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All this could be cancelled with a single word, and anyway it was only nit-picking detail. The One Big Weeny still escaped me.
     
    I lit a cigarette, thought for a minute and said, ‘Honey get me some of the synoptic extracts of opinion-sampling from heads of families and particularly families containing some of the Children. I don’t want the integration or analysis. Just the raw interviews but with the scutwork left out.’
     
    And as soon as she was off the line the Chicago circuit came in with a message they’d been holding:
     
    Query from ASB-jr. Provided top is taken off budget and your hand is freed, can you guarantee, repeat guarantee, win on referendum question?
     
    It was not the response I had expected from them.
     
    Still, it was a legitimate question. I took a moment to think it over.
     
    Junior Bigelow had already given me a pretty free hand -as he always did; how else can a troubleshooter work? If he was now emphasizing that my hand was freed entirely, it would not be because he thought I hadn’t understood him in the first place. Nor would it be because he suspected I might be cheese-paring secretarial salaries. He meant one thing: Win, no matter what.
     
    Under those conditions, could I do it?
     
    Well, of course I could win. Yes. Provided I found the One Big Weeny. You can always win an election, any election anywhere, provided you are willing to pay the right price.
     
    It was finding the price to pay that was hard. Not just money. Sometimes the price you pay is a human being, in the role for which I had been lining up Connick. Throw a human sacrifice to the gods and your prayer is granted...
     
    But was Connick the sacrifice the gods wanted? Would it help to defeat him, bearing in mind that his opponent was one of the men who had been screaming at Knafti in the Truce Team suite? And if so - had my knife enough edge to drain his blood?
     
    Well, it always had had before. And if Connick wasn’t the right man, I would find the man who was. I messaged back, short and sweet, Yes.
     
    And in less than a minute, as though Junior had been standing by at the faxtape receiver, waiting for the word from me - and perhaps he had! - his reply came back:
     
    Gunner, we’ve lost the Arcturan Confederacy account. Arc Con liaison man says all bets are off. They’re giving notice of cancellation our contract, suggestion they will cancel entire armistice treaty too. I don’t have to tell you we need them. Some possibility that showing strong results in Belport will get them back. That’s what we have to play for. No holds barred, Gunner, win that election.
     
    The office circuit chimed then. Probably it was Candace, but I didn’t want to talk to her just then. I turned all the communication circuits to ‘hold’, stripped down, climbed into the shower, set it for full needle spray and let the water beat on me. It was not an aid to thought, it was a replacement for thought.
     
    I didn’t want to think any more. I wanted time out.
     
    I did not want to think about (a) whether the war would break out again, and, if so, in what degree I would have helped to bring that about; (b) what I was doing to Nice Guy Connick; (c) whether It Was All Worth It or (d) how much I was going to dislike myself that coming Christmas day. I only wanted to let the hot splash of scented water anaesthetize me. When my skin began to look pale and wrinkly, although I had not come to any conclusions or found any solutions, I came out, dressed, opened the communications circuits and let them all begin blinking, ringing, and winking at once.
     
    I took Candace first. She said, ‘Gunner! Dear lord, have you heard about the Armistice Commission? They’ve just released a statement—’
     
    ‘I heard. What else, honey?’
     
    Good girl, she shifted gears without missing a beat, ‘Then there was that meeting of civic leaders in the Truce Team suite—’
     
    ‘I saw. Feedback from the Armistice Commission’s statement. What