The Galaxy Primes Page 2

  CHAPTER 2

  Next morning, Garlock was the last one, by a fraction of a minute, intothe Main. "Good morning, all," he said, with a slight smile.

  "Huh? How come?" James demanded, as all four started toward the diningnook.

  Garlock's smile widened. "Lola. She brought me a pot of coffee andwouldn't let me out until I drank it."

  "_Brought?_"

  "Yeah. They haven't read their room-tapes yet, so they don't know thatroom-service is practically unlimited."

  "Why didn't I think of that coffee business a couple of years ago?"

  "Well, why didn't I think of it myself, ten years ago?"

  Belle's eyes had been going from one, man to the other. "Just _what_ areyou two talking about? If it's anybody's business except your own?"

  "He is an early-morning grouch," James explained, as they sat down atthe table. "Not fit to associate with man or beast--not even his owndog, if he had one--when he first gets up. How come you were smartenough to get the answer so quick, Brownie?"

  "Oh, the pattern isn't too rare." She shrugged daintily, sweeping thecompliment aside. "Especially among men on big jobs who work undertremendous pressure."

  "Then how about Jim?" Belle asked.

  "Clee's the Big Brain, not me," James said.

  "You're a lot Bigger Brain than any of the men Lola's talking about,"Belle insisted.

  "That's true," Lola agreed, "but Jim probably is--must be--an iceboxraider. Eats in the middle of the night. Clee probably doesn't. It's agood bet that he doesn't nibble between meals at all. Check, Clee?"

  "Check. But what has an empty stomach got to do with the case?"

  "Everything. Nobody knows how. Lots of theories--enzymes, blood sugar,endocrine balance, what have you--but no proof. It isn't always true.However, six or seven hours of empty stomach, in a man who takes his jobto bed with him, is very apt to uglify his pre-breakfast disposition."

  Breakfast over and out in the Main:

  "But when a man's disposition is ugly all the time, how can you tell thedifference?" Belle asked, innocently.

  "I'll let that pass," Garlock's smile disappeared, "because we've gotwork to do. Have any of you thought of any improvement on Lola'smonogamous society?"

  No one had. In fact--

  "There may be a loop-hole in it," Lola said, thoughtfully. "Did any ofyou happen to notice whether they know anything about artificialinsemination?"

  "D'you think I'd stand for _that_?" Belle blazed, before Garlock couldbegin to search his mind. "I'd scratch anybody's eyes out--if you'dthought of that idea as a woman instead of as a near-Ph.D. inanthropology you'd've thrown it into the converter before it evenhatched!"

  "Invasion of privacy? That covers it, of course, but I didn't think itwould bother you a bit." Lola paused, studying the other girl intently."You're quite a problem yourself. Callous--utterly savage humor--yetvery sensitive in some ways--fastidious...."

  "I'm not on the table for dissection!" Belle snapped. "Study me all youplease, but keep the notes in your notebook. I'd suggest you studyClee."

  "Oh, I have been. He baffles me, too. I'm not very good yet, you...."

  "That's the unders...."

  "_Cut_ it!" Garlock ordered, sharply. "I said we had work to do. Jim,you're hunting up the nearest observatory."

  "How about transportation? No teleportation?"

  "Out. Rent a car or hire a plane, or both. Fill your wallet--better havetoo much money than not enough. If you're too far away tonight to makeit feasible to come back here, send me a flash. Brownie, you'll workthis town first. Belle and I will have to work in the library for awhile. We'll all want to compare notes tonight...."

  "Yeah," James said into the pause, "I could tune in remote, but I don'tknow where I'll be, so it might not be so good."

  "Check. You can 'port, but be _damn_ sure nobody sees or senses youdoing it. That buttons it up, I guess."

  * * *

  James and Lola left the ship; Garlock and Belle went into the library.

  "If I didn't know you were impotent, Clee," Belle shivered affectedlyand began to laugh, "I'd be scared to death to be alone with you in thisgreat big spaceship. Lola hasn't realized yet what she really hatchedout--the screamingest screamer ever pulled on anybody!"

  "It isn't _that_ funny. You have got a savage sense of humor."

  "Perhaps." She shrugged her shoulders. "But you were on the receivingend, which makes a big difference. She's a peculiar sort of duck.Brainy, but impersonal--academic. She knows all the words and all theirmeanings, all the questions and all the answers, but she doesn't applyany of them to herself. She's always the observer, never theparticipant. Pure egg-head ... pure? _That's_ it. She looks, acts,talks, and thinks like a _virgin_.... Well, if that's all, she isn'tany--or is she? Even though you've started calling her 'Brownie,' likemy now-tamed tomcat, you might not...." She stared at him.

  "Go ahead. Probe."

  "Why waste energy trying to crack a Prime's shield? But just out ofcuriosity, are you two pairing, or not?"

  "Tut-tut; don't be inurbane. Let's talk about Jim instead. I thoughthe'd be gibbering."

  "No, I'm working under double wraps--full dampers. I don't want him inlove with me. You want to know why?"

  "I think I know why."

  "Because having him mooning around underfoot would weaken the team and Iwant to get back to Tellus."

  "I was wrong, then. I thought you were out after bigger game."

  Belle's face went stiff and still. "What do you mean by that?"

  "Plain enough, I would think. Wherever you are, you've got to be theBoss. You've never been in any kind of a party for fifteen minuteswithout taking it over. When you snap the whip everybody jumps--orelse--and you swing a wicked knife. For your information I don't jump, Iam familiar with knives, and you will never run this project or any partof it."

  * * *

  Belle's face set; her eyes hardened. "While we're putting outinformation, take note that I'm just as good with actual knives as withfigurative ones. If you're still thinking of blistering my fanny, don'ttry it. You'll find a rawhide haft sticking up out of one of thosemuscles you're so proud of--clear enough Mr. Garlock."

  "Why don't you talk sense, instead of such yak-yak?"

  "Huh?"

  "I know you're a Prime, too, but don't let it go to your head. I've gotmore stuff than you have, so you can't Gunther me. You weigh onethirty-five to my two seventeen. I'm harder, stronger, and faster thanyou are. You're probably a bit limberer--not too much--but I'veforgotten more judo than you ever will know. So what's the answer?"

  Belle was breathing hard. "Then why don't you do it right now?"

  "Several reasons. I couldn't brag much about licking anybody I outweighby eighty-two pounds. I can't figure out your logic--if any--but I'mpretty sure now it wouldn't do either of us any good. Just theopposite."

  "From your standpoint, would that be bad?"

  "What a _hell_ of a logic! You have got the finest brain of any womanliving. You're stronger than Jim is by a lot more than thePrime-to-Operator ratio--you've got more initiative, more drive, moreguts. You know as well as I do what your brain may mean before we getback. Why in all hell don't you start _using_ it?"

  "_You_ are complimenting _me_?"

  "No. It's the truth, isn't it?"

  "What difference does that make? Clee Garlock, I simply can't understandyou at all."

  "That makes it mutual. I can't understand a geometry in which thecrookedest line between any two given points is the best line. Let's getto work, shall we?"

  "Uh-huh, let's. One more bit of information, though, first. Any suchidea as taking the Project away from you simply _never_ entered mymind!" She gave him a warm and friendly smile as she walked over to thefile-cabinets.

  For hours, then, they worked; each scanning tape after tape. At mid-daythey ate a light lunch. Shortly thereafter, Garlock put away his readerand all his loose tapes. "Are you getting anyw
here, Belle? I'm notmaking any progress."

  "Yes, but of course planets are probably pretty much the sameeverywhere--Tellus-type ones, I mean, of course. Is all the Xenology ascockeyed as I'm afraid it must be?"

  "Check. The one basic assumption was that there are no human beingsother than Tellurians. From that they derive the secondary assumptionthat humanoid types will be scarce. From there they scatter out in alldirections. So I'll have to roll my own. I've got to see Atterlin,anyway. I'll be back for supper. So long."

  * * *

  At the Port Office, Grand Lady Neldine met him even moreenthusiastically than before; taking both his hands and pressing themagainst her firm, almost-bare breasts. She tried to hold back as Garlockled her along the corridor.

  "I have an explanation, and in a sense an apology, for you, Grand LadyNeldine, and for you, Governor Atterlin," he thought carefully. "I wouldhave explained yesterday, but I had no understanding of the situationhere until our anthropologist, Lola Montandon, elucidated it verylaboriously to me. She herself, a scientist highly trained in thatspecialty, could grasp it only by referring back to somewhat similarsituations which may have existed in the remote past--so remote a pastthat the concept is known only to specialists and is more than halfmythical, even to them."

  He went on to give in detail the sexual customs, obligations, andlimitations of Lola's purely imaginary civilization.

  "Then it isn't that you don't want to, but you _can't_?" the lady asked,incredulously.

  "Mentally, I can have no desire. Physically, the act is impossible," heassured her.

  "What a shame!" Her thought was a peculiar mixture of disappointment andrelief: disappointment in that she was not to bear this man'ssuper-child; relief in that, after all, she had not personallyfailed--if she couldn't have this perfectly wonderful man herself, noother woman except his wife could ever have him, either. But what ashame to waste such a man as that on _any_ one woman! It was really toobad.

  "I see ... I see--wonderful!" Atterlin's thought was not at allincredulous, but vastly awed. "It is of course logical that as the powerof mind increases, physical matters become less and less important. Butyou will have much to give us; we may perhaps have some small things togive you. If we could visit your Tellus, perhaps...?"

  "That also is impossible. We four in the _Pleiades_ are lost in space.This is the first planet we have visited on our first trial of a newmethod--new to us, at least--of interstellar travel. We missed ourobjective, probably by many millions of parsecs, and it is quitepossible that we four will never be able to find our way back. We aretrying now, by charting the galaxies throughout billions of cubicparsecs of space, to find merely the direction in which our own galaxylies."

  "What a concept! What stupendous minds! But such immense distances, sir... what can you possibly be using for a space-drive?"

  "None, as you understand the term. We travel by instantaneoustranslation, by means of something we call 'Gunther'.... I am not at allsure that I can explain it to you satisfactorily, but I will try to doso, if you wish."

  "Please do so, sir, by all means."

  * * *

  Garlock opened the highest Gunther cells of his mind. There was nothingas elementary as telepathy, teleportation, telekinesis, or the like; itwas the pure, raw Gunther of the Gunther Drive, which even he himselfmade no pretense of understanding fully. He opened those cells andpushed that knowledge at the two Hodellian minds.

  The result was just as instantaneous and just as catastrophic as Garlockhad expected. Both blocks went up almost instantly.

  "Oh, no!" Atterlin exclaimed, his face turning white.

  The girl shrieked once, covered her face with her hands, and collapsedon the floor.

  "Oh, I'm _so_ sorry ... excuse my ignorance, please!" Garlock implored,as he picked the girl up, carried her across the room to a sofa, andassured himself that she had not been really hurt. She recoveredquickly. "I'm very sorry, Grand Lady Neldine and Governor Atterlin, butI didn't know ... that is, I didn't realize...."

  "You are trying to break it gently." Atterlin was both shocked anddespondent. "This being the first planet you have visited, you simplydid not realize how feeble our minds really are."

  "Oh, not at all, really, sir and lady." Garlock began deftly to repairthe morale he had shattered. "Merely younger. With your system ofgenetics, so much more logical and efficient than our strict monogamy,your race will undoubtedly make more progress in a few centuries than wemade in many millennia. And in a few centuries more you will passus--will master this only partially-known Gunther Drive.

  "Esthetically, Lady Neldine, I would like very much to father you achild." He allowed his coldly unmoved gaze to survey her charms. "I amsorry indeed that it cannot be. I trust that you, Governor Atterlin,will be kind enough to spread word of our physical shortcomings, and sospare us further embarrassment?"

  "Not shortcomings, sir, and, I truly hope, no embarrassment," Atterlinprotested. "We are immensely glad to have seen you, since your veryexistence gives us so much hope for the future. I will spread word, andevery Hodellian will do whatever he can to help you in your quest."

  "Thank you, sir and lady," and Garlock took his leave.

  "What an act, my male-looking but impotent darling!" came Belle's clear,incisive thought, bubbling with unrestrained merriment. "For our DoctorGarlock, the Prime Exponent and First Disciple of Truth, _what_ an act!_Esthetically_, he'd like to father her a child, it says here in fineprint--Boy, if she only knew! One tiny grain of truth and she'd chaseyou from here to Andromeda! Clee, I _swear_ this thing is going to killme yet!"

  "Anything that would do that I'm very much in favor of!" Garlock growledthe thought and snapped up his shield.

  This one was, quite definitely, Belle's round.

  * * *

  Garlock took the Hodellian equivalent of a bus to the center of thecity, then set out aimlessly to walk. The buildings and theirarrangement, he noted--not much to his surprise now--were not toodifferent from those of the cities of Earth.

  With his guard down to about the sixth level, highly receptive but notat all selective, he strolled up one street and down another. He was notattentive to detail yet; he was trying to get the broad aspects, the"feel" of this hitherto unknown civilization.

  The ether was practically saturated with thought. Apparently this wasthe afternoon rush hour, as the sidewalks were crowded with people andthe streets were full of cars. It did not seem as though anyone, whetherin the buildings, on the sidewalks, or in the cars, was doing anyblocking at all. If there were any such things as secrets on Hodell,they were scarce. Each person, man, woman, or child, went about his ownbusiness, radiating full blast. No one paid any attention to thethoughts of anyone else except in the case of couples or groups, theunits of which were engaged in conversation. It reminded Garlock of abig Tellurian party when the punch-bowls were running low--everybodytalking at the top of his voice and nobody listening.

  This whole gale of thought was blowing over Garlock's receptors like aGreat Plains wind over miles-wide fields of corn. He did not addressanyone directly; no one addressed him. At first, quite a few youngwomen, at sight of his unusual physique, had sent out tentative feelersof thought; and some men had wondered, in the same tentative andindirect fashion, who he was and where he came from. However, when theinformation he had given Atterlin spread throughout the city--and it didnot take long--no one paid any more attention to him than they did toeach other.

  Probing into and through various buildings, he learned that groups ofpeople were quitting work at intervals of about fifteen minutes. Therewere thoughts of tidying up desks; of letting the rest of this junk gountil tomorrow; of putting away and/or covering up office machines ofvarious sorts. There were thoughts of powdering noses and of repairingmake-up.

  He pulled in his receptors and scanned the crowded ways forguardians--he'd have to call them that until either he or Lola found outtheir real name
. Same as at the airport--the more people, the moreguardians. What were they? How? And why?

  * * *

  He probed; carefully but thoroughly. When he had talked to the Arpalonehe had read him easily enough, but here there was nothing whatever toread. The creature simply was not thinking at all. But that didn't makesense! Garlock tuned, first down, then up; and finally, at the very topof his range, he found something, but he did not at first know what itwas. It seemed to be a mass-detector ... no, two of them, paired andbalanced. Oh, that was it! One tuned to humanity, one to the otherguardians--balanced across a sort of bridge--_that_ was how they keptthe ratio so constant! But why? There seemed to be some wide-rangereceptors there, too, but nothing seemed to be coming in....

  While he was still studying and still baffled, some kind of stimulus,which was so high and so faint and so alien that he could neitheridentify nor interpret it, touched the Arpalone's far-flung receptors.Instantly the creature jumped, his powerful, widely-bowed legs sendinghim high above the heads of the crowd and, it seemed to Garlock,directly toward him. Simultaneously there was an insistent, low-pitched,whistling scream, somewhat like the noise made by an airplane in ano-power dive; and Garlock saw, out of the corner of one eye, ayellowish something flashing downward through the air.

  At the same moment the woman immediately in front of Garlock stifled ascream and jumped backward, bumping into him and almost knocking himdown. He staggered, caught his balance, and automatically put his armaround his assailant, to keep her from falling to the sidewalk.

  * * *

  In the meantime the guardian, having landed very close to the spot thewoman had occupied a moment before, leaped again; this time verticallyupward. The thing, whatever it was, was now braking frantically withwings, tail, and body; trying madly to get away. Too late. There was abone-crushing impact as the two bodies came together in mid-air; ajarring thud as the two creatures, inextricably intertwined, struck thepavement as one.

  The thing varied in color, Garlock now saw, shading from bright orangeat the head to pale yellow at the tail. It had a savagely-tearing curvedbeak; tremendously powerful wings; its short, thick legs ended inhawk-like talons.

  The guardian's bowed legs had already immobilized the yellow wings byclamping them solidly against the yellow body. His two lower arms wereholding the frightful talons out of action. His third hand gripped theorange throat, his fourth was exerting tremendous force against thejointure of neck and body. The neck, originally short, was beginning tostretch.

  For several seconds Garlock had been half-conscious that his accidentalcompanion was trying, with more and more energy, to disengage hisencircling left arm from her waist. He wrenched his attention away fromthe spectacular fight--to which no one else, not even the near-victim,had paid the slightest attention--and now saw that he had his arm aroundthe bare waist of a statuesque matron whose entire costume would havemade perhaps half of a Tellurian sun-suit. He dropped his arm with aquick and abject apology.

  "I should apologize to you instead, Captain Garlock," she thought, witha wide and friendly smile, "for knocking you down, and I thank you forcatching me before I fell. I should not have been startled, of course. Iwould not have been, except that this is the first time that I,personally, have been attacked."

  "But what _are_ they?" Garlock blurted.

  "I don't know." The woman turned her head and glanced, in completedisinterest, at the two furiously-battling creatures. Garlock knew nowthat this was the first time, except for that instantly-dismissed thrillof surprise at being the actual target of an attack, that she hadthought of either of them. "Orange-yellow? It could be a ... a fumapty,perhaps, but I've no idea, really. You see, such things are none of ourbusiness."

  She thought at him, a half-shrug, half-grimace of mild distaste--not atthe personal contact with the man nor at the savage duel; but at eventhinking of either the guardian or the yellow monster--and walked awayinto the crowd.

  Garlock's attention flashed back to the fighters. The yellow thing'sneck had been stretched to twice its natural length and the guardian had_eaten_ almost through it. There was a terrific crunch, a couple ofsmacking, gobbling swallows, and head parted from body. The orange beakstill clashed open and shut, however, and the body still thrashedviolently.

  Shifting his grips, the guardian proceeded to tear a hole into hisvictim's body, just below its breast-bone. Thrusting two arms into theopening, he yanked out two organs--one of which, Garlock thought, couldhave been the heart--and ate them both; if not with extreme gusto, atleast in a workmanlike and thoroughly competent fashion. He then pickedup the head in one hand, grabbed the tip of a wing with another, andmarched up the street for half a block, dragging the body behind him.

  He lifted a manhole cover with his two unoccupied hands, dropped theremains down the hole thus exposed, and let the cover slam back intoplace. He then squatted down, licked himself meticulously clean with along, black, extremely agile tongue, and went on about his enigmaticbusiness quite as though nothing had happened.

  Garlock strolled around a few minutes longer, but could not recaptureany interest in the doings of the human beings around him. He had filedaway every detail of what had just happened, and it had so many bizarreaspects that he could not think of anything else. Wherefore he flaggeddown a "taxi" and was taken out to the _Pleiades_. Belle and Lola werein the Main.

  * * *

  "I saw the _damndest_ thing, Clee!" Lola exclaimed. "I've been gnawingmy fingernails off up to the knuckles, waiting for you!"

  Lola's experience had been very similar to Garlock's own, except in thather monster was an intense green in color and looked something like abat about four feet long, with six-inch canine teeth and severalstingers....

  "Did you find out the name of the thing?" Garlock asked.

  "No. I asked half-a-dozen people, but nobody would even listen to meexcept one half-grown boy, and the best he could do was that it might besomething he had heard another boy say somebody had told him might be a'lemart.' And as to those lower-case Arpalones, the best I could dig outof anybody was just 'guardians.' Did you do any better?"

  "No, I didn't do as well," and he told the girls about his ownexperience.

  "But I didn't find any detectors or receptors, Clee," Lola frowned."Where were they?"

  "'Way up--up here," he showed her. "I'll make a full tape tonight oneverything I found out about the guardians and the Arpalones--besides myregular report, I mean--since they're yours, and you can make me oneabout your friend the green bat...."

  * * *

  "Hey, I _like_ that!" Belle broke in. "That _could_ be taken amiss, youknow, by such a sensitive soul as I!"

  "Check." Garlock chuckled. "I'll have to file that one, in case I wantto use it sometime. How're you coming, Belle?"

  "Nice!" Belle's voracious mind had been so busy absorbing newknowledge that she had temporarily forgotten about her fight withher captain. "I'm just about done here. I'll be ready tomorrow, Ithink, to visit their library and tape up some planetological andplanetographical--notice how insouciantly I toss off those two-creditwords?--data on this here planet Hodell."

  "Good going. You've been listening to this stuff Lola and I were chewingon--does any of it make sense to you?"

  "It does not. I never heard anything to compare with it."

  "Excuse me for changing the subject," Lola put in, plaintively, "butwhen, if ever, do we eat? Do we _have_ to wait until that confoundedJames boy gets back from wherever it was he went?"

  "If you're hungry, we'll eat now."

  "_Hungry?_ Look!" Lola turned herself sidewise, placed one hand in thesmall of her back, and pressed hard with the other her flat, taut belly."See? Only a couple of inches from belt-buckle to backbone--dangerouslyclose to the point of utter collapse."

  "You poor, abused little thing!" Garlock laughed and all three crossedthe room to the dining alcove. While they were still orde
ring, Jamesappeared beside them.

  "Find out anything?" Garlock asked.

  "Yes and no. Yes, in that they have an excellent observatory, with ahundred-eighty-inch reflector, on a mountain only seventy-five milesfrom here. No, in that I didn't find any duplication of nebularyconfigurations with the stuff I had with me. However, it was relativelycoarse. Tomorrow I'll take a lot of fine stuff along. It'll take sometime--a full day, at least."

  "I expected that. Good going, Jim!"

  All four ate heartily, and, after eating, they taped up the day'sreports. Then, tired from their first real day's work in weeks, all wentto their rooms.

  * * *

  A few minutes later, Garlock tapped lightly at Lola's door.

  "Come in." She stiffened involuntarily, then relaxed and smiled. "Oh,yes, Clee: of course. You're...."

  "No, I'm not. I've been doing a lot of thinking about you since lastnight, and I may have come up with an answer or two. Also, Belle knowswe aren't pairing, and if we don't hide behind a screen at least once ina while, she'll know we aren't going to."

  "Screen?"

  "Screen. Didn't you know these four private rooms are solid? Haven't youread your house-tape yet?"

  "No. But do you think Belle would actually peek?"

  "Do you think she wouldn't?"

  "Well, I don't like her very much, but I wouldn't think she would doanything like that, Clee. It isn't urbane."

  "She isn't urbane, either, whenever she thinks it might be advantageousnot to be."

  "What a _terrible_ thing to say!"

  "Take it from me, if Belle Bellamy doesn't know everything that goes onit isn't from lack of trying. You wouldn't know about room service,either, then--better scan that tape before you go to sleeptonight--what'll you have in the line of a drink to while away enoughtime so she will know we've been playing games?"

  "Ginger ale, please."

  "I'll have ginger beer. You do it like so." He slid a panel aside, hisfingers played briefly on a typewriter-like keyboard. Drinks and iceappeared. "Anything you want--details of the tape."

  He lighted two cigarettes, handed her one, stirred his drink. "Now, fairlady--or should I say beauteous dark lady?--we will follow the preceptof that immortal Chinese philosopher, Chin On."

  "You _are_ a Prime Operator, aren't you?" She laughed, but soberedquickly. "I'm worried. You said I flaunted virginity like a banner, andnow Belle.... What am I doing wrong?"

  "There's a lot wrong. Not so much what you're doing as what you aren'tdoing. You're too aloof--detached--egg-headish. You know the score,words and music, but you don't sing. All you do is listen. Belle thinksyou're not only a physical virgin, but a psychic-blocked prude. I knowbetter. You're so full of conflict between what you want to do--what youknow is right--and what those three-cell-brained nincompoops made youthink you ought to do that you have got no more degrees of freedom thana piston-rod. You haven't been yourself for a minute since you cameaboard. Check?"

  "You _have_ been thinking, haven't you? You may be right; except thatit's been longer than that ... ever since the first preliminaries, Ithink. But what can I _do_ about it, Clee?"

  "Contact. Three-quarters full, say; enough for me to give you what Ithink is the truth."

  "But you said you _never_ went screens down with a woman?"

  "There's a first time for everything. Come in."

  * * *

  She did so, held contact for almost a minute, then pulled herself loose.

  "Ug-gh-gh." She shivered. "I'm glad I haven't got a mind like that."

  "And the same from me to you. Of course the real truth may lie somewherein between. I may be as far off the beam on one side as you are on theother."

  "I hope so. But it cleared things up no end--it untied a million knots.Even that other thing--brotherly love? It's a very nice concept--yousee, I never had any brothers."

  "That's probably one thing that was the matter with you. Nothing warmerthan that, certainly, and never will be."

  "And I suppose you got the thought--it must have jumped up and smackedyou--" Lola's hot blush was visible even through her heavy tan, "howmany times I've felt like running my fingers up and down your ribs andgrabbing a handful of those terrific muscles of yours, just to see ifthey're as hard as they look?"

  "I'm glad you brought that up; I don't know whether I would have daredto or not. You've got to stop acting like a Third instead of anOperator; and you've got to stop acting as though you had never beenwithin ten feet of me. Now's as good a time as any." He took off hisshirt and struck a strong-man's pose. "Come ahead."

  "By golly, I'm _going_ to!" Then, a moment later, "Why, they're even_harder_! How do you, a scientist, psionicist, and scholar, keep in suchhard shape as that?"

  "An hour a day in the gym, three hundred sixty-five days a year. Manyare better--but a hell of a lot are worse."

  "I'll say." She finished her ginger ale, sat down in her chair, leanedback and put her legs up on the bed. "That was a relief of tension ifthere ever was one. I haven't felt so good since they picked me ashome-town candidate--and that was a mighty small town and eight monthsago. Bring on your dragons, Clee, and I'll slay 'em far and wide. But Ican't actually _be_ like she is...."

  "Thank God for that. Deliver me from _two_ such pretzel-benders aboardone ship."

  "... but I could have been a pretty good actress, I think."

  "Correction, please. 'Outstanding' is the word."

  "Thank you, kind sir. And women--men, too, of course--do bring upcertain memories, to ... to...."

  "To roll 'em around on their tongues and give their taste-buds a treat."

  "Exactly. So where I don't have any appropriate actual memories to bringup, I'll make like an actress. Check?"

  "Good girl! Now you're rolling--we're in like Flynn. Well, we've been inscreen long enough, I guess. Fare thee well, little sister Brownie,until we meet again." He tossed the remains of their refreshments, traysand all, into the chute, picked up his shirt, and started out.

  "Put it _on_, Clee!" she whispered, intensely.

  "Why?" He grinned cheerfully. "It'd look still better if I peeled downto the altogether."

  "You're incorrigible," she said, but her answering grin was wide andperfectly natural. "You know, if I had had a brother something like youit would have saved me a lot of wear and tear. I'll see you in themorning before breakfast."

  * * *

  And she did. They strolled together to breakfast; not holding hands, butwith hip almost touching hip. Relaxed, friendly, on very cordial andsatisfactory terms. Lola punched breakfast orders for them both. Belledrove a probe, which bounced--Lola's screen was tight, although herbrown eyes were innocent and bland.

  But during the meal, in response to a double-edged, wickedly-barbedremark of Belle's, a memory flashed into being above Lola's shield. Itwas the veriest flash, instantly suppressed. Her eyes held clear andsteady; if she blushed at all it did not show.

  Belle caught it, of course, and winked triumphantly at Garlock.She knew, now, what she had wanted to know. And, Prime Operatorthough he was, it was all he could do to make no sign; for thatfleetingly-revealed memory was a perfect job. He would not have--_could_not have--questioned it himself, except for one highly startling fact.It was of an event that had not happened and never would!

  And after breakfast, at some distance from the others, "That is my girl,Brownie! You're firing on all forty barrels. You're an Operator, allright; and it takes a damn good one to lie like that with her mind!"

  "Thanks to you, Clee. And thanks a million, really. I'm me again--Ithink."

  Then, since Belle was looking, she took him by both ears, pulled hishead down, and kissed him lightly on the lips. The spontaneity andtenderness were perfect at that moment. Clee's appreciation was obvious.

  "I know I said you'd have to kiss me next time," Lola said, very low,"but this act needs just this much of an extra touch. Anyway, suchlittle, tiny, s
isterly ones as this, and out in public, don't count."