ay anything, just think it. And see if you can
communicate with Graham._"

"Huh?" Ross had been looking directly at Bond. He frowned.

"_You mean, this thing--_" He paused, looking for a moment at Graham,
then took the headband off. "Thing doesn't feel good," he complained. He
held the device out to Bond, who accepted it.

"But it works? You could communicate both ways with it?"

"Oh, sure." Ross nodded grudgingly. "I got you, all right. But I
couldn't get a thing out of this guy." He wagged his head toward Graham.
"Except he was jittery about something."

"I see. Thanks." Bond accepted the headband. "We're going to take these
to Research," he added. "Let the technicians there find out how good
they are." He turned away and led Graham to his helicopter.

As Graham settled in the seat, he turned to the sector leader. "He just
couldn't use it properly," he remarked. "Maybe only certain people _can_
use them."

Bond nodded as he started the motor. "Or maybe only certain people
can't." He busied himself in getting the machine up through the landing
slot, then turned as they climbed into the night sky.

"Maybe you've got to be able to understand and like people before you
can establish full contact with them. Maybe ... Maybe a lot of things."
He was silent for a moment. "You know, this thing might become far more
valuable than you thought, Graham."

* * * * *

Howard Morely looked up from a memo as the clerk tapped on the door.

"Come in."

The man opened the door and stepped inside.

"Sector Leader Bond is here, sir. He has some gentlemen with him."

"And what does he want?"

"He said it was about that new communicator, sir."

"Oh." Morely turned his attention back to the memo. "Have them wait." He
waved a hand in dismissal and went on with his reading.

The beautification program was progressing well. Twenty miles of the old
main highway through the valley had been completely cleared and planted.
Crews were working on another stretch. The foreman of the wrecking crew
down at the point, in Sector Nine, reported that the last bit of scrap
had been removed from the old bridge support. Underwater crews had
salvaged the cables and almost all of the metal from the fallen bridge
itself, and the scrap was on the beach, ready for delivery to the
reclamation mills in District One.

Morely smiled sourly. Harwood would have a storage problem on his hands
in a day or so. The delay in