'Sorry to bother you,' Pat said. 'But everyone out here can hear you yelling.' Heim caught a glimpse, then, of the big outside room full of teen-age Briskinettes, uniformed young volunteers who had come from all over the country to help elect the Republican Liberal candidate.

'Sorry,' Heim murmured.

Pat entered the room and shut the door after her. 'I think Jim’s right, Sal.' Small, gracefully-built

- she had once been a dancer - Pat lithely seated herself and lit a cigar. 'The more naive Jim appears, the better.' She blew gray smoke from between her luminous, pale lifts. 'He still has a lingering reputation for being cynical. Whereas he should be another Wendell Wilkie.'

'Wilkie lost,' Heim pointed out.

'And Jim may lose,' Pat said; she tossed her head, brushing back her long hair from her eyes. 'But if he does, he can run again and win next time. The important thing is for him to appear sensitive and innocent, a sweet person who takes the world's suffering on his own shoulders because he's made that way. He can't help it; he has to suffer. You see ?'

'Amateurs,' Heim said, and groaned.

The TV cameras stood inert, as the seconds passed, but they were ready to begin; the time for the speech lay just ahead as Jim Briskin sat at the small desk which he employed when addressing the people. Before him, near at hand, rested Phil Danville's speech. And he sat meditating as the

TV technicians prepared for the recording.

The speech would be beamed to the Republican-Liberal Party's satellite relay station and from it telecast repeatedly until saturation point had been achieved. States Rights Conservative

Democrat attempts to jam it would probably fail, because of the enormous signal-strength of the

R-L satellite. The message would get through despite Tompkins Act, which permitted jamming of political material. And, simultaneously, Schwarz' speech would be jammed in return; it was scheduled for release at the same time.