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“The decision will have to be made on Earth. Unless you mean what’s going to happen to you? That’s simple—you’ll go back with us. Blynn will stay here, pending orders.”

The colonel saluted.

“But I thought I was going to stay here ten years,” said Clarey.

“Five to ten years,” she corrected. “Apparently five was enough—” She cut herself short. “What’s the matter with me?” she suddenly exclaimed. “I’ve been letting myself think in the same woolly way you do.”

Suddenly, almost frighteningly, she smiled. “Clarey, you did the job we sent you out to do! You did it better than we expected! What threw me off was that we sent you out to act as an observer. Instead, you became a catalyst!”

She seized his hand and wrung it warmly. “Clarey, I apologize. You’ve done a splendid job!”

He wrenched his hand from her grasp. “I didn’t act as a catalyst! It would have happened anyway.” His voice rang in his own horrified ears—a voice begging for reassurance.

And she was a woman; she had maternal instincts; she reassured him. “It would have happened anyway,” she said soothingly, “but it would have dragged on for years, cost the taxpayers billions.”