jerk men out of their jobs when there's nothing on fire, but not during an emergency."

"They can, and they will," she said.

"How many people did they dump out of jobs during the last Condition B? What about the Southwest during the last Chinese landing down there, when they had the blowups? How many key people did they dump then because they twitched or doodled the wrong way? The answer is not a damned one, and they're not going to pull me out now, because there's nobody to replace me. And if they were going to do it, Adams would already have run it through after the conference yesterday."

"Did you have a run-in with Adams?"

"Englehardt did. He's the head of Robling, and he believes in doing something instead of patting the public on the fanny and telling them everything is going to be all right."

Libby looked up at him, and her face was suddenly white. "What does he propose to do?"

"Build spaceships and go after them."

"Spaceships! But, oh, that's ridiculous. Everyone from DEPCO right down to the Machines will stop it. You mean he actually proposed that?"

"He's got backing. The military and DEPEX are with him."

"They don't count. DEPCO has the final say on something like that."

"Well, maybe this time DEPCO won't," Bahr said sharply. "You and your damned psych-docs mumbling about symbols and fixations. I'm the one who's got to fight the aliens, and they're not going to turn up for analysis. This is no little guerrilla campaign this time; we may need those ships to survive. Did you ever think of that? Your therapy and adjustments aren't worth a damn when it comes to staying alive."

"That's not the important thing right now," Libby said. "All DEPCO has ever tried to do was to change a few minor things, like wars and squalor and neurosis. And that means catching those things at the roots."

"Garbage," Bahr said. "Englehardt put his finger on it when he said we had no place to go, and that is why everybody is afraid. If they had something to do, they wouldn't be afraid any more."

"Do you have something to do?" she asked him.

"You bet your life I have. Run the DIA. Get to the bottom of this alien business."

"Are you afraid?"

"Certainly not. I'm too busy to be afraid. I . . ." "But you dream about elephants."

Bahr's mouth closed and he was silent. Libby stood up to avoid his eyes. It hit him where he couldn't fight back, she knew, but somehow the only way she could make an impression on Bahr was to hurt him. "You don't understand," she said slowly, "and you've got to understand. There are things that drive people to do things, and they don't even recognize the reason. They think up all sorts of fantastic cover-lies to somhow justify doing things that they just can't help doing. That's why DEPCO was set up—to spot those drives and do something about them, dig them out by the roots. That's why I've been trying to help you for four years now, Julian, because you don't even understand what's happening inside your own mind; you just keep finding reasons and excuses and urgent necessities for everything you do, and blaming other people for everything that's done to you or everything that blocks you. I've tried to show you that it's all inside you, in your own mind, but you just say no, stall DEPCO, get me a white card, I won't let them stop me. . . ." She broke off helplessly. "You don't even know why you want a white card."

"I certainly do," Bahr said. "I can't get anywhere without a white card stability rating. A green card is two strikes against me everywhere I turn."

"And if you got a white card . . . Suppose you got a white card, and you got everything you wanted . . . then what?"

"What do you mean, then what?"

"What would you do if you had everything you wanted?"