ll right, everyone grab a seat," Cercy said. "Time for a council of war."
Malley straddled a chair backward. Harrison lighted a pipe as he sat down, slowly puffing it into life.
"Now, then," Cercy said. "The Government has dropped this squarely in our laps. We have to kill the Ambassador—obviously. I've been put in charge." Cercy grinned with regret. "Probably because no one higher up wants the responsibility of failure. And I've selected you three as my staff. We can have anything we want, any assistance or advice we need. All right. Any ideas?"
"How about Plan Three?" Harrison asked.
"We'll get to that," Cercy said. "But I don't believe it's going to work."
"I don't either," Darrig agreed. "We don't even know the nature of his defense."
"That's the first order of business. Malley, take all our data so far, and get someone to feed it into the Derichman Analyzer. You know the stuff we want. What properties has X, if X can do thus and thus?"
"Right," Malley said. He left, muttering something about the ascendancy of the physical sciences.
"Harrison," Cercy asked, "is Plan Three set up?"
"Sure."