ess. "That's
elementary somatics. Just get a grip on yourself."

"Yes sir."

"Perhaps you've been working, or exerting yourself in some other foolish
way. Maybe you're tired and should take something."

The long, scrawny citizen gazed disconsolately at the beautitful violet
sky, his face relaxed and soleful. He sighed and murmured, "Frankly,
Ruut, I just don't seem to give a damn anymore."

On the other side of the planet, Ruut gulped convulsively. His eyes
bulged out with thoroughly uncivilized amazement.

"Get out of consciousness immediately," he ordered hoarsely. "Take a
nego shot, if necessary. Take one anyway. We can't take chances." The
administrator's hyperimage, with calculated angry expression, glared
sternly into Tensor's mind. "Did you understand me?"

"Yes sir," Tensor murmured. A vague unpleasantness began stirring in his
stomach as he contemplated Ruut's thought. The administrator was
absolutely right. Civilization simply could not tolerate an unhappy,
uncooperative citizen. The general satisfaction of all was so clearly
the responsibility of each individual, and one careless man could ruin
it for everybody. Very much as he had been doing.

Obediently he nodded. Concealing his embarrassment at the artificiality
of the act, he permitted the hyperimage to watch while he administered
the chemical.

"Good." Ruut became calm at once, now that he was certain he could
command the situation. "I'll have the physician examine you before that
wears off." He hesitated and said even more mildly. "I hope this is just
a passing thing, Tensor. You know I'll do everything I can for you, even
teleporting to your focus. But you're a weather sensitive, and that's a
pretty common classification. And you know the Council."

Tensor indicated lazy assent. As the drug took hold, he slipped
soothingly into unconsciousness, and the hyperimage flickered and
vanished with his powers. His last emotion was one of a vague relief
that he would not have to look at the low caste face of an administrator
for a while.

* * * * *

He floated in his focus, idly and uninterestedly contemplating the deep
violet far above. A few minutes before, he had been stirred to an
elusive and incomprehensible wistfulness which had been, in some way,
connected with the aliens. While waiting for the physician, he pondered
the brief glimpse he had got of them before the Council clamped
down its screen and privacy or