g the good old oil, Bobby, but I'll never tangle with
you if I can help it. Buzz-saws are small, too, and sticks of dynamite.
Shall we go hunt up the parson--or should it be a priest? Or a rabbi?"

"Even _that_ doesn't make a particle of difference to you."

"Of course not. How could it?"

"A parson, please." Then, with a bright, quick grin: "We _have_ got a
lot to learn about each other, haven't we?"

"Some details, of course, but nothing of any importance and we'll have
plenty of time to learn them."

"And we'll love every second of it. You'll live down here in the Middle
with me, won't you, all the time you aren't actually on duty?"

"I can't imagine doing anything else," and the two set out, arms around
each other, to find a minister. And as they strolled along:

"Of course you won't actually _need_ a job, ever, or my money, either.
You never even thought of dowsing, did you?"

"Dowsing? Oh, that witch stuff. Of course not."

"Listen, darling. All the time I've been touching you I've been learning
about you. And you've been learning about me."

"Yes, but----"

"No buts, buster. You have really tremendous powers, and they _aren't_
latent, either. All you have to do is quit fighting them and _use_ them.
You're ever so much stronger and fuller than I am. All I can do at
dowsing is find water, oil, coal, and gas. I'm no good at all on
metals--I couldn't feel gold if I were perched right on the roof of Fort
Knox; I couldn't feel radium if it were frying me to a crisp. But I'm
_positive_ that you can tune yourself to anything you want to find."

He didn't believe it, and the argument went on until they reached the
"Reverend's" quarters. Then, of course, it was dropped automatically;
and the next five days were deliciously, deliriously, ecstatically happy
days for them both.

II.

At the time of this chronicle the status of interstellar flight was very
similar to that of intercontinental jet-plane flight in the
nineteen-sixties. Starships were designed by humanity's best brains;
carried every safety device those brains could devise. They were
maintained and serviced by ultra-skilled, ultra-trained, ultra-able
crews; they were operated by the _creme-de-la-creme_ of manhood. Only a
man with an extremely capable mind in an extremely capable body could
become an officer of a subspacer.

Statistically, starships were the safest means of transportation ever
used by man; so safe that Very Important Persons use