“N-No, Mr. Reich.”

“Then what’s eating you? This is something we’ve all been waiting for. What’s wrong with it?”

The chief secretary stammered: “We… I… I’m s-sorry, sir. I d-don’t know what y-you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about the D’Courtney Cartel.”

“I… I’ve n-never heard of the organization, Mr. Reich, sir. I… we…” The chief secretary turned around for support. Before Reich’s unbelieving eyes the entire staff shook their heads in mystification.

“D’Courtney on Mars!” Reich shouted.

“On where, sir?”

“Mars! Mars! M-A-R-S. One of the ten planets. Fourth from the sun.” Gripped by the returning terror, Reich bellowed incoherently. “Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars! Mars! Mars! A hundred and forty-one million miles from the sun, Mars!”

Again the staff shook their heads. There was a rustle and they backed away slightly from Reich. He darted at the secretaries and tore the sheafs of business papers from their hands. “You’ve got a hundred memos about D’Courtney on Mars there. You’ve got to. My God, we’ve been battling it out with D’Courtney for the last ten years. We—”

He clawed through the papers, throwing them wildly in all directions, filling the office with fluttering snow. There was not one reference to D’Courtney or Mars. There was neither any reference to Venus, Jupiter, the Moon, nor the other satellites.

“I’ve got memos in my desk,” Reich shouted. “Hundreds of them. You lousy liars! Look in my desk…”

He darted to the desk and yanked out drawers. There was a stunning explosion. The desk burst asunder. Fragments of flying fruit-wood slashed the staff, and Reich was hurled back against the window by the desk top which smacked him like a giant’s hand.

“The Man With No Face!” Reich cried. “Christ Almighty!” He shook his head feverishly, and clung to the paramount obsession. “Where are the files? I’ll show you in the files… D’Courtney and Mars and all the rest. And I’ll show him, too. The Man With No Face… Come on!”

He ran out of his office and burst into the file vaults. He tore out rack after rack; scattering papers, clusters of piezo crystals, ancient wire recordings, microfilm, molecular transcripts. There was no reference to D’Courtney or Mars. There was no reference to Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, the asteroids, the satellites.

And now indeed the office was alive with hustle and bustle, annunciator bells, strident commands. Now the office was stampeding, and three burly gentlemen from ‘Recreation’ came trotting into the vaults directed by the bleeding secretary who urged: “You must! You must! I’ll take the responsibility!”

“Easy now, easy now, easy now, Mr. Reich,” they said with the hissing noise with which hostlers soothe savage stallions. “Easy… easy…easy…”

“Get away from me, you sons of bitches.”

“Easy, sir. Easy. It’s all right, sir.”

They deployed strategically while the hustle and the bustle increased and the bells sounded and voices far off called: “Who’s his doctor? Get his doctor. Somebody call Kingston. Did you notify the police? No, don’t. No scandal. Get the legal department, will you! Isn’t the Infirmary open yet?”