of clerks began bringing
them in. Then there was the clink of glassware. He turned to see Miss
Cardston stiffly indicating a spot on the library table for the glasses
and the frosty bottles.

Hockley walked slowly to the table and filled one of the glasses. He
raised it slowly. "It's been a short life but a merry one, gentlemen."
He swallowed the contents of the glass too quickly and returned to his
desk.

"You don't sound very happy about the whole thing," said Mortenson, a
chemist who wore a neat, silvery mustache.

"Are you overjoyed," said Hockley, "that we are to swap the National Lab
for a bottomless encyclopedia?"

"Yes, I think so," said Mortenson. "There are some minor objections, but
in the end I'm certain we'll all be satisfied with what we get."

"Satisfied! Happy!" exclaimed the mathematician, Dr. Silvers. "How can
you use words so prosaic and restrained in references to these great
events which we shall be privileged to witness in our lifetimes?"

He had taken his stand by the library table and was now filling the
glasses with the clear, bubbling champagne, sloshing it with ecstatic
abandon over the table and the rug.

Hockley glanced toward him. "You don't believe, then, Dr. Silvers, that
we should maintain any reserve in regard to the Rykes?"

"None whatever! The gods themselves have stepped down and offered an
invitation direct to paradise. Should we question or hold back, or say
we are merely happy. The proper response of a man about to enter heaven
is beyond words!"

The bombast of the mathematician never failed to enliven any backroom
session in which he participated. "I have no doubt," he said, "that
within a fortnight we shall be in possession of a solution to the
Legrandian Equations. I have sought this for forty years."

"I think it would be a mistake to support the closing of the National
Laboratories," said Hockley slowly.

As if a switch had been thrown, their expressions changed. There was a
sudden carefulness in their stance and movements, as if they were
feinting before a deadly opponent.

"I don't feel it's such a bad bargain," said a thin, bespectacled
physicist named Judson. He was seated across the room from Hockley.
"I'll vote to sacrifice the Lab in exchange for what the Rykes will give
us."

"That's the point," said Hockley. "Exactly what are the Rykes going to
give us? And we speak very glibly of sharing their science. But shall we
actually be in any position to sha