"My, you seem bitey this morning."

"Well, you would be, too. I leave you at twelve midnight singing 'Auld Lang Syne' with fifteen students you never met before that party. You told me to be up at dawn in hiking clothes without fail and then, to my recollection, you never even came to bed!"

"Did I say that?" said Heller.

"You certainly did. And you made a big point of it. 'Without fail,' you said."

"I must have been drunk," said Heller.

"Those girls were drunk enough," said the Countess.

"Oh, is that what this is all about," he said, drinking his coffee.

"No, that's not what this is all about. I'm not jealous anymore except sometimes. I'm just peeved that you wasted so much time getting a degree you don't need. The best-looking and most competent combat engineer of the Voltar Fleet getting a diploma as a Bachelor of Nuclear Science and Engineering is just plain ridiculous. Being a bachelor is what I'm trying to get you home and cure you of."

"I need the degree so I can sign articles on fuel for professional magazines. They won't listen to you unless you have a degree."

"So when are you ever going to get time to write any articles swinging by your heels from a chandelier and leading the band?"

"I don't need any more time now," said Heller. "I finished them."

"When?" she challenged.

"Last night after the party." He was pointing.

She looked at a table that was set up. It was piled high with half a dozen manuscripts.

"Oh!" she said in a very cross way.

She walked out of the room.

Heller took a shower and got dressed in hiking clothes. He packed a little bag, putting in some keys, papers and a book. He went out on the terrace and found her.

"Don't be cross," he said.

"You tricked me into getting cross with you. You led me on."

"It was just a joke," said Heller. "I'm sorry."

"Getting off this planet is NO joke," said the Countess Krak. "It is psychotic. It scares me half to death."

"It's also a pretty planet," said Heller. "Now come along like a good girl. I have something you will find fas­cinating."

He went to the elevator. She picked up the cat and followed him.

They got into the Porsche.

He sped up the ramp. He began nudging the Porsche crosstown.

Krak was sitting there a bit gloomily. She said, "I'm sorry I was cross with you, Jettero. But you did lead me on. I'm just so anxious to get home. I have such wonderful news waiting for us."

There she was, pushing, pushing, pushing. The one thing she mustn't do. If they succeeded, they would get me executed for sure.

Heller was steering through the early morning streets. He reached sideways into his bag and handed her a book.

"It was my fault," he said. "Jokes don't go too well with breakfast hot jolt. But cheer up. That book will interest you. It's about Prince Caucalsia."

She looked at the book. It said The Devil's Triangle on the cover. She looked through the index. "Is this another joke? I don't see his name here."

"Well, no," said Heller. "Their history doesn't really go back twelve thousand years. But if you will open the map in the front you will find some islands off the Florida coast called the Bahamas. They have electronic and radio phenomena there. Also electromagnetic disturbances. And their fathometers record a pyramid on the sea floor."

"Is that odd?" said the Countess Krak.

He shot the car onto the Bruckner Expressway. "Not terribly. But there's another thing reported by ships and planes: time lapses and distortions. Ships vanish. Planes fly into other time or lose time on their instruments. The only thing I know of that would do that is a very small black hole. Voltar sometimes stores them in pyramids."

"Yes?" said the Countess Krak, getting interested.

"So I think that's where the continent sank. I think Prince Caucalsia's energy plants went down with it and they're still running under the sea."

"And they would cause all that?"

"Only thing I know of that would," said Heller. "Time distortions from captive black holes."

"Isn't that where you sent that Coast Guard ship?"

Heller laughed. "Actually, it went much further east. And they got home all right. The only danger they ran was being sent to a psychiatrist and I wouldn't wish that off on anybody."

"So you think this is where Prince Caucalsia established his colony," said Krak.

"Best guess so far," said Heller. "I'd write an article about it except that it would be the Code break of the century!" He glanced at her. She was looking through the windshield gloomily.

Heller began to sing the nursery song:

If ever from life you need fly,

Or a king has said loved ones must die,

Take a trip

In a ship

That will bob, dive and dip,

And find a new home in the sky.

Krak joined in:

Bold Prince Caucalsia,

There you are on high.

We see you wink,

And we see you blink,

Far, far, far above the Mo-o-o-o-o-n!

They both laughed.

"Now I've got my girl cheerful again," said Heller.

"I'm just an old nagging grouch," she said, putting her head on his shoulder. "I don't know what a handsome guy like you is doing with such an awful scold as me."

"You're not a scold," said Heller.

"Yes, I am," said the Countess.

"Let's fight about that," said Heller.

They both laughed but for the life of me I couldn't see the joke.

She looked out the window. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"I'm taking you to a den of vice," said Heller. "And don't worry. It has everything to do with our getting off this planet. It's an old abandoned roadhouse in Connect­icut."

(Bleep) them both! While I didn't have any idea what he was up to now, I knew it boded no good. I had better watch this very carefully.

Gods, how I needed an idea to wreck them!

They boomed along the New England Thruway past New Rochelle, Port Chester and Stamford and then Heller turned off and drove into Norwalk. He stopped at a supermarket and bought some hot dogs, marshmallows, buns and other things.

They drove on, on a state highway.

"Just look around," said Heller, waving his hand at the hilly countryside all decked out in green. "Those purple flowers on the shrubs are rhododendrons. The trees are maples and evergreens, and all these wild flowers, who knows? Summer is about to arrive and this is the fanfare. Like it?"

"Oh, it is pretty," said the Countess Krak. "Nowhere near as lovely as Manco, of course, but very nice."

"You think the planet is worth saving, then," said Heller.

"Not at the cost of our marriage," said the Countess Krak. "These primitives drive me spinning. They get the simplest things wrong."

"Oh, they're not all bad," said Heller.

"Well, why can't they take care of their own planet? How is it my Jettero has to come along and work his fingers to the bone? It's not our planet. It's theirs. Why don't they do something effective?"

"They're just a little deficient in technology, that's all," said Heller.

"A little crazy, you mean. Those engineers in my microwave class at first didn't see anything wrong at all with letting somebody like Rockecenter suppress new developments so he could make money and stay in power. And psychology, why do they let their children be taught they have no souls and are just the victims of their emotions and can't control themselves? Admittedly, they're in bad hands, but why do these people stand for it?"

"Part of their training," said Heller, "is that they can't do anything about it and, having seen the muzzle ends of some of their control forces, I can see how the people would feel that way. They're caught up in an 'agree or get shot.'"