head and murmured, "I would be inclined to
agree. Except that we're obviously dealing with superior
intelligence--I'm speaking about the "people" responsible for these
androids--and we have no idea how far they might have progressed in
duplicating that indefinable something we call a soul."

For a moment he lapsed into silence. Then looked up at Brent abruptly.
"Have you read anything on Kendrick's experiments with synthetic
emotion?"

"Can't say that I have."

"Kendrick, down at Penton Technological Institute, has done some
remarkable things in drawing the stuff of human emotion from one person,
holding it on a tape, and transferring it to another person."

"On the face of it, that sounds ridiculous."

"Doesn't it? Nevertheless, the vibrations set up, or created you might
say, by a person in anger, consist of some sort of _stuff_--in the sense
of an incredibly high frequency wave. Radio or television waves are the
best comparisons.

"Kendrick, in one demonstration, took a young man who was very much in
love with a certain young lady. A really love-sick lad. He placed him in
the recording unit gave him the young lady's picture, and told him to
let his mind dwell on her to the exclusion of all else."

Doctor Entman smiled briefly. "This, I imagine, wasn't difficult for the
lad to do. Entman then put another young man, one who was unacquainted
with the girl, into a receiving unit and exposed him, after giving him
the girl's picture, to the vibrations created by the lovelorn chap.
Later, they saw to it that the second lad was introduced to the girl.
The results were rather startling, in that the young lady suddenly had
two ardent suitors in place of one."

Brent Taber scratched his ear and looked dubious. "That sounds pretty
sensational. But maybe the second lad just plain happened to fall in
love with the girl by natural processes."

"True, but the experiments tended to eliminate that possibility. Other
emotions were tested. How about a man walking up to a man he'd never
seen before in his life and busting him in the nose?"

"Okay, okay. Then you think--"

"I think a lot of things. Here, I see the possibility of a race with
superior science, having moved far ahead of us in the directions
Kendrick is pointing toward in his research. For instance, with more
advanced knowledge and know-how, they've probably been able to charge a
synthetic body with a complete set of functioning emotional responses.
Grant them