not escape the girl’s sharply tuned senses. Her eyes narrowed
almost imperceptibly.
“Well, you’ve seen most of the action so far. How do you think it’s
going?”
He tried a sidestep to avoid her deliberate turning around of the
question.
“None of my business, really, is it? We’re just the machine minders
in all this.”
“No, really-I’m interested. What do you think?”
Hunt made a great play of stubbing out his cigarette. He frowned
and scratched his forehead.
“You’ve got rights to opinions, too,” she persisted. “Our
Constitution says so. So, what’s your opinion?”
There was no way off the hook, or of evading those big brown eyes.
“There’s no shortage of information turning up,” he conceded at
last. “The infantry is doing a good job . . .” He let the rider
hang.
“But what . . . Hunt sighed.
“But. . . the interpretation. There’s something too dogmatic- too
rigid-about the way the big names higher up are using the
information. It’s as if they can’t think outside the ruts they’ve
thought inside for years. Maybe they’re overspecialized-won’t admit
any possibility that goes against what they’ve always believed.”
“For instance?”
“Oh, I don’t know. . . Well, take Danchekker, for one. He’s always
accepted orthodox evolutionary theory-all his life, I suppose;
therefore, Charlie must be from Earth. Nothing else is possi
ble. The accepted theory must be right, so that much is fixed; you
have to work everything else to fit in with that.”
“You think he’s wrong? That Charlie came from somewhere else?”
“Hell, I don’t know. He could be right. But it’s not his conclusion
that I don’t like; it’s his way of getting there. This problem’s
going to need more flexibility before it’s cracked.”
Lyn nodded slowly to herself, as if Hunt had confirmed something.
“I thought you might say something like that,” she mused. “Gregg
will be interested to hear it. He wondered the same thing, too.”
Hunt had the feeling that the questions had been more than just an
accidental turn of conversation. He looked at her long and hard.
“Why should Gregg be interested?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. Gregg knows a lot about you two.
He’s interested in anything anybody has to say. It’s people, see-
Gregg’s a genius with people. He knows what makes them tick.
It’s the biggest part of his job.”
“Well, it’s a people problem he’s got,” Hunt said. “Why doesn’t he
fix it?”
Suddenly Lyn switched moods and seemed to make light of the whole
subject, as if she had learned all she needed to for the time
being.
“Oh, he will-when he gets the feeling that the time’s right. He’s
very good with timing, too.” She decided to finish the matter
entirely. “Anyhow, it’s time for lunch.” She stood up and slipped a
hand through an arm on either side. “How about two crazy Limeys
treating a poor girl from the Colonies to a drink?”
chapter eight
The progress meeting, in the main conference room of the Naycomms
Headquarters building, had been in session for just over two hours.
About two dozen persons were seated or sprawled around the large
table that stood in the center of the room, by now reduced to a
shambles of ifies, papers, overflowing ashtrays, and half-empty
glasses.
Nothing really exciting had emerged so far. Various speakers had
reported the results of their latest tests, the sum total of their
conclusions being that Charlie’s circulatory, respiratory, nervous,
endocrine, lymphatic, digestive, and every other system anybody
could think of were as normal as those of anyone sitting around the
table. His bones were the same, his body chemistry was the same,
his blood was a familiar grouping. His brain capacity and
development were within the normal range for Homo sapiens, and
evidence suggested that he had been right-handed. The genetic codes
carried in his reproductive cells had been analyzed; a computer
simulation of combining them with codes donated by an average human
female had confirmed that the offspring of such a union would have
inherited a perfectly normal set of characteristics.
Hunt tended to remain something of a passive observer of the
proceedings, conscious of his status as an unofficial guest and
wondering from time to time why he had been invited at all. The