“First, I must reenforce what the Jew has told you. The renegade is a savage, dangerous enemy. The murder of Poulos demonstrates that, and no one knows who will be next if we don’t stop him.”

“You don’t call him the Rajah?”

“No. I’m not so sure as Hilly because the Rajah doesn’t make sense to me as a vendettist. Why? There’s no reason I can think of. I hold that it might be anyone, including myself. Trust no one. Be on your guard.”

“D’you think it might be Guess?”

“Not likely. He’s merely the human switchboard that makes all this possible. The problem: How do you kill the switchboard? Shut up, Nat. You don’t know where I’m headed.”

“Poison is out. Just an hors d’oeuvre.”

“So is gas.”

“It’s got to be an external killing.”

“A stab through the heart, like Poulos.”

“Or a burn.”

“Blow him up, like the attempt on Guig.”

“Simple beheading.”

“Ugh!”

“Yes, we know. You nearly accompanied Danton in the tumbril.”

“Whatever happened to Dr. Guillotine, by the way?”

“Died in bed, not regretted.”

“If you want a neat, tasteful death, shoot Guess into space.”

“How would that kill him?”

“Radiation exposure. Vacuum malnutrition. Or he might explode from internal air pressure.”

“Be realistic. How can you shoot a naked man into space? Tie him to the nose of a rocket vehicle?”

“Then put him in a capsule and shoot him into the sun. That would ionize the package into a fizz.”

“And how would we put him together again?”

“What?”

“That’s the point. We can’t lose him.”

“Then why the talk about killing him?”

“To bring us face to face with the problem. How do we kill the switchboard without killing Guess? That’s where I was headed, Nat.”

“I apologize, Guig.”

“It is a puzzle.”

“Almost a paradox. How do you kill a man without killing him?”

“What about a time-shoot back six months so I can abort this damned crisis before it started?”

“It won’t work.”

“Why not, Herb?”

“You’ll be a ghost.”

“There ain’t no such thing.”

“I’ve tried it. I can’t shoot a man into his own lifetime. The cosmos won’t tolerate two identicals. One of them has to be a phantasma.”

“Which?”

“The second.”

“So possession is nine points of space-time, and we’re back where we started. How do we abort the contact-catalyst without harming Guess?”

“You’re not on target, Guig.”

“N? W?”

“It isn’t a question of killing the switchboard. Kill the computer.”

“S! P! C! So obvious that it never occurred to me.”

“You’re too close to it. That’s why you needed us.”

“I’ll deal some demurrers. The Guess-Extro symbiosis is unique. It should be explored.”

“Too dangerous to delay. The situation is critical. Gottenu! I can feel the hot breath of the Rajah breathing down my neck.”

“If the symbiosis is destroyed, a similar one may never occur again.”

“The sacrifice must be made if we’re to survive.”

“If the Extro is killed have we any guarantee that it will stop the renegade?”

“It will. Not altogether, but to a great extent.”

“How do you figure that?”

“He didn’t start his war until after the Guess-Extro connection was established. When that’s destroyed he’ll be crippled; still deadly but manageable.”

“The Group has always hated killing.”

“N hatred for killing the renegade. He’s a mad dog.”

“Y. I only wish I knew why; it might make the problem easier to solve. Now let’s tackle the next question: How do I get at the Extro?”

“You’re taking this on yourself?”

“I must. I’m driven. How do I kill the Extro?”

“Fire. Explosion. Metal-burn. Power cut. Etcetera.”

“Without its knowledge that an attack is being mounted?”

“Are you sure that it will know?”

“That goddamn Squatter with its ragtag network knows everything we do, every move we make.”

“Only provided Guess is in contact to make the circuitry possible.”

“Have we any guarantee he’ll remain buried in the salt mines?”

“N. We might try kidnapping Guess.”

“How, without the knowledge of the Extro? The moment we haul Guess up to the surface that spying network will be activated, and you know goddamn well that a Moleman can’t be drugged unconscious.”

“You’re driving too hard, Guig. Let’s cool it.”

“I can’t. When I think of Fee-5 and Poulos, the Shortie killings, the — No, I’ll cool it. Back to business. Calmly. The Extro knows everything we do and maybe everything we think. What can I use to outflank it?”

“Hic-Haec-Hoc,” No-Name said.

My jaw dropped. This? From Mr. Nothing? Outclassed even by him.

“He can’t think. He can’t speak. He’s a blank.”

“But he obeys signs. Thank you, No-Name. Thank you all. If Sam Pepys can be located and can tell me where to locate Hic, I’ll bring him and we’ll try.”

But I tried the time-shot first, anyway, and H.G. Wells was right; I was a ghost, invisible and inaudible. Worse, I was like a two-dimensional phone projection. I oozed. I oozed through bods and buildings and I felt damned sorry for ghosts. Herb and I had pinpointed my spot very carefully and I was shot to JPL and oozed my way to the astrochem lab just as the crowd of afflicted stockholders was hacking and coughing its way out right through me. Uncanny.

When I oozed in, Edison was barking with laughter. “That damn fool girl brought you fuming nitric acid. Fuming. And the fumes have turned this room into one big nitric-acid bath. Everything’s being eaten away.”

“Did you see her do it? Did you see the label? Why didn’t you stop her?” The Chief sounded furious.

“No. No, and no. I’ve deduced it. Not an Emergent, just a Resultant.”

“Dear God! Dear God! I’ve ruined the whole pitch to the U-Con crowd.”

Suddenly me did the take and let out a yell. I didn’t like his looks but I suppose nobody likes their own looks.

“What’s the matter, Guig?” the Group called. “Are you hurt?”

“No, you damn fools, and that’s why I’m hollering. I’m Grand Guignol triumphant. Don’t you understand? Why didn’t he know it was fuming nitric acid? Why didn’t he choke on the fumes? Why isn’t he eaten away now? Why wasn’t he forced to run out with Fee and the rest? Think about it while I revel.”

After a long moment, the Syndicate said, “I never believed in your campaign, Guig. I apologize. It was a million to one against, so I hope you’ll pardon me.”

“You’re pardoned. You’re all pardoned. We’ve got another Molecular Man. We’ve got a brand new beautiful Moleman. Still there, Uncas?”

“I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“Take a deep breath of nitric. Belt down a stiff shot. Do anything you like to celebrate. Welcome to the Group.”

And as we all left the astrochem and joined the hacking stockholders outside, he disappeared, but this time the pseudo-me followed him as he slipped out through a side iris and loped down a ramp, the ghost following and hollering. What I said was shouted and screamed: “Chief, it’s me, Guig. Listen! Hear me! Danger ahead. Hear?”

He didn’t hear me, see me, or feel me; just went about his pokerface excape. It was one of the most frustrating and exasperating experiences of my life, and I was relieved when Herbie Wells’ mantis snatched me back. Herb saw my expression and shrugged helplessly.

“I told you it was a lemon,” he said.

So Natoma and I waited on standby for the outjet to Saturn VI, otherwise known as the moon, Titan. Standby because it was strictly a bribe transaction. We submitted to the search for flammable materials without complaint. Titan has a methane atmosphere, poisonous and explosive when spiked with fluorine. Methane is also known as marsh gas, produced by the decompositon of organic matter.

People who don’t travel think all satellites are alike; rocky, sandy, volcanic. Titan is a mass of frozen organic material, and cosmologists are still arguing about that. Was the sun hotter? Was Titan an inner planet (it’s bigger than Terra’s moon) snatched by Jupiter and delivered to Saturn without charge? Was it seeded by cosmonauts from deep space ages ago who abandoned our solar system in disgust?