moment. "I keep
forgetting you're too bright for your own good." Then a slow smile
spread over his face. "Would you _really_ like to know?"

"I wouldn't have asked otherwise," Mike said.

"Fine. Because you're just the man we need."

Mike the Angel could almost feel the knife blade sliding between his
ribs, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that the person who had
stabbed him in the back was himself. "What's that supposed to mean,
Wally?"

"You are, I believe, an officer in the Space Service Reserve," said
Basil Wallingford in a smooth, too oily voice. "Since the Engineering
Officer of the _Branchell_, Jack Wong, is laid up in a hospital, I'm
going to call you to active duty to replace him."

Mike the Angel felt that ghostly knife twist--hard.

"That's silly," he said. "I haven't been a ship's officer for five
years."

"You're the man who designed the power plant," Wallingford said sweetly.
"If you don't know how to run her, nobody does."

"My time per hour is worth a great deal," Mike pointed out.

"The rate of pay for a Space Service officer," Basil Wallingford said
pleasantly, "is fixed by law."

"I can fight being called back to duty--and I'll win," said Mike. He
didn't know how long he could play this game, but it was fun.

"True," said Wallingford. "You can. I admit it. But you've been
wondering what the hell that ship is being built for. You'd give your
left arm to find out. I know you, Golden Wings, and I know how that mind
of yours works. And I tell you this: Unless you take this job, you'll
_never_ find out why the _Branchell_ was built." He leaned forward, and
his face loomed large in the screen. "And I mean absolutely _never_."

For several seconds Mike the Angel said nothing. His classically
handsome face was like that of some Grecian god contemplating the
Universe, or an archangel contemplating Eternity. Then he gave Basil
Wallingford the benefit of his full, radiant smile.

"I capitulate," he said.

Wallingford refused to look impressed. "Damn right you do," he said--and
cut the circuit.

7

Two days later Mike the Angel was sitting at his desk making certain
that M. R. GABRIEL, POWER DESIGN would function smoothly while he was
gone. Serge Paulvitch, his chief designer, could handle almost
everything.

Paulvitch had once said, "Mike, the hell of working for a first-class
genius is that a second-class genius doesn't have a chance."

"You could start your own firm," Mike h