th him, eh? That's
a dear."

He racked up the instrument and smiled at me as he stoked his pipe
into more activity. "Relax," he advised me. "It always takes a while
to round up Fred Stone."

He wanted no small talk, so I fidgeted in my chair while Cleary rocked
gently in his. In about ten minutes, curly-headed Sylvia brought Dr.
Stone in with her.

* * * * *

It was, "Hello, Fred," and "Hello there, Paul," when they came in.
Sylvia didn't have anything to say, although she gave me a hot-eyed
glance before pulling out the dictation board on Paul Cleary's desk
and making herself comfortable with her notebook.

Cleary offered Doc Stone some of his tobacco, which was politely
refused. The old man began it:

"Your Dr. Seaman has quite an idea, Fred," he said, in a mild, kindly
voice, with a dumb, guileless look on his face.

"Good, Paul," Doc Stone smiled thinly. "I've told you he's a good
boy."

"Hm-m-m," said Cleary. "He says his tests can't prove what went wrong
with the switching gate on the satellites, and in effect that the
telemetry doesn't make it plain whether we have design or assembly
trouble."

"Well, _well_!" said Fred Stone. I decided to start shopping for a
marker for my grave.

"Yes," Cleary said. "He made quite a suggestion, that we send a man
out in space to look over the Telstars and find out what went wrong.
Even better, he says it might be possible to make a repair at the same
time and get the bird working. You can see the advantages of doing
that, the way they are orbiting."

"Yes, indeed," Doc Stone said, looking at me with slitted eyes. "Quite
a unique adventure for some technician."

"Just what I was thinking," Cleary said. "The problem resolves into:
Who do we send? Now Mike, here, says we should take a man from his lab
who knows the bird and its assembly and teach him how to get around in
a spacesuit--that, he claims, would be quicker than taking one of
these space jockeys and making a technician out of him."

"I think he's right."

"So--there we are. Who do we send?"

"There can hardly be any choice," Dr. Stone said, looking at me with
eyes like granite.

"Hardly," Cleary agreed. "The head of the lab is the best man, beyond
a doubt."

They were talking about me! Try to get out of taking sides, would I?
Cleary wanted me back in the middle. Stone wanted me dead. They were
both likely to get their way, unless I told them off.

I opened my mout