He hesitated. "I? What makes you think so?"
"You're being rather gabby. It isn't like you."
Harding grunted. "I suppose you're right. This thing's been tense enough. He may have enjoyed it—except naturally at the very end. Playing cat and mouse with the whole human race! Well, the mice turned out to be a little too much for him, after all. But of course nothing was certain until that last moment."
"Because none of you could be sure of anyone else?"
"That was it mainly. This was one operation where actually nobody could be in charge completely or completely trusted. There were overlaps for everything, and no one knew what all of them were. When Weldon came here today, he turned on a pocket transmitter so that everything that went on while he was being instructed in the use of the diex projector would be monitored outside.
"Outside was also a globe-scanner which duplicated the activities of the one attached to the projector. We could tell at any moment to which section of Earth the projector's diex field had been directed. That was one of the overlapping precautions. It sounded like a standard check run. There was a little more conversation between Lowry and Weldon than was normal when you were the assistant operator, but that could be expected. There were pauses while the projector was shut down and preparations for the next experiment were made. Normal again. Then, during one of the pauses, we got the signal that someone had just entered Weldon's private nonspace conduit over there from this end. That was not normal, and the conduit was immediately sealed off at both exits. One more overlapping precaution, you see ... and that just happened to be the one that paid off!"
Arlene frowned. "But what did...."
"Well," Harding said, "there were still a number of questions to be answered, of course. They had to be answered fast and correctly or the game could be lost. Nobody expected the rogue to show up in person at the Cleaver Project. The whole security island could have been destroyed in an instant; we knew he was aware of that. But he'd obviously made a move of some kind—and we had to assume that the diex projector was now suspended in the conduit.
"But who, or what, was in there with it? The project guards had been withdrawn. There'd been only the three of you on the island. The rogue could have had access to all three at some time or other; and his compulsions—until we found a way to treat them—were good for a lifetime. Any of you might have carried that projector into the conduit to deliver it to him. Or all three might be involved, acting together. If that was the case, the conduit would have to be re-opened because the game had to continue. It was the rogue we wanted, not his tools....