Griffin's eyes kept wanting to close without permission. He shook his head to wake himself up. He was losing the battle when the intercom buzzed. "Griffin," he said automatically.

"We may have found something, Chief. Could you step out here for a minute?" Millicent's voice had perked out of its leth­argy.

"Right." Somewhat to his own surprise, Alex was on his feet in­stantly. He walked from his office into another shot of Rice's liv­ing room. "What have you got?"

Bobbick rotated the view three hundred and sixty degrees. "There are a few minor changes in this shot. Oh, this holo was made about three hours ago. Rice cleaned up whatever mess had been made. Remember that he insisted on handling it all himself, said there was nothing missing? That may have been a fib. Millie, would you put on the other shot?"

Reality blurred; then an almost identical picture colored the air. "This is a shot taken a month ago. See that statue?" Bobbick pointed out a simple but very attractive statuette a meter tall. It was of a nude woman reclining on crumpled cloth, her face a graceful oval. "The statue isn't in the later shot."

"It isn't?" For an instant Griffin was uninterested, then sud­

denly he remembered. "The argument at Rice's party with that lady from Costuming."

"Mrs. Kokubun." Millie sounded positive. "She really wanted to buy it from him, made him a good offer, too."

"Right." Griffin remembered now. "He begged off for some reason or other. Didn't he make the statue himself? Something about the ‘last relic of a misspent youth'?"

"It's nowhere in sight now," Millicent said. "We looked."

"Maybe it was broken," Bobbick murmured.

"Could be. Why wouldn't he make an insurance claim, then? He had a roomful of witnesses who could verify that he was offered a stiff price for it. If it was destroyed by the vandal-"

"No," Bobbick interrupted, "I mean maybe it fell over acciden­tally."

"Hmmm. I see what you mean. It's fairly low to the floor on that shelf, but I could see it happening. It's a horizontal motif, though, so it wouldn't be easy to just knock it over. If it did fall

probably wouldn't shatter, not in that carpet. It's worth look­ing into." Griffin looked at his watch. "Eight-fifty?" He smacked his palm to his forehead in mortification. "I didn't even know I'd fallen asleep. Let me wash my face, I've got to be back in Har­mony's office in ten minutes. Well done, people, keep looking." And he disappeared into his office while Millie and Bobbick counted softly to each other. At the count of thirty, Griffin ex­ploded out still pulling on his coat, and was gone.

There was an ironhaired woman in Harmony's office. It took Alex a moment to place her. "Ms. Metesky," he said with an un­conscious bowing motion. He took the chair next to her, nodded his greeting to Harmony. "Where are we?"

Harmony brooded before answering. "Alex, I'm still not sure how this is going to hit you."

"If it's a good one, I'll go with it." Alex crossed his legs and sat back. All right, let's see how much trouble I'm in. .

"It goes like this. Until the South Seas Treasure Game breaks up, we have all our suspects in one place. They don't know that we've narrowed our search to Gaming A. Our legal department has notified me that we can proceed on our own initiative as long as all suspects are made available for questioning after the Game is over. Ms. Metesky understands the severity of the situation, and

has already spoken to the Lopezes concerning my proposaL To save the Game, they have consented."

"To what?"

An ironic smile tugged at the corners of Harmony's mouth, and his voice was more soothing than ever. "I want you to join the Game, Alex. It is scheduled to last another three days and some hours. We hope that in that time you can identify the killer, and perhaps even find the missing sample. Of course you'll get special compensation for this unusual duty, but I'm sure that the main at­traction will be the chance to handle the situation ourselves."

Oh, brother! Still, crazy as it sounded- "It sounds better than just turning it over to the State Police. I never liked that."

Harmony was delighted; his face and hands became animated to the point of nervous tic. "Good, good. We'll insert you into the Game as Dream Park's optional player. In this context, your f an­tasy identity is more important than a cover story about your out­side life, and we'll have one drawn up for you. The Lopezes will keep us informed of their game plan, and so we'll know where and when to insert you into the Game, hopefully within the first few hours of today's play. Metesky, you work for us, so I expected you'd approve our request. How did the I.F.G.S. representative react?"

"Myers didn't like it. He felt that the Game was more impor­tant than, as he put it," and Metesky's voice became an unex­pectedly and wickedly accurate imitation of Myers' painfully pre­cise diction, "a little petty thievery.' He hardly seemed to understand the importance of solving the crime." She looked down at her folded hands as she said, "When they've been at this too long, they forget that dying can cost you more than points. Maybe that's just what some people want to forget... In any case," she looked up, "Myers agreed to extend the sanction of the I.F.G.S. after I guaranteed minimum disruption of the Game, and threatened to close the Game instantly if he didn't."

"So the Game is on."

"Afoot," Griffin said softly. "I'm going to need a briefing on Gamesmanship, although I assume Lopez won't be trying to kill me off. - -

But Metesky was shaking her head, her gray locks rippling around her shoulders. "I'm afraid that's out of the question. You will have the same chance of being killed out of the Game as any other player. To conduct this in any other way would be disrup-

tive to the Game, as well as a dead give-away to the other players. You will play as a novice, and we'll give you a set of charac­teristics that will serve, you fairly well. The rest will be up to you. If you are forced out of the Game, I imagine we'll have to shut it down at once. The Fantasy Gaming Society will withdraw their sanction if there is any tampering with the odds of a Game, and the Lopezes won't run it without I.F.G.S. support, so there you have it."

"Just great. I have to stay in the Game and solve the crime at the same time." He closed his eyes tightly. "I'm going to need a transceiver to stay in touch with my staff. Any new developments might be more than professionally interesting."

Harmony seemed confused. "What do you mean by that?"

He couldn't really have missed that point, could he? Alex said, "We've been assuming that Rice died by accident. If he didn't, or even if he did, and our thief becomes aware that he's being hunted for murder... well, I could lose more than experience points." Griffin seemed on the brink of saying more, then shook his head and stood up. "It's nine-thirty now, so the Game's been going for ninety minutes already. I think I'd better get ready. Where do I go from here?"

"Gaming Central for costuming and briefing. As soon as Lopez makes a kill, we will insert you into the Game." Harmony pushed himself up from his chair and shook Griffin's extended hand. "Good luck, Alex. We're counting on you."

Alex waited until the office door had closed behind to release a soft, amazed whistle. "Of all the cockamamie ideas I've ever heard. ." Then, that one moment of doubt voiced and behind him, he headed for the elevator, his mind filled with variables and unknowns.