“I get it, Chief’s Assistant.  I do everything I can to get ready for a big move, without letting anything leak out.  After you strike the first blow, there won’t be any security problem, and the lid will be off.  In the meantime, I make up a general plan, and alert all our own people.  Right?”

“Right.  And for your information, the base isn’t Fifth Level; it’s First Level Abzar.”  He gave the designation.

Vlasthor Arph chuckled.  “Well, think of that!  I’d even forgotten there was an Abzar Sector.  Shall I tell the reporters that?”

“Fangs of Fasif, no!” Vall fairly howled.  Then, curiously:  “What reporters?  How’d they get onto PolTerm?”

“About fifty or sixty news-service people Chief Tortha sent down here, this morning, with orders to prevent them from filing any stories from here but to let them cover the raids, when they come off.  We were instructed to furnish them weapons and audio-visual equipment and vocowriters and anything else they needed, and—­”

Vall grinned.  “That was one I’d never thought of,” he admitted.  “The old fox is still the old fox.  No, tell them nothing; we’ll just take them along and show them.  Oh, and where are Dr. Hadron Dalla and that girl of Salgath Trod’s?”

“They’re sleeping, now.  Rest Room Eighteen.”

* * * * *

Dalla and Zinganna were asleep on a big mound of silk cushions in one corner, their glossy black heads close together and Zinganna’s brown arm around Dalla’s white shoulder.  Their faces were calmly beautiful in repose, and they smiled slightly, as though they were wandering through a happy dream.  For a little while, Vall stood looking at them, then he began whistling softly.  On the third or fourth bar, Dalla woke and sat up, waking Zinganna, and blinked at him perplexedly.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“About 1245,” he told her.

“Ohhh!  We just got to sleep,” she said.  “We’re both bushed!”

“You had a hard time.  Feel all right after your narco-hyp, Zinganna?”

“It wasn’t so bad, and I had a nice sleep.  And Dalla ...  Dr. Hadron, I mean—­”

“Dalla,” Vall’s wife corrected.  “Remember what I told you?”

“Dalla, then,” Zinganna smiled.  “Dalla gave me some hypno-treatment, too.  I don’t feel so badly about Trod, any more.”

“Well, look, Zinganna.  We’re going to have a man impersonate Councilman Salgath on a telecast.  The cosmeticians are making him over now.  Would you find it too painful to meet him, and talk to him?”

“No, I wouldn’t mind.  I can criticize the impersonation; remember, I knew Trod very well.  You know, I was his hostess, too.  I met many of the people with whom he was associated, and they know me.  Would things look more convincing if I appeared on the telecast with your man?”

“It certainly would; it would be a great help!” he told her enthusiastically.  “Maybe you girls ought to get up, now.  The telecast isn’t till 1930, but there’s a lot to be done getting ready.”