its along the scar paths. This is what the Americans called those
strips of country directly under the regular ship routes of the Hans,
who as a matter of precaution frequently blasted them with their dis
beams to prevent the growth of foliage which might give shelter to the
Americans. But they've been beaming those paths so hard, it looks as
though they even had information of this strategy. And in addition,
they've been using code. Finally, we've picked up three of their
messages in which they discuss, with some nervousness, the existence of
our 'mysterious' ultrophone."

"But they still have no knowledge of the nature and control of ultronic
activity?" I asked.

"No," said the Big Boss thoughtfully, "they don't seem to have a bit of
information about it."

"Then it's quite clear," I ventured, "that whoever is 'clearing' us to
them is doing it piecemeal. It sounds like a bit of occasional barter,
rather than an out-and-out alliance. They're holding back as much
information as possible for future bartering, perhaps."

"Yes," Hart said, "and it isn't information the Hans are giving in
return, but some form of goods, or privilege. The trick would be to
locate the goods. I guess I'll have to make a personal trip around among
the Big Bosses."

CHAPTER VIII

The Han City

This conversation set me thinking. All of the Han electrophone
inter-communication had been an open record to the Americans for a good
many years, and the Hans were just finding it out. For centuries they
had not regarded us as any sort of a menace. Unquestionably it had never
occurred to them to secrete their own records. Somewhere in Nu-yok or
Bah-flo, or possibly in Lo-Tan itself, the record of this traitorous
transaction would be more or less openly filed. If we could only get at
it! I wondered if a raid might not be possible.

Bill Hearn and I talked it over with our Han-affairs Boss and his
experts. There ensued several days of research, in which the Han records
of the entire decade were scanned and analyzed. In the end they picked
out a mass of detail, and fitted it together into a very definite
picture of the great central filing office of the Hans in Nu-yok, where
the entire mass of official records was kept, constantly available for
instant projectoscoping to any of the city's offices, and of the system
by which the information was filed.

The attempt began to look feasible, though Hart instantly turned the
idea down when I fi