Corralling the director and the rest of the available staff, he turned over to them what apparently had been General Loop's drill hall, one of the largest rooms he could find on the seventy-sixth floor.

Madison told the director, "You take over here. Get rid of their prison pallor, show them how to wear clothes.

You are really running a sort of actors' school just now. And above all, get them trained so they can hold a sincere and earnest smile without strain. We've got to get rid of the killer look."

"That will be tough," said the director. "They're killers!"

"Well, nobody is asking you to change that," said Madison. "The final product is sometimes killing. But it is done in a different way: it's called PR."

"Got it," said the director and promptly went to work.

Madison then went back to see how the reporters were coming along. They looked up from their work. They were all smiles.

"We've got it," said the leading criminal reporter. "We've worked out some great copy. 'Soltan Gris, the Apparatus officer, has been detected rushing all over the farm country of this planet poisoning the wells. He's been killing grazing animals that way like flies.'"

Madison looked at the copy. These fellows were on the right track but they were kind of green. He had expected that. "That's fine, boys. But add this for a bit of zing: The mangled body of the informant who told you was found immediately afterwards, drowning in her own blood."

"Hey," said a reporter, bright-eyed with admiration, "that's genius!"

"No, that's just PR," said Madison. "You'll get the hang of it quickly enough. Now, the four of you revise it, make duplicates of your release, and get it to the city editors."

"Right!" the four reporters chorused, obeyed him and rushed out, on their way.

Madison smiled. Oh, things were going well. Just

like old times. And when he got Gris on the stand, he could coach his lawyers on how to get him off: simply accuse Heller. Copy, copy, copy, miles of headlines!

J. Walter Madison was in his element!

Madison was feeling very much indeed in his element as he ate supper that evening. He was waiting for tidings from the reporters he had sent out and he was very confident that the news would be good.

He had even arranged a little internal PR caper to get peace back and he was having dinner with Flick: Flick had the best and most chefs.

So Madison was in a combination dining room and kitchen of the seventy-sixth floor and Flick was at the other end of the table. Flick was looking pretty bad: both his eyes were blackened now, for, as his footwoman had promised, one more raving mention of Hightee Heller would collide with her fist and Flick had incautiously raved anew about Hightee Heller.

Flick's "bed-maker" was a willowy brunette with very deceptive beauty. She had been doing thirty years for passing herself off as married and then blackmailing men she picked up with threats of mayhem from a nonexistent champion wrestler husband. Her name was Twa. She was draped over the counter of the sparklewater dis­penser.

"I can't believe what you told me," she said incredulously.

Flick's footwoman, whose name was Cun, was lounging, still in uniform, against the door on the other side of the table. "Well, I seen it," she answered the other girl.

Flick, distracted from his elsewhere thoughts, glanced up from his plate. "You two don't belong in here. Can't you let me and the chief eat our supper in peace?"

Madison grinned and covered it with a sip from his canister. Flick was in a fair way of getting himself killed by these two, and Madison had set up another scenario.

"You may have seen it," said Twa, ignoring Flick, "but how do I know you really have the eye to judge?"

"Listen," Cun bristled. "Before they threw me in the jug for outright spite, I was a bodyguard for the richest whorehouse madam on all Mistin. I'm telling you, there was five hundred guys, half-naked, handsome as Gods, standing there in front of that palace just begging to (bleep). And they were the heaviest hung birds I ever seen. And I tell you I've seen plenty. I never was no whore, you understand. But I had to pass on lots of men. So I am an expert!"

Flick was very uncomfortable, staring at his plate through swollen, discolored eyes.

"Yeah," said Twa to Cun, "but you're just pushing it on the basis of mass observation. Wasn't there a particular one?"

"Oh, there was that," said Cun. "He was young and he was handsome: he had silky black hair and the softest eyes. And when they scampered off, he almost knocked me down. It wasn't no accident. He whispered, plain as day, 'You see that flower tree over there? It's nice and soft behind it and I have something pretty hard that needs handling. I haven't had any in ages, and boy, do you look good!'"

"NO!" said Twa. "REALLY?"

"Oh, that's a fact," said Cun. "And there was a big blond one, what a MAN! They're all aristocrats, you know. And as he rushed by, he said, 'Hey, cutie, do you know where I can find a willowy brunette?'"

"Oh, boy," said Twa. She turned to Madison. "Chief, can me and Cun run an errand for you to that island?"

"SHUT UP!" screamed Flick.

"We can leave Flick home," said Cun. "I can find the place."

"YOU'RE STAYING HERE!" howled Flick.

"Why should you care?" said Twa. "You're not inter­ested in us. All you can talk about is Hightee Heller."

"SHE'S TOO NOBLE FOR YOU TO EVEN SPEAK HER NAME!" roared Flick.

"Noble, that's the key," said Twa. "Five hundred noblemen just slavering to get a girl's back to the grass. Get the old Apparatus bus ready, Cun. I'll go get my coat. I think I saw the chief nod."

Flick was past Cun in a flash. He slammed the door violently and stood before it, glaring at them as he barred their way.

"All right, all right, all right!" shouted Flick. "The minute I finish my dinner, I'll see both of you in the bed­room. Strip and get ready. I've re-reformed."

"And no more mention of Hightee Heller?" said Cun.

Flick looked beaten in more ways than one. "I promise," he said.

Madison beamed, benign as a god. He had carefully coached the women. He had restored everything internally. It was an odd employment of his craft, using it for peace, but by the simple expedient of advising the girls to PR the regiment, he had changed the mind and behavior of Flick. It just proved to Madison how much he him­self was a master of his trade. Microcosm or macrocosm, it didn't matter; for bad or for good, it didn't matter. What mattered was that one could command, without fail, the destinies of men. The Supreme Being must feel this way from time to time as he directed the courses of the universe. The only reason Madison hadn't done it the other way around and gotten Flick killed was that he didn't need him for a headline.

Shortly after midnight, it was very difficult for Madi­son to descend from his cloudy heights to assimilate bad news.

The four reporters stood about his bed like lost wool animals, looking like they had been chewed upon by fangers who had taken great satisfaction in it.

Copy dangling limply from his hand, the lead reporter said, "They won't take it."

"What? A good sensational story like that?"

"They never heard of 'handouts' before. We tried every editor we could get past the door to. They wanted sources and every one said they'd send out their own reporters, but why bother?"

"Didn't you try bribes?"

"That's what we were doing time for. We didn't think you'd like it if they put us right back in, what with the iron box and all."

Madison waved them out of there with advice to have a drink and go to bed.

He was certain he knew what the trouble was: they were simply inexperienced and deficient in salesman­ship. He wrote an order to the director to practice them in sincere and earnest expressions and went back to bed.