when he can't get things exactly like you want them. The phone is working again so why can't Bang-Bang just make the calls right from here?"

"Well, okay," said Heller. "You're the captain on this voyage. But if we short-circuit Izzy, how do we pay?"

"Why," said the Countess Krak, brightly, "just put the pig trucks and the pigs and the farm on my Squeeza credit card, of course."

Bang-Bang leaped up. "It's wonderful to have that card. What would we do without it? I'll get on the phone at once."

Angrily, I thrust the viewer away. That woman! That fiend! Mudur Zengin would get down to the last pennies of the cash left in his hands and then that half-million-dollar Swiss certificate would be forfeit. Maybe it had already happened!

She was just doing it to ruin me.

They would be coming north now.

I must get on with the next item of my program without delay!

PLAN BEFORE YOU ATTACK.

I must have steel jaws open and ready to snap. And those jaws must have teeth!

I went over my basic outline. Apparently I was a little bit out of sequence. If one is going to attack, one must have something to attack with. It is no good, I discovered, to do a plan to use a tank and then have no

tank to gather. So I had better pay some attention to "4. GATHER WEAPONS BEFORE YOU ATTACK."

All right, what weapons could I gather? I looked around. I didn't have a tank. This was going to require real brains.

My eye happened to land on an old, decayed scrap of newspaper some cockroaches were towing possessively across the floor. I took it away from them. It said "... 'S MORALITY IN QUESTION."

It was an omen.

MORALITY!

I well knew Voltar customs were different. The tremendous life expectancy there meant that one had to be pretty sure who he or she was marrying before taking the plunge: otherwise one could be stuck with an unsuitable partner for a century and a half. So it was quite usual for a man and woman to live together for anything up to two years before tying the final knot. The only way you could get a "divorce" in the Confederacy was by finding the other partner guilty of bigamy or adultery and getting him executed, as the penalty for these was death. So marriage was a totally fatal step.

But Earth customs, I knew, were quite different. One was expected to take the plunge without any data at all on the other person. They frowned heavily at loose living, no matter how much they practiced it.

It was a weapon.

Instantly, I shook the cockroaches out of my clothes, dressed and rushed to 42 Mess Street.

Madison was sitting at his desk. His sincere and earnest face was somewhat overcast with cloud. I realized I had arrived in the nick of time.

"How is it going?" I said.

"Smith," said Madison gloomily, "we're not getting

front page the way we should. The Whiz Kid went into hiding in Kansas. It was a mistake."

"What's this fixation on Kansas?" I said.

"That's Jesse James country. We're still following the Jesse James image pattern, of course."

"What's the state of morality in Kansas?" I said.

"Morality? That is the Bible Belt. Bunch of hypocrites. Very hot on morality."

"Good," I said. "Now open your ears, Madison. The Whiz Kid is leading an immoral life. He is living with a woman to whom he is not married!"

Madison looked at me and blinked. Then he cupped his chin upon a palm and thought. Suddenly he smiled like the sun coming through the clouds on a stormy day. "I think you may have an idea there, Smith. Not very pro. Not polished, of course. But it is definitely a germ."

I didn't want to hear any more about germs. I left quickly.

I went back to the wino hotel. I am sure any self-respecting spider gloats when he has spun a web to trap flies coming his way. I turned my viewers on.

For some time I only got a flare on Heller's screen. Then suddenly it went off. He had alighted from the land yacht.

They were heading north!

The view I had was of the very service station where the gawky country boy had taught Heller all about cars on his original trip to Washington.

And there was the gawky country boy himself, staring wide-eyed at the huge land yacht.

Then suddenly the gawky country boy came forward and looked closer at Heller. "YOU!" he cried and stood standing there with his jaw dropped.

"Hello," said Heller. "How's business?"

"Good golly! Whereja get this big motor home? That's the flashiest vehicle I ever see!"

Heller said, "I think my girl stole it."

"Gosh!" said the gawky country boy in awe. "You look like you made it real good!" Then he looked behind the land yacht, his eye sweeping down the long length of the convoy which had now pulled off the highway and stood waiting their turns, evidently, at the pump. "Who are all these other people?"

"Call them my mob," said Heller.

"Holy smokes! You mean you're a big-time gangster now with a mob and everything?"

Heller said, "You got diesel for all these trucks?"

"You said it."

"And some water for the pigs?"

"PIGS?" cried the gawky country boy, staring at the convoy.

"Sure," said Heller. "We're taking them for a ride. They're squealers."

Bang-Bang's voice as he approached: "What's this about gangsters?"

Heller said to the boy, "Let me introduce Bang-Bang Rimbombo, the most notorious car bomber in New York."

"Gosh!" said the boy, pumping Bang-Bang's hand. But the rental trucks down the line were honking their horns. The boy hastily began to refuel the land yacht. Bang-Bang gave him a hand. In a voice that barely reached Heller, Bang-Bang said, to the boy, "When did you meet the boss?"

"Years ago," the boy said. "I'm the one who gave him his start. And look at him now!"

The Countess Krak came into Heller's view. She was rummaging in her purse. I realized in horror what

she was about to take out: to pay for all these hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel, she would use my Squeeza credit card!

I turned the viewers off hastily.

But never mind, flies. The web is spread and you are flying straight into it.

The attack might be slow but I was sure it would be deadly. I knew Madison. I had seen the gleam in his eye. This would be a kill!

Sure enough, the very next morning, Madison had front page:

WHIZ KID SURRENDERS TO KANSAS POLICE

EXTRADITION

PROCEEDINGS

WAIVED

WHIZ KID TO BE

ARRAIGNED IN NEW JERSEY

After hectic weeks of hiding from the clutches of the law, Wister today surrendered...

I knew that Madison was just setting his stage. While I was not quite sure what he meant to do, I had a return of confidence.

Both Heller's and Krak's viewers were functional, now that they were within a two-hundred-mile range.

They were walking around a farm, apparently in New Jersey since the country was very flat. Yes! Krak looked across a stretch of water and there was the skyline of New York City!

Rockecenter's son, Delbert John II, was racing about the rental trucks, shouting "Hello," and "You're here," and "Look at your new home" to the pigs inside. Then he sped excitedly to some concrete buildings, raced in, raced out. He cupped his hands against his mouth and made a sort of squealing noise and gave a signal to the trucks.

Apparently the drivers dropped gangways, for here came an absolute torrent of pigs!

Like a traffic cop, the boy was shunting them into the pens. Finally, he closed some gates, waved to the pigs inside and came beaming over to Heller and the Countess Krak.

"Oh," said Delbert Second, "Ah'm goin' to love it here. Jus' smell that breeze from the othah fahms. What a beeootiful aroma of pigs!"

"Hey, Bang-Bang," said Heller, looking around to where Bang-Bang was leaning on a post. "I don't see any house."