"We need Maculay," said Hanson solemnly. "No one will believe me, for I obviously know far too little of the facts. I admit that I am just guessing, but I have the feeling that the error in Cliff's Equations was no error at all. What drove Maculay into a mental whirly-gig was the fact that he had discovered at the end of his fingertips the ability to destroy the solar system—or destroy something equally as big. His was the shock of the child who has been playing with matches in a powder-house and discovers long afterwards just what fate he had escaped by sheer luck."
"But what are we going to do?"
Hanson smiled confidently. "We're going to get Maculay back here long enough to tell us the truth."
"But you don't know where he's gone."
"Since Cliff now has all of the instincts of a tomcat," chuckled Hanson, "all we need do is to imagine where a tomcat would go—and go there. Ava, if you were a brazen hussy, where would you go to huss?"
Ava froze. "I'm not!" she snapped, "and I wouldn't know."
"Maculay went to Venus," said the doctor, "where reformers, theologians, and politicians have not taken all of the fun, chance, and sting out of life."
"But how are you going to get him back?"
Hanson shook his head. "I'm not," he said; "no spaceline would take me. I'm seventy, a little creaky in the arthritis, a bit leaky in the pump, and a trifle sclerosic in the arterios. I admit that I am the healthiest doddering old man on earth—but it is on earth that I shall stay."
"Then—" said Ava uncertainly. Her eyes began to widen with growing understanding and she backed away slightly.