Harry said, "Some of us hide it better than others."

Captain Lee Arteria opened the folder and removed the single sheet of paper it contained. Do allfiles start asinnocuously as this? One sheet; but destined to multiply, like a bacterial colony. Trees die so that we may keep dossiers.

Arteria looked up and caught the eye of Captain Machtley, the North Dakota liaison. The State Police agencies, fearful of being left out in the cold in the pursuit of the spacemen, had agreed to be coordinated through Arteria's Air Police.

"Why don't you fill us in on what this says, Captain?"

Machtley cleared her throat. "Her name is Sherrine Hartley. She lives in Minneapolis, but her grandparents live near the crash site; and the telephone company's records show that she called them the night of the crash."

"Well. That certainly sounds suspicious. Calling your grandparents."

"In the middle of the night? Besides, there's more," Machtley said happily.

Arteria replaced the sheet in the folder and closed it. "Tell me."

Machtley looked around the table at the others. That's right, thought Arteria. Share and share alike.

"Dakota Bell's data banks were scrambled the next day. If the off-line backup hadn't been done first thing in the morning, there would have been no record of Hartley contacting her grandparents. We suspect that the Legion of Doom was involved."

Lee was unconvinced. "The Legion of Doom has been sparring with the phone company since Day One. It might not be related."

"We would never have found the grandparents," Machtley insisted, "if we hadn't gone door to door. It was a neighbor who told us about the granddaughter in Minneapolis."

Arteria smiled. "I've always said that good old-fashioned police legwork beats these computerize searches for useful results. Moorkith and his Green Police are going nuts trying to straighten out their records. They're too damn lazy to hit the bricks."

"Don't forget the Motor Vehicle data banks," said Captain Conte, the Minnesota liaison. "They were scrambled, too. Remember when we tried to ID the maroon van?"

Machtley nodded. "That's an interesting point. Hartley's grandparents would have been on Moorkith's un-Green list, too; if it hadn't been hacked up. They are not the milk and cookie type at all. The old lady is a former gene-tamperer."

There was a general stirring around the table. "You're right," Arteria said. "Gene tampering does not sound good at all."

"It violates God's law," put in Captain Traxler, the Wisconsin liaison. "And it harms the ecology. Satan's work."

"We've started checking up on the Hartley woman," said Conte. "She was once reported as active in the science fiction underground."

Aha. "By whom?"

"Her ex-husband."

"Ex-husband. Was the report substantiated, or was it just a messy divorce?"

Conte shook his head. "Nothing was proven; and the records say she's kept her nose clean the last few years. But still, where there's smoke, there's usually fire."

Oh, well, thought Lee Artena, we never needed a Fourth Amendment, anyway. Start making exceptions in the need for probable cause and where did you stop? Not at sobriety checkpoints. "Does anyone else have anything concrete to add?"

Nobody spoke. After a moment, Arteria nodded. "Very well, Captains. Scrambling three separate databases relating to Hartley, her grandparents and the van. Machtley, that was good work. It would be one hell of a thick coincidence." And there is a definite whiff of fannishness about Hartley. Gafiated years ago, but still has connections. "Hartley may have been the woman in the van at Fargo Gap. It's worth following up. Captain Conte?"

"Yes?"

"I think we should pay this Sherrine Hartley a visit, don't you? And…" Arteria leaned back in the chair and contemplated the ceiling. "I don't think there is any reason to let the Green Police or the INS into this quite yet. Let's wait until we have more to show before we let them share the credit."

The grins of the other captains showed that they knew quite well how to share credit.

Oliver Brown had the entire fourth floor of an older apartment building. There was no elevator. They carried the Angels up the stairs using sheets for hammocks.

The building looked old and run down, but the apartment was light and clean. Books were stacked everywhere, in book cases, in piles on the floor, on every flat surface.

Violetta introduced her father. He was a little taller than Sherrine, portly, with dark hair and a distracted expression. He tend to mutter to himself when he wasn't talking. Like Samuel Johnson, Sherrine thought. He ushered them through the living room to another room piled high with even more books.

Bruce and Mike were there.

"I see Harry found you," Bruce said.

"Yes. He said Wade Curtis sent him," Bob said.

"I work for Wade," Harry said.

"Doing what?"

"Gopher. Booklegger. Postman. Whatever needs doing." Harry grinned. "He said go hang around Ron Cole and see if anyone from Minicon shows up."

"But why--"

"He guessed?" Sherrine asked.

"Suspected," Jenny said. "He said maybe someone would come looking for a rocket ship."

"If somebody from Minicon comes looking for a rocket ship, tell 'em where to find one. That's what he told me to do. So here you are," said Harry.

"It doesn't work!" Sherrine said. She was near tears. "It never would have worked!"

"That pile of junk? Naw."

"Until we got here you didn't know that any better than the rest of us," Jenny said sharp.

Harry gave Jenny a pained look. "I knew it wouldn't work. Anyway, we got here just ahead of Bruce and Mike, and they said you were coming. Only you didn't come, and they couldn't wait for you at the museum."

Mike patted his ample bulk. "Too conspicuous."

"What happened to you?" Bruce asked.

"Long story," Fang said.

"So Jenny and I moved in," Harry said. He fished into his pockets and held out a handful of change and a couple of bills. "Not too bad a location. Some people still care. A little."

They heard footsteps outside. Violetta opened the apartment door. "Hi, Mom."

Mrs. Brown was bundled up against the cold so that she looked larger than her husband. She looked at the crowd sprawled around her living room and smiled thinly. "More of your godfather's friends?" she asked Violetta. "Glad to meet you, but I'm afraid I can't feed you all. We--!" She hesitated.

"Helga works at the university clinic," Oliver Brown said. "And I write science fiction. She doesn't get paid much but it's more than I make. What she's too embarrassed to say is that we can't afford to feed you."

"Will this help?" Sherrine handed her bag of cheese to Helga Brown.

"Cheese? Wisconsin cheese? Ollie! It's real, the real thing-But there's too much! I can trade this for a lot--"

"Go see what you can get for half of it," Oliver said. "Violetta, go with your mother."

"Maybe I better go, too," Harry said. "Tough neighborhood--"

"You have to tell your story," Violetta said. "IT get Roland. My boyfriend, he lives next door. He'll come with us."

"Fan?" Bob asked.

Violetta laughed. "My father is Oliver Brown, my mother is Helga Brown, my godfather is Wade Curtis. You figure it out."

"All right," Thor said. "Just what the hell is going on? We've chased all across Wisconsin. Lived through a blizzard, almost got enslaved by a crazy alderman, damn near caught by the cops, just so we can find out that Ron Cole is mad as a hatter and his rocket never was any good. Now you tell us--what in hell is it you want to tell us, Harry Czescu?"