idge, and as eyes met eyes and she rose to her feet a shock-wave swept
through him that made him feel as though his every hair was standing
straight on end.

"Excuse me, please," she said to the other three at her table. "I must
go now." She tossed her cards down onto the table and walked straight
toward him; eyes still holding eyes.

He backed hastily out into the corridor, and as the door closed behind
her they went naturally and wordlessly into each other's arms. Lips met
lips in a kiss that lasted for a long, long time. It was not a
passionate embrace--passion would come later--it was as though each of
them, after endless years of bootless, fruitless longing, had come
finally home.

"Come with me, dear, where we can talk," she said, finally; eying with
disfavor the half-dozen highly interested spectators.

And a couple of minutes later, in cabin two hundred eighty-one, Deston
said: "So _this_ is why I had to come down into passenger territory. You
came aboard at exactly zero seven forty-three."

"Uh-uh." She shook her yellow head. "A few minutes before that. That was
when I read your name in the list of officers on the board. First
Officer, Carlyle Deston. I got a tingle that went from the tips of my
toes up and out through the very ends of my hair. Nothing like when we
actually saw each other, of course. We both knew the truth, then. It's
wonderful that you're so strongly psychic, too."

"I don't know about that," he said, thoughtfully. "All my training has
been based on the axiomatic fact that the map is _not_ the territory.
Psionics, as I understand it, holds that the map is--practically--the
territory, but can't prove it. So I simply don't know _what_ to believe.
On one hand, I have had real hunches all my life. On the other, the
signal doesn't carry much information. More like hearing a siren when
you're driving along a street. You know you have to pull over and stop,
but that's all you know. It could be police, fire ambulance--_anything_.
Anybody with any psionic ability at all ought to do a lot better than
that, I should think."

"Not necessarily. You've been fighting it. Ninety-nine per cent of your
mind doesn't _want_ to believe it; is dead set against it. So it has to
force its way through whillions and skillions of ohms of resistance, so
only the most powerful stimuli--'maximum signal' in your jargon,
perhaps?--can get through to you at all." Suddenly she giggled like a
schoolgirl. "You're either