r exploded. "That blaster was registered to me nine
years ago." He snapped open his wallet.

The inspector frowned over the registration form, biting indecisively
at his lower lip.

"That was issued before my time," he alibied. "I'll have to check the
regulations. It may take a while."

He left the booth. He was gone for a quarter of an hour. When he
returned, both metal doors snapped open. "Your permit is valid,
Captain Hunter," the inspector admitted. "Unrestricted registrations
like yours have not been issued for the past five years. That's why
the probe was not adjusted to the special conditions which apply in
your case. Your permit is revocable if you are committed for
maladjustment."

Hunter grinned. "I wouldn't count on that. My adjustment index is
zero-zero."

"A paragon, Captain." The voice was dry and biting. "But you may find
conditions on the Earth a little trying. You haven't had a chance to
get really well-acquainted with your own world since you were a kid of
sixteen."

Hunter's customs clearance had taken more than an hour. Before he left
the municipal building, he made a quick tour of the lobby, searching
again for Ann Saymer. Satisfied that she had not come, he put in a
call from a public tele-booth to Ann's apartment residence. After a
moment, Mrs. Ames' face came into sharp focus on the screen, the light
coalescing about her hair.

A warm, motherly widow of nearly eighty, Mrs. Ames had been the
residence's owner for a decade, and had taken a great deal of
vicarious pleasure in Ann's romance with the captain. "It's so
different," she said once to Hunter, "your faith in each other, the
way you work together for a goal you both want. If the rest of us
could only learn to have some honest affection for each other. But,
there, I'm an old woman, living too much in the past."

As soon as Hunter saw her face on the screen, he knew that something
was wrong. She was tense and nervous, tied in the emotional knots of
an anxiety neurosis. And Mrs. Ames was not the woman to fall easy
victim to mental illness. If Hunter had been guessing the odds, he
would have put her adjustment index on a par with his own.

"I haven't seen Ann for a month," she told him.

"Where is she? My last micropic from her said something about a
commission-job--"

"She's all right, Max. Did you join the U.F.W.?"

"I'll be damned if I will."

Why had she asked him that? Her question seemed totally unrelated to
her reassura