Thus, an agreement between two worlds for the establishment of a reciprocal open market worked all to the advantage of the “tighter” of the two governments — and must inevitably end in the tighter government gaining the lion’s share of the talent available on the two worlds.

This, then, was the background for the inevitable conflict that had been shaping up now for fifty years between two essentially different systems of controlling what was essentially the lifeblood of the human race — its skilled minds. In fact, thought Donal, standing by the open wall — the conflict was here, and now. It had already been under way that day he had stepped aboard the ship on which he was to meet Galt, and William, and Anea, the Select of Kultis. Behind the scenes, the build-up for a final battle had been already begun, and his own role in that battle, ready and waiting for him.

He went over to his desk and pressed a stud, speaking into a grille.

“I want all Chiefs of Staff here immediately,”-he said. “For a top-level conference.”

He took his finger from the stud and sat down at the desk. There was a great deal to be done.

Arriving at Holmstead the capital city of Venus five days later, Donal went immediately to a conference with Galt in the latter’s suite of rooms at Government Hotel.

“There were things to take care of,” he said, shaking hands with the older man and sitting down, “or I’d have been here sooner.” He examined Galt. “You’re looking tired.”

The Marshal of Freiland had indeed lost weight. The skin of his face sagged a little on the massive bones, and his eyes were darkened with fatigue.

“Politics — politics—” answered Galt. “Not my line at all. It wears a man down. Drink?”

“No thanks,” said Donal.

“Don’t care for one myself,” Galt said. “I’ll just light my pipe… you don’t mind?”

“I never did before. And,” said Donal, “you never asked me before.”

“Heh… no,” Galt gave vent to something halfway between a cough and a chuckle; and, getting out his pipe, began to fill it with fingers that trembled a little. “Damned tired, that’s all. In fact I’m ready to retire — but how can a man quit just when all hell’s popping? You got my message — how many field units can you let me have?”

“A couple and some odds and ends. Say twenty thousand of first-line troops—” Galt’s head came up. “Don’t worry,” Donal smiled. “They will be moved in by small, clumsy stages to give the impression I’m letting you have five times that number, but the procedure’s a little fouled up in getting them actually transferred.”

Galt grunted.

“I might’ve known you’d think of something,” he said. “We can use that mind of yours here, at the main Conference. Officially, we’re gathered here just to agree on a common attitude to the new government on New Earth — but you know what’s really on the fire, don’t you?”

“I can guess,” said Donal. “The open market.”

“Right.” Galt got his pipe alight; and puffed on it gratefully. “The split’s right down the middle, now that New Earth’s in the Venus Group’s camp and we — Freiland, that is — are clear over on the nonmar-ket side by way of reaction. We’re in fair enough Strength counting heads as we sit around the table; but that’s not the problem. They’ve got William — and that white-haired devil Blaine.” He looked sharply over at Donal. “You know Project Blame, don’t you?”

“I’ve never met him. This is my first trip to Venus,” said Donal.

“There’s a shark,” said Galt with feeling. “I’d like to see him and William lock horns on something. Maybe they’d chew each other up and improve the universe. Well… about your status here—”

“Officially I’m sent by Sayona the Bond as an observer.”

“Well, that’s no problem then. We can easily get you invited to step from observer to delegate status. In fact, I’ve already passed the word. We were just waiting for you to arrive.” Galt blew a large cloud of smoke and squinted at Donal through it. “But how about it, Donal? I trust that insight of yours. What’s really in the wind here at the Conference?”

“I’m not sure,” answered Donal. “It’s my belief somebody made a mistake.”

“A mistake?”

“New Earth,” explained Donal. “It was a fool’s trick to overthrow the government there right now — and by force, at that. Which is why I believe we’ll be getting it back.”

Galt sat up sharply, taking his pipe from his mouth.

“Getting it back? You mean — the old government returned to power?” He stared at Donal. “Who’d give it back to us?”

“William for one, I’d imagine,” said Donal. “This isn’t his way of doing things — piecemeal. But you can bet as long as he’s about returning it, he’ll exact a price for it.”

Galt shook his head.

“I don’t follow you,” he said.

“William finds himself working with the Venus group right now,” Donal pointed out. “But he’s hardly out to do them a kindness. His own aims are what concerns him — and it’s those he’ll be after in the long run. In fact, if you look, I’ll bet you see two kinds of negotiations going on at this Conference. The short range, and the long range. The short range is likely to be this matter of an open market. The long range will be William’s game.”

Galt sucked on his pipe again.

“I don’t know,” he said, heavily. “I don’t hold any more of a brief for William than you do — but you seem to lay everything at his doorstep. Are you sure you aren’t a little overboard where the subject of him is concerned?”

“How can anyone be sure?” confessed Donal, wryly. “I mink what I mink about William, because—” he hesitated, “If I were in his shoes, I’d be doing these things I suspect him of.” He paused. “William’s weight on our side could swing the conference into putting enough pressure on New Earth to get the old government back in power, couldn’t it?”

“Why — of course.”

“Well, then.” Donal shrugged. “What could be better than William setting forth a compromise solution that at one and the same time puts him in the opposite camp and conceals as well as requires a development in the situation he desires?”

“Well — I can follow that,” said Galt, slowly. “But if that’s the case, what’s he after? What is it he’ll want?”

Donal shook his head.

“I’m not sure,” he said carefully. “I don’t know.”

On that rather inconclusive note, they ended their own private talk and Galt took Donal off to meet with some of the other delegates.

The meeting developed, as these things do, into a cocktail gathering in the lounges of the suite belonging to Project Blaine of Venus. Blaine himself, Donal was interested to discover, was a heavy, calm-looking white-haired man who showed no surface evidences of the character Galt had implied to him.

“Well, what do you think of him?” Galt murmured, as they left Blaine and his wife in the process of circulating around the other guests.

“Brilliant,” said Donal. “But I hardly think someone to be afraid of.” He met Galt’s raised eyebrows with a smile. “He seems too immersed in his own point of view. I’d consider him predictable.”

“As opposed to William?” asked Galt, in a low voice.

“As opposed to William,” agreed Donal. “Who is not — or, not so much.”

They had all this time been approaching William, who was seated facing them at one end of the lounge and talking to a tall slim woman whose back was to them. As Galt and Donal came up, William’s gaze went past her. “Well, Marshal!” he said, smiling. “Protector!”

The woman turned around; and Donal found himself face to face with Anea.

If six years had made a difference in the outward form of Donal, they had made much more in that of Anea. She was in her late twenties now, and past the last stages of that delayed adolescence of hers. She had begun now to reveal that rare beauty that would deepen with age and experience and never completely leave her, even in extreme old age. She was more developed now, than the last time Donal had seen her, more fully woman-formed and more poised. Her green eyes met Donal’s indeterminate ones across mere centimeters of distance.