"No."
"The city will find him. What is his number?"
"I have forgotten it."
"You have forgotten it? Is not Adam Stone a Magnate of the Instrumentality? Are you truly his friend?"
"Truly." Martel let a little annoyance creep into his voice. "Watcher, doubt me and call your Subchief."
"No doubt implied. Why do you not know the number? This must go into the record," added the voice.
"We were friends in childhood. He has crossed the—" Martel started to say "the Up-and-Out" and remembered that the phrase was current only among Scanners. "He has leapt from Earth to Earth, and has just now returned. I knew him well and I seek him out. I have word of his kith. May the Instrumentality protect us!"
"Heard and believed. Adam Stone will be searched."
At a risk, though a slight one, of having the sphere sound an alarm for non-human, Martel cut in on his Scanner speaker within his jacket. He saw the trembling needle of light await his words and he started to write on it with his blunt finger. That won't work, he thought, and had a moment's panic until he found his comb, which had a sharp enough tooth to write. He wrote: "Emergency none. Martel Scanner calling Parizianski Scanner."
The needle quivered and the reply glowed and faded out: "Parizianski Scanner on duty and D. C. Calls taken by Scanner Relay."