His head was down, his eyes closed, when he hung up. When he opened his eyes, he was looking at the dead cat in the basket.

"Katharine!"

"Yessir."

"Will you have somebody bury this cat."

"We wondered what you wanted to do with it."

"God knows what I had in mind." He looked at the corpse and shook his head. "God knows. Maybe a Christian burial; maybe I hoped she'd come around. Get rid of it right away, would you?"

He stopped by Katharine's desk on his way home and told her not to worry about the glowing jewel on the seventh meter from the bottom, fifth row from the left, on the east wall.

"Beyond help," he said. Lathe group three, Building 58, had been good in its day, but was showing wear and becoming a misfit in the slick, streamlined setup, where there was no place for erratic behavior. "Basically, it wasn't built for the job it's doing anyway. I look for the buzzer to go off any day now, and that'll be the end."

In each meter box, in addition to the instrument, the jewel, and the warning lamp, was a buzzer. The buzzer was the signal for a unit's complete breakdown.

Chapter Two

THE SHAH OF BRATPUHR, spiritual leader of 6,000,000 members of the Kolhouri sect, wizened and wise and dark as cocoa, encrusted with gold brocade and constellations of twinkling gems, sank deep into the royal-blue cushions of the limousine - like a priceless brooch in its gift box.

On the other side of the limousine's rear seat sat Doctor Ewing J. Halyard, of the United States Department of State, a heavy, florid, urbane gentleman of forty. He wore a flowing sandy mustache, a colored shirt, a boutonniere, and a waistcoat contrasting with his dark suit, and wore them with such poise that one was sure he'd just come from a distinguished company where everyone dressed in this manner. The fact was that only Doctor Halyard did. And he got away with it beautifully.