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is.”
    “Well, this makes it absolutely essential for us to make Bassett lose patience with his own ability to solve the Ymiran problem. Could you imagine him refusing to jump at a real live Ymiran, right here on Earth?”
    “There are Ymirans on Earth,” objected Falconetta. “They have an embassy in Rio about four blocks from Bassett’s head office.”
    “But they staff the place with the least corruptible and most masochistic of the faithful. Since Jaroslav, there hasn’t been anyone there capable of thinking for himself.”
    “When I think of the Ymirans I’ve met,” Ram said quietly, “I begin to wonder if Bassett might not be doing them a favor if he went ahead unchecked.”
    “They are a bunch of frigid, unthinking dullards, aren’t they?” Counce agreed. “But look at it this way. No amount of external examination will reveal the solution to the Ymiran problem. No one except ourselves could realize its true nature. Bassett would doubtless think that to get his hands on a native Ymiran, study him, drain his mind of every subjective impression he recalls, would enable him to solve the problem. When he finds that’s not enough after all, the letdown may be sufficient for him to give in and call on us for help.”
    “It strikes me as being very feasible,” said Ram. “But for one thing. How do you propose getting such an Ymiran to Bassett?”
    “Ask Jaroslav. If anyone can manage it, he can. He’s told us that not all the younger generation on Ymir are as mentally fogbound as their elders. We must bring one of the most alert young people to Earth–by orthodox ship. If Bassett found memories of travel by transfax in the subject’s mind, he’d recognize our hand in the matter and know he was being fooled.”
    “This isn’t going to be exactly a pleasant experience for the Ymiran Jaroslav selects, is it?” put in Falconetta.
    “Very unpleasant. But Jaroslav is about due to become the first, as distinct from the only, recruit we’ve had from Ymir. If he hasn’t a suitable person in mind, I’ll have some very unkind comments to make. But if he has, then I think the person he sends will be more than compensated for what he has to undergo by joining us later.”
    “Fair enough,” nodded Falconetta. Counce glanced at Ram, and after a moment the white head inclined in agreement.
    “Right. I’ll go arrange it with Jaroslav,” said Counce, pulling himself to his feet. “Ram, can you get enough power on this transfax to ship me to Ymir?”
    “It’s not the transfax that’s the problem, but the propulsor pile of the submersible,” said Ram dubiously. “This will probably drain its fissiles past their half-life. But I suspect the urgency justifies it. Please go ahead.”
    He rose from his chair and gave his habitual courtly bow; Falconetta smiled and lifted one slim beringed hand in salutation. In the middle of his own parting gesture, Counce found himself under a different sun.

CHAPTER V

    Temperamentally, reflected Bassett, Lecoq and himself were ill-suited. If only he could find another man with such a gift for improvisation, but without Lecoq’s irascibility and tendency to work himself up into a frenzy … He dismissed the thought. He had looked hard and long for a substitute for Lecoq, but, though Bassett was always careful not to let him know it, Lecoq had made himself indispensable.
    Now he raised a hand to cut short the subordinate’s flow of words. “Lecoq!” he said sharply. “Sit down, have a cigar, and shut up for a moment. Suppose we look at this matter with a bit more detachment–”
    “Detachment!” snarled Lecoq. “With a situation like this facing us, how can we even pretend to be detached?”
    “I said shut up and sit down,” Bassett repeated levelly, and Lecoq, grumbling, subsided.
    For a moment Bassett did not go on. He turned his head to the picture window at the right of his desk; made of one-way glass for privacy, it gave him a view from the vantage point of