ead run;
the overworked laundry staff, laboring in a veritable sweatshop of
steamy chaos, swamped in a billowing backlog of sheets and towels. It
all pointed to a large hotel operation.

If so, where were the rooms? Refusing to argue further with himself, he
got undressed. Hyperspace or not, the people apparently were there, and
it was his job to serve them. He got a bucket of ice from room-service,
mixed an ice and whiskey highball and retreated into his private little
world between crisp sheets and the pages of a twenty-five-cent mystery
novel.

Arising early, he was girded for the summons from Miss Genevieve Hafner
in room H-408. He went to her room. Fully dressed and in the daylight
she was still a hollow-eyed mess. The only visible improvement was in
the bleached bird's-nest, now a prim, rolled circle on her unlovely
pate.

"What amends," she demanded, "do you intend to make for my terrible
experience last night? Is that horrid creature in jail?"

"Experience? Jail?" Sextus asked innocent-eyed. He asked that she tell
him about it. Exasperated, she went over the details. When she finished
he patted her hand and pointed to the sleeping pills. "You should see
your doctor."

"But my doctor _prescribed_ those pills," she whimpered, looking down
shyly at the hand which Sextus held gingerly. "They never made me
dream--before."

He bent and kissed the revolting hand. "You are much too lovely a lady
to have escaped from such a predicament as you describe without
suffering--shall we say, a more romantic--fate?"

Miss Hafner blushed at the thought and wavered between outrage and
ecstasy for a dangerous moment. With time-tested genius, Sextus withdrew
quietly and left her to her thoughts.

He _must_ get in touch with Dr. Bradford, atom business or not. This
place could blow sky-high any minute.

He slipped the key into his own door and entered his suite. He took two
brisk strides into his bedroom, tripped over a lady's overnight case and
sprawled into his unmade bed. Even as he landed he realized it had an
occupant, a gorgeous, strangely familiar blonde creature, touselled and
asleep hugging her pillow with a creamy arm. A crash from the bathroom
brought his head bouncing off the silken coverlet even as the girl
awakened with a scream and tangled them both with the bed clothes.

Gary Gable charged from the bathroom, face dripping and a tuft of lather
under each ear. "What in the Goddam hell--" He leaped for Sextus