tt's
hobbies, for instance, include such sports as close-order drill and
river pollution. Mr. Janifer, a less active type, prefers sedentary
games such as humming or blinking.

Mr. Garrett is engaged to an exotically beautiful creature, and the
two plan to be married as soon as they run out of excuses. Mr.
Janifer, on the other hand, is fascinated by women, and hopes some day
to meet one.

Brain Twister

Mark Phillips

A shorter version of this work appeared in _Astounding
Science Fiction_ under the title of _That Sweet Little
Old Lady_.

Prologue

In nineteen-fourteen, it was enemy aliens.

In nineteen-thirty, it was Wobblies.

In nineteen-fifty-seven, it was fellow-travelers.

And, in nineteen seventy-one, Kenneth J. Malone rolled wearily out of
bed wondering what the hell it was going to be now.

One thing, he told himself, was absolutely certain: it was going to be
terrible. It always was.

He managed to stand up, although he was swaying slightly when he
walked across the room to the mirror for his usual morning look at
himself. He didn't much like staring at his own face, first thing in
the morning, but then, he told himself, it was part of the toughening-
up process every FBI agent had to go through. You had to learn to
stand up and take it when things got rough, he reminded himself. He
blinked and looked into the mirror.

His image blinked back.

He tried a smile. It looked pretty horrible, he thought--but, then,
the mirror had a slight ripple in it, and the ripple distorted
everything. Malone's face looked as if it had been gently patted with
a waffle-iron.

And, of course, it was still early morning, and that meant he was
having a little difficulty in focusing his eyes.

Vaguely, he tried to remember the night before. He was just ending his
vacation, and he thought he recalled having a final farewell party for
two or three lovely female types he had chanced to meet in what was
still the world's finest City of Opportunity, Washington, D.C. (latest
female-to-male ratio, five-and-a-half to one). The party had been a
classic of its kind, complete with hot and cold running ideas of all
sorts, and lots and lots of nice powerful liquor.

Malone decided sadly that the ripple wasn't in the mirror, but in his
head. He stared at his unshaven face blearily.

Blink. Ripple.

Quite impossible