Navy admirals; they have the privilege of
the floor in Parliament, they take orders from nobody but the
President of the Federation. But very few people have ever seen one,
or talked to anybody who has.

And Bish Ware--_good ol' Bish; he'sh everybodysh frien'_--was one of
them. And I had been trying to make a man of him and reform him. I'd
even thought, if he stopped drinking, he might make a success as a
private detective--at Port Sandor, on Fenris! I wondered what color
my face had gotten now, and I started looking around for a crack in
the floor, to trickle gently and unobtrusively into.

And it should have been obvious to me, maybe not that he was an
Executive Special, but that he was certainly no drunken barfly. The
way he'd gone four hours without a drink, and seemed to be just as
drunk as ever. That was right--just as drunk as he'd ever been; which
was to say, cold sober. There was the time I'd seen him catch that
falling bottle and set it up. No drunken man could have done that; a
man's reflexes are the first thing to be affected by alcohol. And the
way he shot that tread-snail. I've seen men who could shoot well on
liquor, but not quick-draw stuff. That calls for perfect
co-ordination. And the way he went into his tipsy act at the
_Times_--veteran actor slipping into a well-learned role.

He drank, sure. He did a lot of drinking. But there are men whose
systems resist the effects of alcohol better than others, and he must
have been an exceptional example of the type, or he'd never have
adopted the sort of cover personality he did. It would have been
fairly easy for him. Space his drinks widely, and never take a drink
unless he _had_ to, to maintain the act. When he was at the Times with
just Dad and me, what did he have? A fruit fizz.

Well, at least I could see it after I had my nose rubbed in it. Joe
Kivelson was simply gaping at him. The Reverend Zilker seemed to be
having trouble adjusting, too. The shipyard man and the chemical
engineer weren't saying anything, but it had kicked them for a loss,
too. Oscar Fujisawa was making a noble effort to be completely
unsurprised. Oscar is one of our better poker players.

"I thought it might be something like that," he lied brazenly. "But,
Bish ... Excuse me, I mean, Mr. Ware..."

"Bish, if you please, Oscar."

"Bish, what I'd like to know is what you wanted with Ravick," he said.
"They didn't send any Executive Special Agent here for five years to
investig