get results.

He turned back to his men. "Anything yet?"

"Nothing but ordinary state papers so far, sir," was the consensus.

"Keep looking. Remember, we especially want any mention of any planets
whose names you do not recognize; anything about ship-building, or about
mining or other planets."

Hanlon handed Hawarden a note, and the admiral sent a couple of marines
off on a run. Half an hour later a truck pulled up in front, and the
marines carried in another desk. It was the one from that back room in
the Bacchus Tavern.

Hanlon himself went through this, but was quickly disappointed. There
wasn't a thing he wanted in any of the drawers. He turned the desk
upside down, looking for secret compartments. Finding none, he ordered
the marines to take it to pieces. At a nod from the admiral they
dismantled the desk.

But it was perfectly innocuous.

Hanlon was just turning away, disgustedly, when a man came from the zoo
with the caged toogan. At sight of the familiar room the bird perked up.

"Hey, Boss!" it called out in a clear but whistling sort of voice, "I'm
home again." Hanlon had no trouble understanding its words, spoken in
Simonidean, of course, but was busy examining its mind. He walked over
to the messenger and held out his hand. "I'll take the bird."

The zoo attendant looked at him doubtfully. "It's a vicious thing, sir,"
he said. "Be careful--it's already injured one man. They say no one but
the Prime Minister can handle it."

"It's all right," the admiral spoke. "Thank you for bringing it. That
will be all."

Hanlon took the cage and, giving the admiral a meaning look, walked out
of the room with it.

Chapter 23

In the next room George Hanlon sank into a comfortable chair, then
opened the cage door and the toogan fluttered out and perched on the
chair arm. The young man fitted his mind more closely to the bird's
brain and began probing. Carefully he studied its every line and
channel, utterly oblivious to everything else.

His first brief examination brought a slight sound of pleased surprise
to his lips. This bird had a real mind, far better than any he had
previously discovered in any animal or bird, even better than a dog's.
And he could read everything in it.

Best of all, the toogan had a pictorial type of mind--it remembered in
scenes as well as words. It transmitted an almost perfect likeness of
the being Hanlon had first known as The Leader and later as His Highness
Gorth