"I thought it was going to be a challenge," Mortimer complained.
Randall played the buttons on his desk as though they were a console keyboard. The celestial sphere deflated, then collapsed. Room lights blazed, harsh and intense. "Everything clear?" he asked.
Then he added, "We'll assemble at oh-eight-hundred Octoday at the Photon II dock. My gear is already packed."
Carol's eyes widened. "You're going too?"
"Yes, finally. About time I got out in the field and see how our new generation of—ah, specialists handles things."
Stewart only stared at the director. On the latter's desk were mountainous stacks of back work. Yet he was finding time to get away.
Rationalization circuits working sluggishly as he surveyed his realm, Bigboss dredged from the fragmented impressions on his memory drums his most fascinating, most disturbing subject for speculation:
In all Creation, there was nothing superior to Him. This material world that stretched out around Him, everything in the celestial reaches as far as infinity itself—all His! He had brought it into existence, although (confound those faulty drums!) He might not be able to recall the specific acts of Creation.
Yet He sensed, with the nagging certainty of conviction, that somewhere in His Universe, there was an insolent creature or creatures who would dare challenge His infinite supremacy.