'Watch it - that's enough,' George Walt retorted simultaneously.

'Sorry. I don't mean to offend you,' Engel said, but his expression remained unchanged. 'Well, what can I do for you ? Please make it brief; I'd like to follow Briskin's harangue too.'

'You're going to require help,' Walt said to Engel. 'If you're going to stop Briskin now; this speech will put him across, and I don't think even concerted transmissions from our satellite - as we discussed - will be sufficient. It's just too damn clever the speech he's making. Isn't it,

George ?'

'It certainly is,' George said, eye fixed on the TV screen. 'And getting better each second as he goes along. He's barely getting; started; it's a genuine spellbinder. Whacking fine.'

His eye on the vidscreen, Walt continued, 'You heard Briskin come out against us; you must have heard that part - everyone else in the country certainly did. Planet-wetting with Bruno Mini isn't enough, he's also got to take us on. Big plans for a Col, but evidently he and his advisors feel he can handle it. We'll see. What do you plan to do, Engel ? At this very crucial point ?'

'I've got plans, I've got plans,' Engel assured him.

'Still no-violence stuff ?'

There was no audible answer, but Engel's face contorted oddly.

'Come up here to the Golden Door,' Walt said, 'and let's talk. I think my brother and I can see our way clear to make a donation to CLEAN, say in the neighborhood of ten or eleven mil. Would that help ? You ought to be able to buy what you need with money like that.'

Engel, white with shock, stammered, 'S-sure, George or Walt, whichever you are.'

'Get up here as soon as you can, then,' Walt instructed him, and rang off. 'I think he'll do it for us,' he said to his brother.

'A gorp like that can't handle anything;,' George said sourly.

"Then for pop's sake, what do we do ?' Walt demanded.

'We do what we can. We help out Engel, we prompt him, shove him if necessary. But we don't pin our hopes on him, at least not entirely. We go ahead with something on our own, just to be certain. And we have to be certain; this is too serious. That Col actually means to shut us down.'

Both their eyes, now, turned toward the TV screen, and both George and Walt sat back in their special wide couch to listen to the speech.

In the luxurious apartment which he maintained in Reno, Dr Lurton Sands sat raptly listening to the television set, the Col candidate James Briskin delivering his Chicago speech. He knew what it meant. There was only one place that Briskin could have happened across a 'lush, virgin world'. Obviously Cally had been found.

Going to his desk drawer, Lurton Sands got out the small laser pistol which he kept there and thrust it into his coat pocket. I'm amazed he'd do it, Sands thought. Capitalize off my problems -

evidently I misjudged him.

Now so many lives which I could have saved will be forfeited, Sands realized. Due to this. And

Briskin is responsible ... he's taken the healing power out of my hands, darkened the force working for the good of man.

At the vidphone Sands dialed the local jet'ab company. 'I want an 'ab to Chicago. As soon as possible.' He gave his address, then hurried from his apartment to the elevator. Those that are hounding Cally and me to our deaths, he thought, Myra and her detectives and the homeopapes ... now they've been joined by Jim Briskin. How could he align himself with them ?

Haven't I made clear to everyone what I can do in the service of human need ? Briskin must be aware; this ain't be merely ignorance on his part.

Frantically Sands thought. Could it possibly be that Briskin wants the sick to die ? All those waiting for me, needing my help ... help which no one else, after I've been pushed to my death, can possibly provide.

Touching the laser pistol in his pocket, Sands said aloud, glumly, 'It certainly is easy to be mistaken about another person.' They can take you in so easily, he thought. Deliberately mislead you. Yes, deliberately!

The jet'ab swept up to the curb and slid open its door.

6

When he had finished his speech Jim Briskin sat back and knew that this time he had done, at last, a damn good job. It had been the best speech of his political career, in some respects the only really decent one.

And now what ? he asked himself. Sal is gone, and along with him Patricia. I've offended the powerful and immensely wealthy unicephalic brothers George Walt, not to mention Thisbe herself ... and Terran Development, which is no small potatoes, will be furious that its breakthrough has been made public. But none of this matters. Nor does the fact that I'm now committed to naming a well-known private operator as my Attorney General; even that isn't important. My job was to make that speech as soon as Tito Cavelli brought me that information.

And - that's exactly what I did. To the letter. No matter what the consequences.

Coming up to him, Phil Danville slapped him warmly on the back. 'A hell of a good fuss, Jim.

You really outdid yourself.'

'Thanks, Phil,' Jim Briskin murmured. He felt tired. He nodded to the TV camera men and then, with Phil Danville, walked over to join the knot of party brass waiting at the rear of the studio.

'I need a drink,' Jim said to them as several of them extended their hands, wanting to shake with him. 'After that.' I wonder what the opposition will do now, he said to himself. What can Bill

Schwarz say ? Nothing, actually. I've taken the lid off the whole thing, and there's no putting it back. Now that everyone knows there's a place we can emigrate to, the rush will be on. By the multitudes. The warehouses will be emptied, thank god. As they should have been long ago.

I wish I had known about this, he thought abruptly, before I began publicly advocating Bruno

Mini's planet-wetting technique. I could have avoided that - and the break with Sal as well.

But anyhow, he said to himself, I'll be elected.

Dorothy Gill said quietly to him, 'Jim, I think you're in.'

'I know he is,' Phil Danville agreed, grinning with pure delight. 'How about it, Dotty ? It's not like it was a little while ago. How'd you get hold of that info about TD, Jim ? It must have cost you ...'

'It did,' Jim Briskin said shortly. 'It cost me too much. But I'd pay it two times over.'

'Now for the drink,' Phil said. 'There's a bar around the corner; I noticed it when we were coming in here. Let's go.' He started for the door and Jim Briskin followed, hands deep in his overcoat pockets.

The sidewalk, he discovered, was crowded with people, a mob which waved at him, cheered him; he waved back, noticing that many of them were Whites as well as Cols. A good sign, he reflected as his party moved step by step through the dense mass of people, uniformed Chicago city police clearing a path for them to the bar which Phil Danville had picked out.

From the crowd a red-headed girl, very small, wearing dazzling wubfur lounging pajamas, the kind fashionable with the girls on the Golden Door Moments of Bliss satellite, came hurrying, gliding and ducking toward him breathlessly. 'Mr. Briskin ...'

He paused unwillingly, wondering who she was; and what she wanted. One of Thisbe Olt's girls, evidently. 'Yes,' he said, and smiled at her.

'Mr. Briskin,' the little red-haired girl gasped, 'there's a rume going around the satellite - George

Walt's doing something with Verne Engel, the man from CLEAN.' She caught hold of him anxiously by the arm, stopping him. 'They're going to assassinate you or something. Please be careful.' Her face was stark with alarm.

'What's your name ?' Jim asked.

"Sparky Rivers. I - work there, Mr. Briskin.'

'Thanks, Sparky,' he said. 'I'll remember you. Maybe sometime I can give you a cabinet post.' He continued to smile at her, but she did not smile back. I'm just joking,' he said. 'Don't be downcast.'