Oglethorpes are neighbors, you know."

onderful stuff! Esoteric phenomena in a sealed office! His very own calculating machine made calculated love to him; his best friend was evasive, and the junior mathematician he thought he had been talking to every day for a couple of weeks was in the army. He might hammer away at all concerned until all the cards were accounted for, but that would disrupt office routine. Strategy, that was the thing! Be mighty peculiar if he couldn't break up this business, now that he had an idea what was going on.

But did he? Whoever punched the cards needed the proper equations derived first, and that called for a digital or an analogue computer. Preferably his own ICWEA, because she was especially good at curves. Deriving them by the old methods was just too much horse-work for any joke. And it didn't have to be a joke, either. The joke might be just the cover for a more sinister activity—bosh! If that were the case, why call attention to it with funny-business?

But what hurt was the girl's being mixed up in it. He could take a rib from Charley, for instance, but the girl was practically a stranger—unfortunately. Women could be cruel, as his mother had often warned him. He thought of his mother's last year in the hospital and winced. She had sacrificed so much for him; and yet, was it really better to be a free bachelor than an old family man like Charley? There wasn't anything the matter with Alice that he could see. Charley loved her; that was plain.

Tonight should solve the thing, once and for all. He left the plant, speaking to everyone he met as he usually did. Then he sneaked back in, with the guard's help, and hid in his own office with the lights out.

His phone rang and he almost answered it before he remembered that he was supposed to be gone. The building was by no means deserted; probably there was someone working overtime in more than one department, though the main business for the day was finished. After a bit, the phone rang again, and he ignored it.

Waiting was hard. He couldn't read, so he let his mind wander: the next modification to ICWEA—what a romantic old thing she was! He needed a haircut: he'd have to get one tomorrow, before the hair grew down over his ears. What a voice that girl had—and those eyes! Would they get further work from Mugu? How could they contact other Government agencies? ICWEA was working out pretty good; would it be better to try to sell ICWEAs to anyone who wanted them, or to keep the old girl busy and work problems for others? Eventually, the former, though for the time being it might be better to continue as they were until the old girl was well known. Under present conditions, that shouldn't take—what was that hissing noise, a radiator?

He listened closely. Hiss, hiss, hiss. No, it was a rubbing sound, with a scrape and an occasional hollow thump. Not loud, but close at hand. The ventilating system—how obvious, now! He watched a white hand disengage the catches and carefully lower the grill to his desk. A small figure in white cover-alls wormed its way out of the opening, landed on its hands on top of his desk, kicked feet clear and cartwheeled to the floor with disdainful ease. A head-shake settled a long bob in place; who could do that? Virginia Hermosa, and no one else!

She couldn't see him against the shine of the window. She turned ICWEA on and let her warm up, meanwhile fastening a large sheet of paper on the bed of the curve-tracer with tape. She put a blank card in the punching head, opened the door of the patching-panel cabinet and rearranged the patch-cords there.

What a lab assistant she would make! Wasted in Set-up; anyone could punch cards, with a little practice. Well, not anyone, but any mathematician could. How thoroughly she knew this machine! Charley must have told her, or her