"They're pretty sure he did. After that he vanished into thin air."
"Nobody vanishes into thin air." The junior scientist looked around and lowered his voice. "Do you think he defected?"
"I don't know. But I got the story pretty straight—that is, as much as the high brass knows."
"You did?"
"The day before he left, Kendall went to the file vaults to check the prints on Willy Seven."
"No!"
"Yes."
"Then the thing's pretty cut and dried. If he smuggled those prints out—" The young scientist was puzzled. "I don't understand."
"That's the strange part of it. Kendall didn't open that file. The time-stamp mechanism recorded no entry as of that date."
"Then what file did he open?"