le she was still serving her internship in a city clinic,
Ann had invented the tiny machine which, with wry humor, she called an
Exorciser.

She had never used the device in the public clinic. If she had, she
would have lost the patent, since she had built the Exorciser while
she was still serving out her educational apprenticeship in the city
clinic.

"I'm no fool, Max," she told Hunter. "Why should I give it away? We'll
coin credits in our own clinic with that little gadget."

Hunter had no objection to her aggressive selfishness. In fact, the
term "selfishness" did not even occur to him. Ann was simply
expressing the ethic of their society. He admired her brilliance, her
cleverness; and he knew that her Exorciser, properly exploited, would
be the touchstone to a fortune.

During one of his furloughs Ann demonstrated what the machine could
do. After a minor surgical operation, a fragile filigree of
microscopic platinum wires was planted in the cerebral cortex of a
patient's skull. From a multi-dialed console Ann verbally transmitted
a new personality directly into the maladjusted mind. After twenty
minutes she removed the wire grid, and the disorganized personality
was whole again, with an adjustment index testing at zero-zero.

"A cure that leaves out the long probe for psychic causes," she said
enthusiastically. "In minutes, Max, we'll be able to do what now takes
weeks or months. They'll swarm into our clinic."

Hunter reasoned that Ann had taken the commission-job in order to
experiment with her machine in a privately-operated clinic. Her
internship had ended a month before, and it had been an altogether
legal thing for her to do. The fact that she had taken a commission
meant she would work for only a specific contract period. And because
a commission-job carried a professional classification, Ann had not
been compelled to join the union.

Nevertheless the haze of anxiety still lay oppressively over Captain
Hunter's mind. No matter what the requirements of Ann's commission may
have been, she could have met him at the spaceport. She knew when his
ship was due, and had never failed to show up before.

II

The line of people continued to move steadily toward the customs
booth. Hunter stopped at last in front of a counter where a male
clerk, wearing on his tunic the identification disc of his U.F.W.
union local, typed out the customs forms, took Hunter's thumbprint,
and carefully checked his medical cer