“I’ve got to find somebody who’s talking about it. Wait for it… Wait for it… Wait for it…”

“What do you hear when you listen?”

“Like the wind in a thousand wires. Ah! Here it is. 3968 Angstroms, in the extreme violet.”

“This kid is a treasure.”

“Don’t flatter her. She’s vain enough as it is.”

“I want her. I can use her at JPL. She’ll make an ideal assistant.”

“You’re not bugged,” Fee told him, “and you’re not being monitored. Did you know?”

“Yes, I know,” he said. “I suppose you are.”

“No,” I said. “Fee and I aren’t bugged because we’ve never been in a hospital. She was born in a movie house and I was born in a volcano.”

“I’m going back to JPL,” he muttered. “You’re all scrambled around here. Will you let her come and work for me?”

“If you can stand her, but she’s got to come home nights. I’m raising her old-fashioned. You’re not really serious about this, are you, Geronimo?”

“Damn serious. I won’t have to waste time teaching her the things an assistant ought to know. She can pick everything up reading the bugs. The people I’ve had to fire for illiteracy! Education in Spangland! Pfui!”

“So where were you educated that makes you so literate?”

“On the reservation,” he said grimly. “Indians are traditional. We still revere Sequoya and we’ve got the best schools in the world.” He groped inside the inexhaustible tutta, produced a silver medallion, and handed it to Fee. “Wear this when you come to JPL. It opens the front gate. You’ll find me in the Cryonics Section. Better wear something. It’s damned cold.”

“Russian sable,” Fee said.

“Does that mean she’s going to come?”

“If she wants to and if you pay my price,” I said.

He took the spectacles off her chest. “Oh, she wants to. She’s been batting her cockeyed boozalums at me without success and she never gives up.”