"Until we find something or run out of time for the meeting. Belle, I really want to find somebody who amounts to something."
"So do I, really, so go ahead."
But they did not run out of time. At planet number four-hundred-something, Belle suddenly emitted a shriek—vocally as well as mentally. "Clee! Hold it! Here's something, I think!"
"I'm sure there is, and I'm gladder to see you two people than can possibly be expressed."
Belle whirled; so did Garlock. A man stood in the middle of the Main; a man shaped very much like Garlock, but with long, badly-tousled hair and a bushy wilderness of fiery-red whiskers.
"Please excuse this intrusion, Admiral—or should it be plural? Improper address, I'm sure, but your joint tenure is a concept so new and so vast that I am not yet able to grasp it fully—but you are working at such high speed that I had to do something drastic. You will, I trust, remain here long enough to discuss certain matters with my wife and me?"
"We'll be very glad to."
"Thank you. I will return, then, more decorously, and bring her. One moment." He disappeared.
"Wife!" Belle exclaimed, more than half in dismay. "They must be, then...."