virgin, but a psychic-blocked prude. I know
better. You're so full of conflict between what you want to do--what you
know is right--and what those three-cell-brained nincompoops made you
think you ought to do that you have got no more degrees of freedom than
a piston-rod. You haven't been yourself for a minute since you came
aboard. Check?"

"You _have_ been thinking, haven't you? You may be right; except that
it's been longer than that ... ever since the first preliminaries, I
think. But what can I _do_ about it, Clee?"

"Contact. Three-quarters full, say; enough for me to give you what I
think is the truth."

"But you said you _never_ went screens down with a woman?"

"There's a first time for everything. Come in."

* * *

She did so, held contact for almost a minute, then pulled herself loose.

"Ug-gh-gh." She shivered. "I'm glad I haven't got a mind like that."

"And the same from me to you. Of course the real truth may lie somewhere
in between. I may be as far off the beam on one side as you are on the
other."

"I hope so. But it cleared things up no end--it untied a million knots.
Even that other thing--brotherly love? It's a very nice concept--you
see, I never had any brothers."

"That's probably one thing that was the matter with you. Nothing warmer
than that, certainly, and never will be."

"And I suppose you got the thought--it must have jumped up and smacked
you--" Lola's hot blush was visible even through her heavy tan, "how
many times I've felt like running my fingers up and down your ribs and
grabbing a handful of those terrific muscles of yours, just to see if
they're as hard as they look?"

"I'm glad you brought that up; I don't know whether I would have dared
to or not. You've got to stop acting like a Third instead of an
Operator; and you've got to stop acting as though you had never been
within ten feet of me. Now's as good a time as any." He took off his
shirt and struck a strong-man's pose. "Come ahead."

"By golly, I'm _going_ to!" Then, a moment later, "Why, they're even
_harder_! How do you, a scientist, psionicist, and scholar, keep in such
hard shape as that?"

"An hour a day in the gym, three hundred sixty-five days a year. Many
are better--but a hell of a lot are worse."

"I'll say." She finished her ginger ale, sat down in her chair, leaned
back and put her legs up on the bed. "That was a relief of tension if
there ever was one. I haven't felt s