I
weren't a thin, sallow lecher."

"What a nice compliment--"

"Uh huh."

"Especially since I work for you, nominally anyway--"

"Uh huh, nominally."

"Bosses should not make passes
At gals who work as lower classes."

"Uh, huh, familiar."

"But you are, and getting more so daily--"

"Uh hu--are what?" I asked in surprise.

"Thin, tired: the GG has decided you're working too hard."

"Because I don't use Vano." I grinned, having waited long to put that
one across.

"Be serious and listen--"

"_You_ listen: if I'm working too hard, it's to finish. I _must_, and
soon."

"This compulsion," she paced her words, "will kill you if you let it."

"It'll kill me if I don't let it--"

"Here comes Harry."

It was time. Blearily, I fumbled with the pills, spilled the bottle.
Frank helped me gather them up, as Harry arrived.

He said, a look of worry on his gaunt, gray features, "The rest of us
are waiting."

Concerned, Frank asked, "Think you're able?"

"Anytime you say," I answered, in a cold-sober monotone.

She flushed, knowing I was sober, not knowing certainly if I were
serious.

* * * * *

When we were seated, I said enthusiastically, "Chateaubriand tonight,
gangsters."

The GG did not react as expected.

Dex, the electronics engineer, said quietly, "If it's steak when the
ground is broken, what'll it be when the thing is finished?"

"A feast, for all the animals in the world--just like
Suleiman-bin-Daoud." This, from the GG writer, Mel.

Their faces showed the same thing that bothered Frank.

Harry said, "We have something to do."

"Well, do it!" I tried weak joviality: "It can't be anything of
earth-shaking gravity."

Hazel, long since accepted as a GG member, replied, "It's just that
we're ... resigned."

"_What?_"

"We've produced nothing in months of sustained effort. That's why we're
resigning," Dex replied disgustedly.

Frank touched my arm, said softly, "We've examined every angle. With the
money available, it's just impossible to give a sensation of changed
weight. And we know they've been pressuring you about us being on the
payroll."

"Wait"--desperately--"if you pull out, everything will go. The
opposition needs only something like this. Besides, the GG is the one
bit of insanity I can depend on in a practical world, the prop for my
judgment--"

Harry: "Clouded judgment."

Mel: "Expensive prop."

Having grown used to their fri