Wakeman glanced up and caught Verrick's eye. He smiled faintly and said nothing; but his attitude clearly showed. Eleanor Stevens had turned rigid as stone. Cheeks flushed, body taut with feeling, she waited out Benteley's uneasy words. As soon as he had finished, she snapped into life. She carefully hurried the plastic bust out of the office and then returned, hand held out.

"I want your p-card, Mr. Benteley. We have to have it."

Benteley, numbed, turned over his card. There it went, once again.

"Who's this fellow?" Verrick rumbled, with a wave toward Benteley.

"He swore on just now. An 8-8." Eleanor nervously grabbed up her things from the desk; between her breasts her good luck charms dangled and vibrated excitedly. "I'll get my coat."

"8-8? Biochemist?" Verrick eyed Benteley with interest. "Is he any good?"

"He's all right," Wakeman said. "What I teeped seemed to be top-notch."

Eleanor hurriedly slammed the closet door, threw her coat around her bare shoulders, and stuffed her pockets full. "He just came in, from Oiseau-Lyre." She rushed breathlessly up to join the group clustered around Verrick. "He doesn't know, yet."

Verrick's heavy face was wrinkled with fatigue and worry, but a faint spark of amusement lit his deep-set eyes, the hard gray orbs far down in the ridge of thick brow-bone. "The last crumbs, for awhile. The rest goes to Cartwright, the Prestonite." He addressed Benteley, "What's your name?"

They shook hands, as Benteley mumbled his name. Verrick's massive hand crunched his bones in a death-grip as Benteley feebly asked, "Where are we going? I thought—"