That conference was a very long one indeed. There were almost as many conclusions and recommendations as there were speakers. And through it all Hilton and Sandra listened. They weighed and tested and analyzed and made copious notes; in shorthand and in the more esoteric characters of symbolic logic. And at its end:
"I'm just about pooped, Sandy. How about you?"
"You and me both, boss. See you in the morning."
But she didn't. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when they met again.
"We made up one of the teams, Sandy," he said, with surprising diffidence. "I know we were going to do it together, but I got a hunch on the first team. A kind of a weirdie, but the brains checked me on it." He placed a card on her desk. "Don't blow your top until after I you've studied it."
"Why, I won't, of course...." Her voice died away. "Maybe you'd better cancel that 'of course'...." She studied, and when she spoke again she was exerting self-control. "A chemist, a planetographer, a theoretician, two sociologists, a psychologist and a radiationist. And six of the seven are three pairs of sweeties. What kind of a line-up is that to solve a problem in physics?"
"It isn't in any physics we know. I said think!"
"Oh," she said, then again "Oh," and "Oh," and "Oh." Four entirely different tones. "I see ... maybe. You're matching minds, not specialties; and supplementing?"
"I knew you were smart. Buy it?"
"It's weird, all right, but I'll buy it—for a trial run, anyway. But I'd hate like sin to have to sell any part of it to the Board.... But of course we're—I mean you're responsible only to yourself."