of Vengeance, poised to wreak its wrath upon those who betray the peace."

The Delegate sat down.

Four days later, a mysterious explosion rocked the quiet sands of Los Alamos, and the Venus spacecraft was no more. Two hours after that, the robot delegate, its message delivered, its mission fulfilled, requested to be locked inside a bombproof chamber. When the door was opened, the Delegate was an exploded ruin.

The news flashed with lightning speed over the world, and Jerry Bridges' eyewitness accounts of the incredible event was syndicated throughout the nation. But his sudden celebrity left him vaguely unsatisfied.

He tried to explain his feeling to Greta on his first night back in Washington. They were in his apartment, and it was the first time Greta had consented to pay him the visit.

"Well, what's bothering you?" Greta pouted. "You've had the biggest story of the year under your byline. I should think you'd be tickled pink."

"It's not that," Jerry said moodily. "But ever since I heard the Delegate speak, something's been nagging me."

"But don't you think he's done good? Don't you think they'll be impressed by what he said?"

"I'm not worried about that. I think that damn robot did more for peace than anything that's ever come along in this cockeyed world. But still ..."

Greta snuggled up to him on the sofa. "You worry too much. Don't you ever think of anything else? You should learn to relax. It can be fun."

She started to prove it to him, and Jerry responded the way a normal, healthy male usually does. But in the middle of an embrace, he cried out:

"Wait a minute!"

"What's the matter?"

"I just thought of something! Now where the hell did I put my old notebooks?"

He got up from the sofa and went scurrying to a closet. From a debris of cardboard boxes, he found a worn old leather brief case, and cackled with delight when he found the yellowed notebooks inside.

"What are they?" Greta said.

"My old school notebooks. Greta, you'll have to excuse me. But there's something I've got to do, right away!"

"That's all right with me," Greta said haughtily. "I know when I'm not wanted."

She took her hat and coat from the hall closet, gave him one last chance to change his mind, and then left.

Five minutes later, Jerry Bridges was calling the airlines.

It had been eleven years since Jerry had walked across the campus of Clifton University, heading for the ivy-choked main building. It was remarkable how little had changed, but the students seemed incredibly young. He was winded by the time he asked the pretty girl at the desk where Professor Martin Coltz could be located.

"Professor Coltz?" She stuck a pencil to her mouth. "Well, I guess he'd be in the Holland Laboratory about now."

"Holland Laboratory? What's that?"

"Oh, I guess that was after your time, wasn't it?"

Jerry felt decrepit, but managed to say: "It must be something new since I was here. Where is this place?"

He followed her directions, and located a fresh-painted building three hundred yards from the men's dorm. He met a student at the door, who told him that Professor Coltz would be found in the physics department.

The room was empty when Jerry entered, except for the single stooped figure vigorously erasing a blackboard. He turned when the door opened. If the students looked younger, Professor Coltz was far older than Jerry remembered. He was a tall man, with an unruly confusion of straight gray hair. He blinked when Jerry said:

"Hello, Professor. Do you remember me? Jerry Bridges?"

"Of course! I thought of you only yesterday, when I saw your name in the papers—"

They sat at facing student desks, and chatted about old times. But Jerry was impatient to get to the point of his visit, and he blurted out:

"Professor Coltz, something's been bothering me. It bothered me from the moment I heard the Delegate speak. I didn't know what it was