Andrew stood up, looked around, and then stepped forward. Nothing happened, so he took another step forward. What had happened to Gene? He didn't know, but he was going to find out. He stepped forward again, and then walked into the field of the machine. A wave of excitement filled him as the leakage-impact caught him; it heightened his perceptive sense and increased his emotional powers proportionately to the square of the distance between himself and the machine. He touched the corner of the desk with the tip of his hand and though he was not looking at the wood he knew that it was Terran oak, had been varnished with synthanic twice, and that it should be refinished again in a few months if it was to be preserved adequately. The air in the room came to his notice, and a portion of his brain found time to wonder at the phenomena for the breath of life is seldom questioned. Yet the air seemed tangy, pleasant, as though some subtle perfumes had been blended in it. He forgot the air in a quick inspection of the inert man. Yes, he knew without close examination that the psychologist was dead. From what cause? Andrew guessed that it was overload; if his senses and brain power were heightened with this mere field-leakage of Gene's machine, the effect of being in absolute contact with the machine's output would be similar to running a small motor without protective circuits from a high-power source. Gene had succeeded too well. His perception of his surroundings continued to lift into the higher levels. Knotty little problems did not bother him, and his mind leaped from problem to answer without stopping to investigate and inspect the in-between steps. Andrew wondered whether leaving the machine would cause his increased perception to drop. Forgetting Gene because the dead psychologist was no longer a sentient being, Andrew turned and walked away from the desk. The field must be terrific, he thought, and to further check the field effect, Andrew left the building and made his way down the street. He finally dismissed the dead man from his mind. The things he saw and felt and knew were of greater consequence--and whether or not the effect failed, there was one great question that he, Andrew Tremaine, was going to solve. He returned to the party. He stood upon the rim of the dance floor and considered the crowd of circling dancers. He listened to the light chatter and the foolish laughter and he pitied them. His ears, he found, had taken on a sort of selectivity and were infinitely higher in sensitivity--and yet he could control that sound-pickup to a comfortable degree. Talk from the far side of the floor came to him, filtered from the rest of the general noise-level by his own, newly-found ability. He shamelessly listened to the conversations, and found them dull and uninteresting.