“Then what?”
“Then we look into them with bright boys like you—disguised as R&R field men.”
“Goody, goody. And what happens if R&R stumbles onto me while I’m down there playing patty cake?”
“We disown you.”
“But you said an I-A ship found this joint.”
“It did. And then one of our spies in R&R intercepted a routine request for an agent-instructor to be assigned here with full equipment. Request signed by a First-Contact officer name of Diston ... of the Delphinus!”
“But the Del—”
“Yeah. Missing. The request was a forgery. Now you see why I’m mostly for rubbing out this place. Who’d dare forge such a thing unless he knew for sure that the original FC officer was missing ... or dead?”
“What the jumped up mazoo are we doing here, Stet?” asked Orne. “Alien calls for a full contact team with all of the—”