The Nipe sagged a little, relaxing all over. "I had hoped it was so. It was the only thinkable thing. I saw you on the television, and it was only thinkable that you came for me."
Stanton sighed inwardly. That part of Colonel Mannheim's strategy had worked, too. The Nipe had seen all the publicity releases that had been so carefully tailored for him.
"I knew you were out on the asteroids," the Nipe went on. "But I had decided that you had come to kill. Since you did not, what are your thoughts, Stanley Martin?"
"That we should help each other," Stanton said.
It was as simple as that.
[23]
Stanton sat in his hotel room, smoking a cigarette, staring at the wall, and thinking.
He was alone again. All the fuss and feathers and foofaraw were over. Dr. Farnsworth was in another room of the suite, making his plans for a complete physical examination of the Nipe. Dr. George Yoritomo was having the time of his life, holding a conversation with the Nipe, drawing the alien out, and getting him to talk about his own race and their history.
And Stanley Martin was plotting the next phase of the capture—the cover-up.