"I repeat, my dear, how do you know we're invincible?" Alina lifted the eyebrow again, a habit that irritated Parmay because he couldn't do it. "I don't know that we're invincible, and you know it," she answered, ignoring syntax. "But I hardly think you can say we haven't done anything." "You think not?" grinned Parmay, "Listen: 'We haven't done anything.'" Alina said nothing; she just looked at him. "You look," said Parmay, "as though you loved me." "You act as though you were analyzing me. Put that slipdisc back in its case, chum; I'll not have you pulling psychostatistics on me." Parmay spread both palms. "Look, ma, no analyzer. I'm innocent." * * * * * Both man and the aliens were spreading inexorably. Neither knew, or could know, the aim, intention, or location of the other. Each knew that the other was spreading. Each was determined that the other should not be ahead in claiming the galaxy. And each was determined that his own race, and his alone, should rule the stars. Neither, seemingly, knew much about the other. It had become a battle of technology; a battle in which man was lagging behind. The psych engineers who told the outpost stars that man was catching up to the aliens were propagandizing in their teeth. The enemy was ahead; the enemy was too damned far ahead. So man fought doggedly on, hanging by his teeth, making each day, each second, count. The Psychontact Division built up month by month as Parmay worked to get the right men into the right positions. Specifically, Psychontact had the job of co-ordinating the colonies into a working whole, thus hoping to insure that the whole would be greater--and stronger--than the sum of its parts. "Colonies! Colonies!" blazed Parmay, one morning. "You'd think we were bacteriological cultures!" "Well," answered Alina, "of course we aren't." "Well of course we _are_!" Parmay snapped back, "We're trying to spread, disease-like, over the galaxy in order to counteract the effects of another type of organism which is trying to do the same." Alina was putting some of his things into a travelcase, and she went right on shoving them in as she answered. "Romm, why does the alien problem bother you? You're getting to be a fanatic on the subject, and it's not your problem at all. Why don't you let Xenology do its job and you do yours?" Parmay grabbed the travelcase as Alina closed it. He smiled nonchalantly. "Honey chile, I am not a fanatic; I just have to have something to yell about. Relieves tension and all that. Remind me to give you a lesson some time." "But--" "Shaddup. Come here." When Alina started asking too many questions, Parmay didn't require a complete detailed analysis of his wife to know that she was worried about him; and he didn't need to run a complete synthesis to know what to do. Twenty minutes later, the phone chimed. "Damn!" Parmay blistered. He kissed Alina once more, then answered.