It was now known around the Bronx plant that some sort of investigation of the Pfitzner project was rolling, and was already moving too fast to be derailed by any method the company's executives could work out. Daily reports from Pfitzner's Washington office actually the Washington branch of Interplanet Press, the public relations agency Pfitzner maintained were filed in the plant, but they were apparently not very informative. Paige gathered that there was some mystery about the investigation at the source, though neither Gunn nor Anne would say so in so many words.

And, finally, Paige's leave was to be over, day after tomorrow. After 'that, the Proserpine station and probably an order to follow, emerging out of the investigation, which would maroon him there for the rest of his life in the service.

And it wasn't worth it.

That realization had been staring him in the eyes all along. For Anne and Gunn, perhaps, the price was worth paying, the tricks were worth playing, the lying and the cheating and the risking of the lives of others were necessary and just to the end in view. But when the last card was down, Paige knew that he himself lacked the necessary dedication. Like every other road toward dedication that he had assayed, this one had turned out to have been paved with pure lead and had left him with no better emblem of conduct than the miserable one which had kept him going all the same: self-preservation.

He knew then, with cold disgust toward himself, that he was going to use what he knew to clear himself, as soon as the investigation hit the plant. Senator Wagoner, the grapevine said, would be conducting it oddly enough, for Wagoner and MacHinery were deadly political enemies; had MacHinery gotten the jump on him at last and would arrive tomorrow. If Paige timed himself very carefully, he could lay down the facts, leave the plant forever, and be out in space without having to face Hal Gunn or Anne Abbott at all. What would happen to the Pfitzner project thereafter would be old news by the time he landed at the Proserpine station more than three months old.

And by that time, he told himself, he would no longer care.

Nevertheless, when the quick morrow came, he marched into Gunn's office which Wagoner had taken over like a man going before a firing squad.

A moment later, he' felt as though he had been shot down while still crossing the doorsill. Even before he realized that Anne was already in the room, he heard Wagoner say:

"Colonel Russell, sit down. Fm glad to see you. I have a security clearance for you, and a new set of orders; you can forget Proserpine. You and Miss Abbott and I are leaving for Jupiter. Tonight,."