However, it required no telepathic powers to sense that Ray was in a sadly shattered state over whatever had happened between Janet and himself on their date the night before. Lynne surmised that her rival had enticed Ray into full courtship, that he was now suffering from remorse, revulsion and a resurgence of desire for herself. She wondered why she didn't care, then realised that Janet was no longer her rival. Ray was a nice boy, a highly trained and talented boy--but she wasn't in love with him any more. There were, she thought, probably half a billion unattached males in the world at any given moment, many of them far more interesting and attractive than Ray Cornell. All she had to do was look for them.... Headache and nightmare receded further with each mouthful of breakfast she ate. Her appetite was back and she kidded brightly with a miserable Ray and a rather sullen and suspicious Janet all the way to the brain-station. And then things began to happen that shattered her new-found adjustment. She was barred from entry to the studioff. The electroscreen admitted Ray and Janet as usual but remained an invisible wall that refused her admittance. She was no longer keyed to the group-machine. Before she could try again a magnovox said, "Please report to Integration Chief on Floor Eighty. Please report to Integration Chief on...." Ray looked scared. Disruption of a team during working hours was an emotional shock. Even Janet showed traces of fright. But she managed a grin and said, "Give him the old treatment, Lynne, and you can't lose." She accompanied the remark with a thoroughly carnal bump. Lynne said nothing, being incapable of speech. She turned and made her way to the mobilramp, had a sudden vivid recollection of the older but far more efficient lift on the Martian tower in her dream. She felt sick to her stomach and her headache was thumping again. She had never been on the eightieth floor before--it was reserved for guiding geniuses, who had no time for mere group-machine members except in case of trouble. Lynne wondered what she had done as she entered a room with walls of soft rolling colors. The man on the couch, a tall lean saturnine man with dark eyes that seemed to read right through her from out of a long lined white face, didn't leave her long in doubt. He said, "Miss Fenlay, I'm afraid I have bad news for you. As a result of your amazing performance yesterday your usefulness as a group-machine worker is ended." "But I was right," she protested. "I had the first zero-variation in integration history." "You needn't be so frightened," he said more gently. "I know this must be a severe emotional shock. You were right--by the machine. We need human factors in cybernetics to show us where the machines are wrong, not where they are right. To come up with two successive zero-variant answers implies some sort of rapport with the machine itself. We can't afford to take further chances."