"Don't trust my reaction," advised Cassal. "It's likely to be subjective." "I don't," answered Dimanche. "It is." * * * * * Cassal hummed thoughtfully. Dimanche was a business neurological instrument. It didn't follow that it was an expert in human psychology. * * * * * Cassal stared at the woman coming toward him. Center-of-the-Galaxy fashion. Decadent, of course, or maybe ultra-civilized. As an Outsider, he wasn't sure which. Whatever it was, it did to the human body what should have been done long ago. And this body wasn't exactly human. The subtle skirt of proportions betrayed it as an offshoot or deviation from the human race. Some of the new sub-races stacked up against the original stock much in the same way Cro-Magnons did against Neanderthals, in beauty, at least. Dimanche spoke a single syllable and subsided, an event Cassal didn't notice. His consciousness was focused on another discovery: the woman was Murra Foray. He knew vaguely that the first counselor was not necessarily what she had seemed that first time at the agency. That she was capable of such a metamorphosis was hard to believe, though pleasant to accept. His attitude must have shown on his face. "Please," said Murra Foray. "I'm a Huntner. We're adept at camouflage." "Huntner," he repeated blankly. "I knew that. But what's a Huntner?" She wrinkled her lovely nose at the question. "I didn't expect you to ask that. I won't answer it now." She came closer. "I thought you'd ask which was the camouflage--the person you see here, or the one at the Bureau?" He never remembered the reply he made. It must have been satisfactory, for she smiled and drew her fragile wrap closer. The reservations were waiting. Dimanche seized the opportunity to speak. "There's something phony about her. I don't understand it and I don't like it." "You," said Cassal, "are a machine. You don't have to like it." "That's what I mean. You _have_ to like it. You have no choice." Murra Foray looked back questioningly. Cassal hurried to her side. The evening passed swiftly. Food that he ate and didn't taste. Music he heard and didn't listen to. Geometric light fugues that were seen and not observed. Liquor that he drank--and here the sequence ended, in the complicated chemistry of Godolphian stimulants. Cassal reacted to that smooth liquid, though his physical reactions were not slowed. Certain mental centers were depressed, others left wide open, subject to acceleration at whatever speed he demanded. Murra Foray, in his eyes at least, might look like a dream, the kind men have and never talk about. She was, however, interested solely in her work, or so it seemed. * * * * *