"Set your block solid."

Delcamp did so, and through that block--the supposedly impenetrable shield of a Prime Operator--Garlock insinuated a probe. He did not crack the screen or break it down by force; he neutralized and counter-phased, painlessly and almost imperceptibly, its every component and layer.

"Like this," Garlock said, in the depths of the Margonian's mind.

"My G.o.d! You can do _that_?"

"If I tell her, this deep, to play ball or else, do you think she'd need two treatments?"

"She certainly oughtn't to. This makes you Galactic Admiral, no question. I'd thought, of course, of trying you out for Top Gunther, but this settles that. We will support you, sir, wholeheartedly--and my heartfelt thanks for coming here."

"I have your permission, then, to give Fao a little discipline when she starts rocking the boat?"

"I wish you would, sir. I'm not too easy to get along with, I admit, but I've tried to meet her a lot more than half-way. She's just too d.a.m.ned c.o.c.ky for _anybody's_ good."

"Check. I wish somebody would come along who could knock h.e.l.l out of Belle." Then, aloud, "Belle, Delcamp and I have the thing going. Do you want in on it?"

Delcamp spoke to Fao, and the two women slowly, reluctantly, lowered their shields to match those of the men.

"Your Galaxian shaking of the hands--handshake, I mean--is very good,"

Delcamp said, and he and Garlock shook vigorously.

Then the crossed pairs, and lastly the two girls--although neither put much effort into the gesture.

"Snap out of it, Belle!" Garlock sent a tight-beamed thought. "She isn't going to bite you!"

"She's been trying to, d.a.m.n her, and I'm going to bite her right back--see if I don't."

Garlock called the meeting to order and all four sat down. The Tellurians lighted cigarettes and the others--who, to the Earthlings'

surprise, also smoked--a.s.sembled and lit two peculiar-looking things half-way between pipe and cigarette. And both pairs of smokers, after a few tentative tests, agreed in not liking at all the other's taste in tobacco.

"You know, of course, of the trip we took yesterday?" Garlock asked.

"Yes," Delcamp admitted. "We read ComOff Flurnoy. We know of the seventy planets, but nothing of what you found."

"Okay. Of the seventy planets, all have Op fields and all have two or more Operators; one planet has forty-four of them. Only sixty-one of the planets, however, have Primes old enough for us to detect. Each of these worlds has two, and only two, Primes--one male and one female--and on each world the two Primes are of approximately the same age. On fifteen of these worlds the Primes are not yet adult. On the forty-six remaining worlds, the Primes are young adults, from pretty much like us four down to considerably younger. None of these couples is married-for-family.

None of the girls has as yet had a child or is now pregnant.

"Now as to the information circulating all over this planet about us.

Part of it is false. Part of it is misleading--to impress the military mind. Thus, the fact is that the _Pleiades_, as far as we know, is the only starship in the whole galaxy. Also, the information is very incomplete, especially as to the all-important fact that we were lost in s.p.a.ce for some time before we discovered that the only possible controller of the Gunther Drive is the human mind...."

"_What!!!!_" and argument raged until Garlock stopped it by declaring that he would prove it in the Margonians' own ship.

Then Garlock and Belle together went on to explain and to describe--not even hinting, of course, that they had ever been outside the galaxy or had even thought of trying to do so--their concept of what the Galaxian Societies of the Galaxy would and should do; or what the Galaxian Service could, should, and _would_ become--the Service to which they both intended to devote their lives. It wasn't even in existence yet, of course. Fao and Deggi were the only other Primes they had ever talked to in their lives. That was why they were so eager to help the Margonians get their ship built. The more starships there were at work, the faster the Service would grow into a really tremendous....

"_Fao's getting ready to blow her top_," Delcamp flashed Garlock a tight-beamed thought. "_If I were doing it I'd have to start right now._"

"_I'll let her work up a full head of steam, then smack her bow-legged._"

"_Cheers, brother! I hope you can handle her!_"

... organization. Then, when enough ships were working and enough Galaxian Societies were rolling, there would be the Regional organizations and the Galactic Council....

"So, on a one-planet basis and right out of your own little fat head,"

Fao sneered, "you have set yourself up as Grand High Chief Mogul, and all the rest of us are to crawl up to you on our bellies and kiss your feet?"

"If that's the way you want to express it, yes. However, I don't know how long I personally will be in the pilot's bucket. As I told you, I will enforce the basic tenet that top Gunther is top boss--man, woman, snake, fish, or monster."

"Top Gunther be d.a.m.ned!" Fao blazed. "I don't and won't take orders from _any_ man--in h.e.l.l or in heaven or on this Earth or on any planet of any...."

"Fao!" Delcamp exclaimed, "Please keep still--_please_!"

"Let her rave," Garlock said, coldly. "This is just a three-year-old baby's tantrum. If she keeps it up, I'll give her the d.a.m.nedest jolt she ever got in all her spoiled life."

Belle whistled sharply to call Fao's attention, then tight-beamed a thought. "If you've got any part of a brain, slick chick, you'd better start using it. The boy friend not only plays rough, but he doesn't bluff."

"To h.e.l.l with all that!" Fao rushed on. "We don't have anything to do with your organization--go on back home or anywhere else you want to.

We'll finish our own ship and build our own organization and run it to suit ourselves. We'll...."

"That's enough of that." Garlock penetrated her shield as easily as he had the man's, and held her in lock. "You are _not_ going to wreck this project. You will start behaving yourself right now or I'll spread your mind wide open for Belle and Deggi to look at and see exactly what kind of a half-baked jerk you are. If that doesn't work, I'll put you into a Gunther-blocked cell aboard the _Pleiades_ and keep you there until the ship is finished and we leave Margonia. How do you want it?"

Fao was shocked as she had never been shocked before. At first she tried viciously to fight; but, finding that useless against the appalling power of the mind holding hers, she stopped struggling and began really to think.

"That's better. You've got what it takes to think with. Go ahead and do it."

And Fao Talaho did have it. Plenty of it. She learned.

"I'll be good," she said, finally. "Honestly. I'm ashamed, really, but after I got started I couldn't stop. But I can now, I'm sure."

"I'm sure you can, too. I know exactly how it is. All us Primes have to get h.e.l.l knocked out of us before we amount to a whoop in Hades. Deggi got his one way, I got mine another, you got yours this way. No, neither of the others knows anything about this conversation and they won't.

This is strictly between you and me."

"I'm awfully glad of that. And I think I ... yes, d.a.m.n you, thanks!"

Garlock released her and, after a few sobs, a couple of gulps, and a dabbing at her eyes with an inadequate handkerchief, she said: "I'm sorry, Deggi, and you, too, Belle. I'll try not to act like such a fool any more."

Delcamp and Belle both stared at Garlock; Belle licked her lips.

"No comment," he thought at the man; and, to Belle, "She just took a beating. Will you sheathe your claws and take a lot of pains to be extra nice to her the rest of the day?"

"Why, surely. I'm _always_ nice to anybody who is nice to me."