"Tell him to eradicate his thesis himself. At his own expense."

"There's no prestige in that." Her face on the vidscreen earnest, Charise pleaded, "It's really a dreadful piece of theorizing, Doug; it's as nutty as the day is long. This oaf, this Lance Arbuthnot--"

"That's his name?" It almost persuaded him. But not quite. In the course of a single day he received many such requests, and every one, without exception, came represented as a socially dangerous piece by a crank inventor with a goofy name. He had held his chair at Section B too long to be easily snared. But still--he had to investigate this; his ethical structure, his responsibility to society, insisted on it. He sighed.

"I hear you groaning," Charise said brightly.

Appleford said, "As long as he's not from the F.N.M."

"Well--he is." She looked--and sounded--guilty. "I think they threw him out, though. That's why he's here in Los Angeles and not there."

Rising to his feet, Douglas Appleford said stiffly, "Hello, Charise. I must leave now for work; I will not and cannot discuss this trivial matter further." And that, as far as he was concerned, ended that.

He hoped.

Arriving home to his conapt at the end of his shift, Officer Joe Tinbane found his wife sitting at the breakfast table. Embarrassed, he averted his gaze until she noticed him and rapidly finished filling her cup with hot, dark coffee.

"Shame," Bethel said reprovingly. "You should have knocked on the kitchen door." With haughty dignity she carefully placed the orange-juice bottle in the refrigerator, carried the now nearly full box of Happy-Oats to its concealment in the cupboard. "I'll be out of your way in a minute. My victual momentum is now just about complete." However, she took her time.

"I'm tired," he said, at last seating himself.

Bethel placed empty bowls, a glass, a cup, and a plate before him. "Guess what the 'pape says this morning," she said as she retired discreetly to the living room so that he, too, could disgorge. "That thug fanatic is coming here, that Raymond Roberts person. On a pug."