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Weldon was old, stooped, wrinkled, totally bald, and confined to his powered chair since his massive coronary more than a year earlier. The coronary, of course, had come in the midst of Tarantula's battle to avoid an unfriendly takeover by Etna Industries, a multinational corporation headquartered in Sicily and reputed to be a wholly owned Mafia subsidiary. A decidedly unfriendly takeover bid. The struggle was still going on, the battlefields were the stock exchanges of New York, London, and Rome, the law courts of Washington and Palermo. This war had already cost Weldon his health. Maybe his sanity.
    And there was no end in sight. The swarthy little men from Sicily had great persistence. And long memories. Hawks could feel the brooding Sicilians hovering over them, like dark angels of death, waiting for the chance to grab Tarantula in their rapacious claws.
    "You didn't get it," the Old Man snapped. His voice was as sharp and scratchy as an icepick scraping along a chalk board.
    "Not exactly," said Hawks from around his pacifier. His tone was meekly servile. He hated himself for it, but somehow in the face of the Old Man he always felt like a naughty little kid. Worse: an incompetent little kid.
    "And what do you mean by that?" Weldon laid his seltzer bottle on the blanket across his lap and drove the chair over to his desk. Its electric motor barely buzzed, it was so quiet. The once immaculate expanse of Philippine mahogany was now a miniature forest of unidentifiable potted plants. Hawks had to sit at just the right angle to see his boss through a clearing in the greenery.
    "The man we hired to copy the device used too strong an X-ray dose," Hawks confessed, feeling sheepish.
    "And? And?"
    "The hologram contains a complete three-dimensional picture of the device, but it's a very weak image. Blurred. Very difficult to make out any details."
    Weldon snorted. His wizened old face frowned at Hawks. "I see," he sneered. "If I want a perfect three-D image of a taxicab's rear axle, you can get it for me. But not the device we're after."
    Hawks felt a shudder of fright burn through him. He's bugged my office! He's been listening to everything that I do!
    Pointing a crooked, shaking finger at Hawks, the old man commanded, "You get the best people in NASA, or the air force, or wherever to work on that fudged hologram. I want to see that device!"
    Hawks swallowed again. Hard. "Yessir."
    "And get somebody who knows what he's doing to make another copy of it. Steal the damned thing if you have to!"
    "Right away, sir."
    Weldon's frown relaxed slightly. He almost smiled, a ghastly sight. "Now listen, son," he said, suddenly amiable. "Don't you understand how important this device is? It's going to revolutionize the publishing industry."
    "But publishing is such a small part of Tarantula," Hawks heard himself object. "Why bother . . ."
    He stopped himself because the old man's smile faded into a grimace.
    "How many times do I have to tell you," Weldon said sharply, "that publishing is the keystone to all of Tarantula's business lines? Control publishing and you control people's minds, their attitudes. Books and magazines and newspapers tell people what to think, how to vote, where to spend their money. How many idiots do you know who let the Times book reviews decide for them what's good reading and what isn't?"
    "But what about TV?" Hawks asked, unfazed by the non sequitur. "And even radio . . ."
    The old man snarled at him, making the jaguar's ears perk up. "Television? Are you serious?" He cackled. "Those Twinkies and egomaniacs get their ideas and their information from books and magazines and newspapers! Don't you understand that yet? Why do you think I put you in charge of our publishing subsidiary? Because I thought you were incompetent?"
    That was exactly why Hawks thought he had been made president of Webb Press. But he remained silent as Weldon continued:
    "Sure, Webb runs in the red every year. It's a good tax shelter for us;