mr. Hardin, who takes care of all the engineering
details."

Malone said, "Well, so long as one of you--"

"Sal's a real crackerjack," Leibowitz said enthusiastically. "He had
an intuitive feel about these things. It's really amazing to watch him
go to work."

"It must be," Malone said politely.

"Oh, it really is," Leibowitz said. "And it's because of Sal that I
can make the guarantee I do make: that if there are any unusual
circuits in those cars, we can find them."

"Thanks," Malone said. "I'm sure you'll do the job. And we need that
information. Don't bother to send along a detailed report, though,
unless you find so