(Bleep) the machine, and I sort of slugged it. "You having trouble?" said the old criminal clerk. There was hope in his voice that he could throw me out of there. I ignored him.

The way the Apparatus screen operates, it can sum-mate in single words or it can show a whole document and then zero in, in a flash, upon the required paragraph. I had been asking for summations. I had better get to documents so I pushed the lever for those.

Affairs with women.

Blank screen.

Affairs with fellow officers. Blank screen.

Affairs with underage. Blank screen.

Affairs with prostitutes.

Blank screen. Then I remembered he had a beautiful sister.

Incest. Blank screen.

Annoyed, I looked to see if the machine had gotten turned off. I made a test.

Jettero Heller? The screen said, Yes? It was operating. I sat there. Suddenly the screen lit up, Warning. Data time is valuable. Please prepare your questions in advance so they can be rapidly handled. Section Chief Data Banks Apparatus. It would close off in exactly five seconds after such a notice.

Desperate, I punched in, Mental Interviews.

A document! At last! I had saved my console connection. The document, a smudgy mess scribbled by some doctor in the loony section, Routine Interview before hospital discharge. I hadn't asked for any portion heading. I punched, Why hospital? It zeroed in to the top of the sheet.

Wounded in rescue of battleship. I punched, Why mental interview? The screen zeroed to, Fight in hospital with male homosexual nurse.

Aha! I punched in, Conclusion? The machine zeroed in on, Male nurse hospitalized.

I thought no, no, no, you (bleeping) machine. I punched, Findings on mental condition subject. The screen zeroed in on, No psychotic nor neurotic signs or symptoms found on the subject of sex. Interview null. Real disappointment.

Hastily, so as not to lose my machine time, I punched in, Disciplinary actions of all kinds and types. The machine said, When? (Bleep) machine.

Since baby, I punched in.

Ah, now we were away! Real documents! Police report when he was seven: arrested for riding speed-wheel on sidewalk; fined one credit. Another report, age twelve: arrested for driving airbus when underage; case dismissed. Another, age fifteen: arrested for illegal skydrop into parade, said done to call attention to new technique in skydropping; case dismissed. Age sixteen: arrested as stowaway on expeditionary space freighter; judge used influence to get subject appointed to Royal Academy. What a talker Heller must have been to get a judge to do something like that! Well, I knew how he'd gotten his appointment anyway. I got mine by my father bribing a Lord's chief clerk.

There didn't seem much hope here. And then a document flashed on, Recommendation for Court-martial.

Aha! There it was. I scanned it. Heller isn't the only fast reader around. In his very first posting after leaving the Postgraduate Corps of Engineers school, one Jettero Heller, Grade I, protested his crew being trained by electric shock; he had argued that he had never been so trained, it being frowned on to electric-shock officers for any reason, and he claimed he didn't want "a goofed up, fried-brained crew on a mission dangerous enough without that." He had refused all persuasions and he had slugged the training officer when he started to put the crew into the machines. He had been relieved of command and remanded to custody pending court-martial.

I eagerly watched for the transcript of the court-martial to appear. Instead, an endorsement flashed on: The said Jettero Heller being senior by three days date of rank to the training officer, said battering does not constitute a charge of an attack upon a senior. The court-martial recommendation is cancelled. Secretary to Admiral of the 95th Fleet.

That was all. But it was enough! Or was it? It introduced a new puzzle. Why would he go nutty over Countess Krak when he was violently opposed to electric-shock training? Was he playing some deep game?

The file, (bleep) it, was otherwise blank for my uses.

"Are you through tying up our machine now," said the criminal old clerk. "Or do you want us to move your bed up here?" Ah, well, maybe I could use this information to chill his affair with Countess Krak.

I made one final punch, Deletions from file, and expected a whole series of identoplate numbers to show up. Nobody can be that good. No deletion numbers showed. (Bleep)!

"Will you please get the (bleep) away from our console?" said the old clerk. "The conference is breaking up."

They exited from Lombar's office, some of the cream of the Apparatus high ranks: gaunt, grayish faces, suspicious eyes, black uniforms, shabby, shabby, shabby. A general in the Army Division looks like a monument lit up for a feast day; a general of the Apparatus looks like a tramp abandoned him in a garbage can as not worth scavenging. They were stuffing papers in their cases, talking to one another out of the corners of their mouths the way felons do. There were fifteen of them. Four were Apparatus heads from other Voltarian planets, eleven were troop commanders. The military arm of the Apparatus – the one they maintain at home, that is – numbers four million guardsmen and while this is minuscule compared to the vast array of the Army Division of Voltar, it is enough to keep other parts of the government at bay. That eleven Apparatus generals had been seeing Lombar meant that something was having to be protected – something secret and sinister in the best Apparatus tradition.

I took my cap in hand, hoped for the best and walked bravely into Lombar's office. He was standing at his desk, scrabbling around, putting some order into the scattered papers of the conference. His hands were shaking. He looked irritable. Notgood signs!

Lombar looked up and saw me standing there. He scowled. "Who sent for you?"he rasped. It was pointless to say that he had. "Shut up!" I hadn't even opened my mouth to speak. Where was the camaraderie he had shown on my last visit? But that was Lombar.

He scrabbled around some more. "Oh, yes," he said, and dredged a file up from the mess. It was one of those his clerks prepare for him to group all related matters of one subject. He snapped a paper out of it. "The invoice. Sign it!" The paper he hurled at me was a shipping receipt. I studied the form: The below named officer hereby signs for and acknowledges the safe receipt of SECRET CARGO No. 1, Shipment No. 1 from Blito-P3. All warrantied in good condition and full content.

Signed Officer Soltan Gris, Section Chief, Section 451 (Blito-P3).

So thatwas what all the traffic was last night. The first freighter load in from Earth!

A wave of near nausea hit me. Supposing Jettero Heller had done his survey today instead of yesterday. I shuddered. He would have found this cargo piled up in its ready storeroom!

Somebody, one of the clerks, popped in and told Lombar, "It will be ready in a few minutes." He popped out. What "it" was, I had no idea. But I wasn't registering very well. Pure luck had saved this cargo from being exposed by Heller! (Bleep) him, he was too hard to control here on Voltar.

"Well sign it, sign it!" Lombar yelled at me.

I looked at him in helpless confusion. I didn't dare argue with him. Not Lombar Hisst!

Then he seemed to realize what was wrong. He sat down. "I forgot to tell you. You are still Section Chief of 451." He waved aside the remarks he must have supposed I was making. Talking with Lombar is pretty onesided. He can imagine you are talking. Eerie. "I know, I know," he went on. But we looked all through the personnel files and we could not find anyone suitable to relieve you as Section Chief of 451. Yes, yes, but the numbers of Academy trained officers in the Apparatus are very few. And due to their silly Codes, they can't be trusted with honestly dishonest crooked business. So that leaves you." It was a very left-handed sort of compliment at best.