natural power to imprint a receptor unless they've got a booster."

"Well it's not impossible anymore," Herschell said gleefully. "Look Cy,
you squash this silly business about the permit. I want this fella to
make a receptor test as soon as possible. When his folks show up tell
them we might want to make a feelie star out of their son but don't
build it up or they'll be back with a regiment of lawyers and
contracts."

"Bob, you're going off the deep end with this deal. So what if he can
project _au naturel_? Can he act?"

"If you had been plugged into the receptor like I was a few minutes ago
and felt him, you wouldn't even ask."

"What about that atrocious accent?"

"Look, Cy, I'll abide by the receptor test. If he can't act; out! If
he's as terrific as I think he is we'll put him in westerns and civil
war feelies until we can train the accent out of him. Cy, if he doesn't
turn out to be the greatest thing that hit the feelie business I'll eat
my contract."

* * * * *

Five months later Herschell came beaming into Lemson's office and tossed
an open-folded newspaper at him. "Cy, did you read Lorancelli's review
of Rowe's oatburner?"

"That's just great!" Lemson snapped. "We spend millions of advertising
and publicity dollars to convince people that we make _adult_ westerns
and you, a production vice president, go around calling them
_oatburners_."

"Okay, Cy, but read the review. He rated the feelie so so but he raves
about Jason Rowe."

Lemson picked up the paper and had it immediately snatched out of his
hands by an impatient Herschell who began reading snatches of it.
"Listen ... uh ... Jason Rowe is an intense young man whose magnificent
talent is wasted in the role of a young gunfighter in this bland
western ... uh ... he projects a sense of immediacy and aliveness
endless in its delicate ramifications of feeling. His characterization
is unmarred by even the slightest hint of extraneous awareness and
unaccompanied by the usual continual subliminal blur which is the mark
of the receptorman's frantic deletion of the actor's sublevel,
irrelevant thoughts. Either Mr. Rowe is fortunate to be blessed with a
most superiorly skilled receptorman or he is gifted with an awesome
ability to submerge his total being in the role he plays. In this feelie
it is as if Mr. Rowe, the actor, dies and imparts only his life force to
the character of the cocky youngster who comes fully alive