"It's a lie," she persisted.
"Then who did?" he demanded.
Narina shrugged. He was American; there was little point in trying to keep secret the facts of her own loss from one of the men who were most likely to know. The chances were high that Vinson had engineered this coup.
"This very day," she said, "you came and stole our Logic computer—just as you claim we stole yours. Exactly the same. With a horde of small machines?"
"Exactly."
"And with its chief technician."
"You?"
"I am Narina Varada."
Vinson gulped and then started to laugh. It did him good, that laugh, for it was the first that he had in many many hours of worry and fear and frantic haste. "Narina Varada," he chuckled. "Narina Varada whom I have always believed to be a severe, frozen-faced harridan of sixty, with a caustic tongue and a complete disdain for anything less imposing than differential equations. Narina Varada, I apologize; you're beautiful."