Ciel shrugged to show that she wasn't particularly impressed. Neither was Pell, to tell the truth. Mentalists were all the rage, partly because everybody could practice a little amateur telepathy and hypnotism in his own home. Mentalists, of course, made a career of it and were much better at it than anybody else. Their drinks came and they watched Marco go through his act in a rather gloomy silence. Marco was skillful, but not especially unusual. He did the usual stuff: calling out things that people wrote on slips of paper, calling out dates on coins, and even engaging in mental duels wherein the challenger wrote a phrase, concealed it from Marco, and then deliberately tried to keep him from reading it telepathically. He had the usual hypnotism session with volunteers who were certain they could resist. He made them hop around the stage like monkeys, burn their fingers on pieces of ice, and so on. The audience roared with laughter. Pell and Ciel just kept staring. When Marco had finished his act and the thundering applause had faded the Venusian dancing girls came back on the stage again. Ciel yawned. Pell said, "Me, too. Let's get out of here." It wasn't until they were home in their underground apartment and getting ready for bed that Ciel turned to him and said, "You see?" He was buttoning his pajamas. "See what?" "It's _us_, Dick. It's not the floor show, or the meth, or anything--it's _us_. We can't enjoy _anything_ together any more." He said, "Now wait a minute...." But she had already stepped into the bedroom and slammed the door. He heard the lock click. "Hey," he said, "what am I supposed to do, sleep out here?" He took the ensuing silence to mean that he was. And he did. * * * * * The next morning, as he came into the office, Pell scowled deeply and went to his desk without saying good morning to anybody. Ciel had kept herself locked in the bedroom and he had made his own breakfast. How it was all going to end he didn't know. He had the feeling that she was working herself up to the decision to leave him. And the real hell of it was that he couldn't exactly blame her. "Morning, partner," said a voice above him. He looked up. Way up. Steve Kronski was built along the general lines of a water buffalo. The usual battered grin was smeared across his face. "I see we got a new assignment." "Oh--did Larkin brief you on it already?" "Yeah. Before I could get my hat off. Funny set-up, all right. I punched for basic data before you got in. Hardly any." "Maybe that means something in itself. Maybe somebody saw to it that the information never got into the central banks." The C.I.B. computers could be hooked into the central banks which stored information on nearly everything and everybody. If you incorporated, filed for a patent, paid taxes, voted, or just were born, the central banks had an electronic record of it.