"There's a lot wrong. Not so much what you're doing as what you aren't doing. You're too aloof--detached--egg-headish. You know the score, words and music, but you don't sing. All you do is listen. Belle thinks you're not only a physical virgin, but a psychic-blocked prude. I know better. You're so full of conflict between what you want to do--what you know is right--and what those three-cell-brained nincompoops made you think you ought to do that you have got no more degrees of freedom than a piston-rod. You haven't been yourself for a minute since you came aboard. Check?" "You _have_ been thinking, haven't you? You may be right; except that it's been longer than that ... ever since the first preliminaries, I think. But what can I _do_ about it, Clee?" "Contact. Three-quarters full, say; enough for me to give you what I think is the truth." "But you said you _never_ went screens down with a woman?" "There's a first time for everything. Come in." * * * She did so, held contact for almost a minute, then pulled herself loose. "Ug-gh-gh." She shivered. "I'm glad I haven't got a mind like that." "And the same from me to you. Of course the real truth may lie somewhere in between. I may be as far off the beam on one side as you are on the other." "I hope so. But it cleared things up no end--it untied a million knots. Even that other thing--brotherly love? It's a very nice concept--you see, I never had any brothers." "That's probably one thing that was the matter with you. Nothing warmer than that, certainly, and never will be." "And I suppose you got the thought--it must have jumped up and smacked you--" Lola's hot blush was visible even through her heavy tan, "how many times I've felt like running my fingers up and down your ribs and grabbing a handful of those terrific muscles of yours, just to see if they're as hard as they look?" "I'm glad you brought that up; I don't know whether I would have dared to or not. You've got to stop acting like a Third instead of an Operator; and you've got to stop acting as though you had never been within ten feet of me. Now's as good a time as any." He took off his shirt and struck a strong-man's pose. "Come ahead." "By golly, I'm _going_ to!" Then, a moment later, "Why, they're even _harder_! How do you, a scientist, psionicist, and scholar, keep in such hard shape as that?" "An hour a day in the gym, three hundred sixty-five days a year. Many are better--but a hell of a lot are worse." "I'll say." She finished her ginger ale, sat down in her chair, leaned back and put her legs up on the bed. "That was a relief of tension if there ever was one. I haven't felt so good since they picked me as home-town candidate--and that was a mighty small town and eight months ago. Bring on your dragons, Clee, and I'll slay 'em far and wide. But I can't actually _be_ like she is...." "Thank God for that. Deliver me from _two_ such pretzel-benders aboard one ship."