uper-man--woman. You can figure things out in your own little head
instead of just getting along on dum psionic luck like us amoebae.
You're too far above me."

"Ken, listen!" Luba snapped. "Look into my mind. You can link up with
me: go ahead and do it. You can read me clear down to the subconscious
if you want to."

Malone blinked.

"Now, Ken!" Luba said.

Malone looked. For a long time.

* * * * *

Half an hour later, Kenneth J. Malone, alone in his room, was humming
happily to himself as he brushed a few specks of dust from the top of
his best royal blue bowler. He faced the mirror on the wall, puffed on
the cigar clenched between his teeth, and adjusted the bowler to just
the right angle.

There was a knock on the door. He went and opened it, carefully
disposing of the cigar first. "Oh," he said. "What are you doing
here?"

"Just saying hello," Thomas Boyd grinned. "Back at work?"

Boyd didn't know, of course, what had happened. Nor need he ever know.
"Just about," Malone said. "Spending the evening relaxing, though."

"Hm-m-m," Boyd said. "Let me guess. Her name begins with L?"

"It does not," Malone said flatly.

"But--" Boyd began.

Malone cast about in his mind for an explanation. Telling Boyd the
truth--that Luba and Kenneth J. Malone just weren't equals as far as
social intercourse went--would leave him exactly nowhere. But,
somehow, it had to be said. "Tom," he said, "suppose you met a
beautiful girl--charming, wonderful, brilliant."

"Great," Boyd said. "I like it already."

"Suppose she looked about ... oh ... twenty-three," Malone went on.

"Do any more supposing," Boyd said, "and I'll be pawing the ground."

"And then," Malone said, very carefully, "suppose you found out, after
you'd been out with her ... well, when you took her out, say, you met
your grandmother."

"My grandmother," Boyd said virtuously, "doesn't go to joints like
that."

"Use your imagination," Malone snapped. "And suppose your grandmother
recognized the girl as an old schoolmate of hers."

Boyd swallowed hard. "As a what?"

"An old schoolmate," Malone said. "Suppose this girl were so charming
and everything just because she'd had ... oh, ninety years or so to
practice in."

"Malone," Boyd said in a depressed tone, "you can spoil more ideas--"

"Well," Malone said, "would you go out with her again?"

"You kidding?" Boyd said. "Of course not."

"But she's the same girl," M