"I'd—er—like to see Raynor One," he said.

Her dainty pointed fingernail, varnished blue, stabbed at points of light. "On what business?" she asked, not caring.

"It's a personal matter."

"Then I suggest you see him at his home."

"It can't wait that long."

The girl studied the glassy surface and punched at some more of the little lights. "Name, please?"

"David Briscoe."

He had thought her perfect-painted face could not show any emotion except disdain, but it did. She looked at him in open, blank consternation. She said into the vision-screen, "He calls himself David Briscoe. Yes, I know. Yes, sir, yes." She raised her face, and it was controlled again, but not bored. "Raynor One will see you. Through that door, and down to the end of the hall."

At the end of the hallway was another door. He stepped through into a small cubicle, and the door slid shut like a closing trap. He whirled in panic, then subsided in foolish relief as the cubicle began to rise—it was just an automatic elevator.

It rose higher and higher, stopping with an abrupt jerk, and slid open into a lighted room and office. A man sat behind a desk, watching Bart step from the elevator. The man was very tall and very thin, and the gray eyes, and the intensity of the lights, told Bart that he was a Mentorian.Raynor One?