Pat said sharply, 'What are you doing, Sal ? Why are you talking to Jim like that ?' She peered about nervously. 'Suppose someone overheard.'

'I'm trying to jerk him out of his depression,' Sal said. 'I don't like to see him give in to them.

Those CLEAN pickets upset him, but he doesn't recognize it or feel it consciously.' He eyed Jim.

'I've heard you say it many times. "I can't be hurt." Hell, you sure can. You were hurt just now.

You want everyone to love you, White and Col both. I don't know how you ever got into politics in the first place. You should have stayed a newsclown, delighting young and old. Especially the very young.'

Jim said, 'I want to help the human race.'

'By changing the ecology of the planets ? Are you serious ?'

'If I'm voted into office I actually intend to appoint Bruno Mini, without even having met him, director of the space program; I'm going to give him the chance they never let him have, even when they - '

'If you get elected, ' Pat said, 'you can pardon Dr Sands.'

'Pardon him ?' He glanced at her, disconcerted … 'He's not being tried; he's being divorced.'

'You haven't heard the rumes ?' Pat said. 'His wife is going to dig up something criminal he's done so she can dispatch him and obtain their total property. No one knows what it is yet but she's hinted - '

'I don't want to hear,' Jim Briskin said.

'You may be right,' Pat said thoughtfully. 'The Sands divorce is turning nasty; it might backfire if you mentioned it, as Sal wants you to. The mistress, Cally Vale, has disappeared, possibly murdered. Maybe you do have an instinct, Jim. Maybe you don't need us after all.'

'I need you,' Jim said, 'but not to embroil me in Dr Sands' marital problems.' He sipped his drink.

Rick Erickson, repairman for Pethel Jiffi-scuttler Sales & Service, lit a cigarette, tipped his stool back by pushing with his bony knees against his work bench. Before him rested the master turret of a defective jiffi-scuttler. The one, in fact, which belonged to Dr Lurton Sands.