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concentrate on the work he himself was supposed to be doing, he went outside. It was a gray sullen day, with a sharp damp wind coming in off the sea. He walked slowly down the path to the shore. Although remaining within earshot of the callscreen alarm, he was out of the noise range of the generators. It was very quiet. There was no sound but that of the sea, washing without haste against the rocks.
    A hectic three days later Charles Grayner , waiting in Professor Koupal’s Berkeley apartment, received permission to see his former manager, Ledbetter. Permission had been granted by Caston and Stenner , the two officials from Contact Section who had been assigned to investigate Sara’s disappearance. As far as those two worthies were concerned, they had constructed a closed case for suicide on Sara’s part; they had theorized she had never recovered from Humayan’s death—she had never really been persuaded that he had not been murdered. Sara’s father, whom Charles never got to see in the flesh, had also, according to Caston and Stenner , committed suicide—having left a note indicating he intended to do so, feeling that there was nothing left for him to live for after he presumed that his daughter had taken her own life. Charles, however, was unconvinced. Not only had the bodies not been found, though every means had been taken to locate them, without an iota of success, but there had been a curious something left by Sara which had not been satisfactorily explained— before she had disappeared, she had put in her finger-watch to be re-charged. But Charles was not sure that he was going to underline this fact to Ledbetter. He did intend, he thought, to stand by his conviction that Koupal and his daughter had been kidnaped.
    Charles took the Detroit stratoliner , and was there by eleven. He took a gyro-taxi direct to the UC building, and made himself known at Inquiries. The girl looked at her record board.
    “Official Grayner ? For the Manager. You’re to go down right away.”
    Ledbetter rose to meet him as he entered the room, waved him to a chair, and said: “Well, for such a short stay, you’ve managed to run into plenty of trouble.”
    “A certain amount of death and vanishment .” Ledbetter looked startled. “What? Oh, I see. No, I wasn’t thinking of that” He held up a couple of reports. “I meant these. ‘Failure to comply with Regulations twenty-nine (iii) and forty-two (vii). Breach of Regulation twenty-nine (ix). Unnecessary invocation of Regulation one hundred and twelve ( i ).’ Shall I translate? You notified the fact of your assistant being missing to an outside source before getting in touch with Mettrill , after previously giving her the use of your gyro, again without higher confirmation. You left your lab without getting in touch with Mettrill . And you insisted on bypassing Mettrill to give me your views on the situation, a course which is only justifiable in Regulations when a real suspicion of victimization can be established.” Ledbetter put down the reports and looked at Charles across the desk. His face was expressionless.
    “There’s another report from Contact which refers to your mental attitude; I gather that at least some of this has already been explained to you.”
    Ledbetter paused; there was an obvious implication that Charles should launch into some kind of explanation or defense. He refused the chance, and remained silent. Ledbetter gave him a little longer, while he tossed the reports back into his file tray. Then his blank expression broke, and he grinned.
    “I told you you would like Mettrill . No reason why you two shouldn't have got on together, except that a minor crisis blew up. Mettrill isn't good in a crisis. You did the right thing in coming to me. I can sort this lot out fairly easily."
    Ledbetter leaned back and looked at his cigarette. “It's the future we have to consider. I’m not promising anything, but there's a chance I may be able to swing