Francine jerked upright, turned toward the door. Dr. Irving Langsmith, chief of the American Division of the Germanic-Root team stood just inside, closing the door.
"Haven't seen you for a couple of days," he said. "We got your note that you were indisposed." He looked around the room, then at the clutter on the floor beside the chairs.
Francine blushed.
Dr. Langsmith crossed to the chair Ohashi had occupied, sat down. He was a grey-haired runt of a man with a heavily seamed face, small features—a gnome figure with hard eyes. He had the reputation of an organizer and politician with more drive than genius. He pulled a stubby pipe from his pocket, lighted it.
"I probably should have cleared this through channels," she said. "But I had visions of it getting bogged down in red tape, especially with Hiko ... I mean with another team represented in this project."
"Quite all right," said Langsmith. "We knew what you were up to within a couple of hours. Now, we want to know what you've discovered. Dr. Ohashi looked pretty excited when he left here a bit ago."
Her eyes brightened. "I think we're onto something," she said. "We've compared the Galactics' movements to known symbolism from primitive dances."
Dr. Langsmith chuckled. "That's very interesting, my dear, but surely you...."
"No, really!" she said. "We've found one hundred and six points of comparison, almost exact duplication of movements!"