Smith came over and looked into the screen.

“Hello, Ralph,” Katz said to him, then looked back to Bert. “The doctor is one of your, ah, advisers. Anything else, Alshuler?”

“No, I suppose not, except that when I got back to my rooms here, I caught a jittery type prowling my luggage. He wanted to know what it was you wanted to see me about.”

Leonard Katz looked startled. “What was his name?”

“He was a bit on the secretive side. But emphatic. He pulled a gun on me and insisted I tell him.”

The professor’s eyes widened. “What did you do?”

“What could I do?” Bert said sarcastically. “I offered to take it away from him if he didn’t get the hell out.”

Dr. Smith leaned over again and said, excitement in his voice, “As I approached this place, I saw him coming out of Alshuler’s apartment…”

“Hold it,” Katz said. “We’ll discuss it later. Anything else, my dear Alshuler?”

“Listen, if this project of yours involves people who don’t know how to handle guns, I’d like to put it on the record that it makes me nervous.”

“According to your Ability Quotient tests, you don’t get nervous,” Leonard Katz said. He looked at Dr. Smith. “Get him out of there,” he said, and evidently flicked off the phone.

Doctor Smith looked at Bert. “How long will it take you to pack?”

“About two minutes. I’m already packed. But why?”

“I haven’t the time to go into details now. Please get your things and come with me.”

Bert shrugged his disgust and began putting the few odds and ends he had removed from his bags, back into them. He had two medium large suitcases and a highly battered smaller one. He handed the smaller one to the self-named Doctor Smith.

“Here you are, Ralph,” he said.

The other took it, as though grudgingly, possibly because it looked so very proletarian compared to his get-up. But he led the way out the door and to the elevator banks, and jittered unhappily, looking up and down the hall, while they waited.