"Only the broadcast from the Sector, sir. Nothing unusual."
"You took it down on the tapes?"
"Yes, sir."
"I should like to hear it." From one corner a reluctant shuffling replaced the lately dead downbeats. The reproducer scratched badly.
"... at a banquet given for members of the committee. Prominent among the guests was Mrs. Mary A. Hastings, wife of Captain John Hastings who is making history in his FTL flight to Alpha Centauri. Captain Hastings will test his invention, the electron-lightscope, from our neighboring sun. It is reliably reported that the lightscope will revolutionize astral observation, in that it will replace the telescope, and will bring distant galaxies to within a few hundred feet of the earth.
"Mrs. Hastings, smartly gowned, was seated next to Co-ordinator Charles Lathrop, who had—"
Someone jostled into the machine. The groove was lost.
Hastings spoke slowly. "I'd like to hear the rest of it."
Kitson was carefully unrolling his breechskins.
"I'd like to hear the rest of it, I said."