nt," he said.

"Five hundred standard years," said Orne.

"And maybe no farther away than yesterday," murmured Stetson. He cleared
his throat.

* * * * *

And Orne wondered why Stetson was moving so cautiously. _Something deep
troubling him._ A sudden thought struck Orne. He said: "You spoke of
trust. Has this conspiracy involved the I-A?"

"We think so," said Stetson. "About a year ago, an R&R archeological
team was nosing around some ruins on Dabih. The place was all but
vitrified in the Rim War, but a whole bank of records from a Nathian
outpost escaped." He glanced sidelong at Orne. "The Rah&Rah boys
couldn't make sense out of the records. No surprise. They called in an
I-A crypt-analyst. He broke a complicated substitution cipher. When the
stuff started making sense he pushed the panic button."

"For something the Nathians wrote five hundred years ago?"

Stetson's drooping eyelids lifted. There was a cold quality to his
stare. "This was a routing station for key Nathian families," he said.
"Trained refugees. An old dodge ... been used as long as there've
been--"

"But five hundred _years_, Stet!"

"I don't care if it was five _thousand_ years!" barked Stetson. "We've
intercepted some scraps since then that were written in the _same_ code.
The bland confidence of _that_! Wouldn't that gall you?" He shook his
head. "And every scrap we've intercepted deals with the coming
elections."

"But the election's only a couple of days off!" protested Orne.

Stetson glanced at his wristchrono. "Forty-two hours to be exact," he
said. "Some deadline!"

"Any names in these old records?" asked Orne.

Stetson nodded. "Names of planets, yes. People, no. Some code names,
but no cover names. Code name on Chargon was _Winner_. That ring any
bells with you?"

Orne shook his head. "No. What's the code name here?"

_"The Head,"_ said Stetson. "But what good does that do us? They're sure
to've changed those by now."

"They didn't change their communications code," said Orne.

"No ... they didn't."

"We must have something on them, some leads," said Orne. He felt that
Stetson was holding back something vital.

"Sure," said Stetson. "We have history books. They say the Nathians were
top drawer in political mechanics. We know for a fact they chose landing
sites for their _refugees_ with diabolical care. Each family was told to
dig in, grow up with the adopted culture, develop the weak spo