"So we'll talk to them about making it a triple. Oh, nice—let's go!"
They left the house and, her hand tucked under his elbow, walked up the street.
NEXT morning, on her way to the Hall of Records, Sandra stopped off as usual at the office. The Omans were all standing motionless. Hilton was leaning far back in his chair, feet on desk, hands clasped behind head, eyes closed. Knowing what that meant, she turned and started back out on tiptoe.
However, he had heard her. "Can you spare a couple of minutes to think at me, Sandy?"
"Minutes or hours, chief." Tuly placed a chair for her and she sat down, facing him across his desk.
"Thanks, gal. This time it's the Stretts. Sawtelle's been having nightmares, you know, ever since we emerged, about being attacked, and I've been pooh-poohing the idea. But now it's a statistic that the soup is getting thicker, and I can't figure out why. Why in all the hells of space should a stasis that has lasted for over a quarter of a million years be broken at this exact time? The only possible explanation is that we caused the break. And any way I look at that concept, it's plain idiocy."
Both were silent for minutes; and then it was demonstrated again that Terra's Advisory Board had done better than it knew in choosing Sandra Cummings to be Jarvis Hilton's working mate.
"We did cause it, Jarve," she said, finally. "They knew we were coming, even before we got to Fuel Bin. They knew we were human and tried to wipe out the Omans before we got there. Preventive warfare, you know."
"They couldn't have known!" he snorted. "Strett detectors are no better than Oman, and you know what Sam Bryant had to say about them."