Thorndyke did was to point you
slightly in our direction and give you a nudge. You did the rest."

"Well, you're a telepath. Maybe you're also capable of planting a
post-hypnotic suggestion that I forget the whole idea."

"I'm not," she said with a sudden flare.

I looked at her. Not being a telepath I couldn't read a single thought,
but it was certain that she was telling the truth, and telling it in
such a manner as to be convincing. Finally I said, "Marian, if you know
that I'm not to be changed by logic or argument, why do you bother?"

For a full minute she was silent, then her eyes came up and gave it back
to me with their electric blue. "For the same reason that Scholar Phelps
hoped to use you against us," she said. "Your fate and your future is
tied up with ours whether you turn out to be friend or enemy."

I grunted. "Sounds like a soap opera, Marian," I told her bitterly.
"Will Catherine find solace in Phillip's arms? Will Steve catch
Mekstrom's Disease? Will the dastardly Scholar Phelps--"

"Stop it!" she cried.

"All right. I'll stop as soon as you tell me what you intend to do with
me now that you've caught up with me again."

She smiled. "Steve, I'm going along with you. Partly to play the
telepath-half of your team. If you'll trust me to deliver the truth. And
partly to see that you don't get into trouble that you can't get out of
again."

My mind curled its lip. Pappy had tanned my landing gear until I was out
of the habit of using mother for protection against the slings and
arrows of outrageous schoolchums. I'd not taken sanctuary behind a
woman's skirts since I was eight. So the idea of running under the
protection of a woman went against the grain, even though I knew that
she was my physical superior by no sensible proportion. Being cared for
physically by a dame of a hundred-ten--

"Eighteen."

--didn't sit well on me.

"Do you believe me, Steve?"

"I've got to. You're here to stay. I'm a sucker for a good-looking woman
anyway, it seems. They tell me anything and I'm not hardhearted enough
to even indicate that I don't believe them."

She took my arm impulsively; then she let me go before she pinched it
off at the elbow. "Steve," she said earnestly, "Believe me and let me be
your--"

#Better half?# I finished sourly.

"Please don't," she said plaintively. "Steve, you've simply _got_ to
trust _somebody_!"

I looked into her face coldly. "The hardest job in the world for a
non-