Brewster was a different item, though. Short and compact, he was a dark-faced little man who stood ramrod straight, hard, cold eyes peering at the group out of a lean, angular face. He looked tough, and the heavy tan on his cheeks was convincing.

Of course! Kennedy thought, with a sudden shock of wonder. The space explorer!

“As members of my staff,” Dinoli said, “you all know well that anything you may be told in the confines of this room is absolutely confidential. I trust that’s understood, gentlemen. Otherwise get out.”

Thirteen heads went up-down affirmatively.

“Good. May I say by way of preface that this is perhaps the biggest and most important job Steward and Dinoli has ever handled—perhaps the biggest S and D will ever handle. Every PR firm in the nation was canvassed for this job before we landed the contract. I needn’t add that successful handling of this new account will result in substantial upward alterations in the individual status increments of those men working on it.”

Dinoli paused a long moment. The old man was a master of the dramatic approach. He said at length, “To fill you in on the background, first: Executive Brewster has recently returned from a space journey sponsored by his Corporation. The Major was connected with the Mars expedition, of course, and with the less successful Venus mission that preceded it—and I might add that his heroism was a major factor in minimizing losses on the unfortunate Venus encounter. Executive Brewster’s third and most recent Corporation-sponsored mission was to Ganymede—which is, of course, the largest of the moons of our great planetary neighbor Jupiter.”

Kennedy wrinkled his brows in surprise; Dinoli seemed to catch the expression, and shot a terrifying glance at him. The old man said smoothly, “The existence of this third interplanetary mission is still secret. The poor publicity aroused by the Venus mission was a factor influencing the Corporation to suppress information to the Ganymede trip until its successful conclusion.”