“Just since the dance. You gave me bell, Here, remember? And before that, the chief
and Babe had worked me over, too.. . .”
“I remember.” Jones began to grin. “All I’m surprised at . .
Hush, you.” Cecily grinned back at him. “I don’t get these moments of truth very often, so
you just listen. Anyway, after the dance I felt lower than a snake’s feet. I didn’t feel even
like going over to my hand-bag after a cigarette, so I just sat there and looked at it and
pretty soon I could see everything perfectly plainly and one jumped out of my case inside
my bag and into my mouth and lit itself. Then I knew, of course, and started working on it
and ‘I got pretty good at it. Watch. I’m over here in the comer and now back in my chair.
Now count the cigarettes in your case, Babe.”
“He doesn’t need to,” Train put in. “Twelve King Camfields. Stainless steel case-not the
one you carried on Rhenia, by the way-right-hand shirt pocket.” A king-size Camfield
appeared between Cecily’s lips and came alight. “One gone, eleven left.”
“Oh?” “Ah!” “So.” came three voices at once; and Deston, after counting his cigarettes,
said, “Eleven is right. That’s a neat trick, Curly-just a minute.”
Grasping his case he stared fixedly at it and a Camfield appeared in his mouth, too; but it
did not light up. “How do you concentrate the energy without burning the end of your . . .”
He broke off as Barbara shot him a thought, then went on, “. . , yeah, that can come
later. Go ahead, Perce.”
“You four are using telepathy Train declared. “Uh-huh. It’s easy, we’ll show you how it
goes. Go ahead.”
“There’s not much to tell. I’ve had it all my life, but I’ve never let on about it until now and
I’ve never used it except on the job; I’ve been afraid to. I read up on psionics, but it’s
never been demonstrated scientifically and I didn’t want the psychs to start with me. So I
kept still. I knew you two were witches, of course-even though that is impossible, too-but
I wasn’t in your class, so I still kept still. Oh, I could see the stuff plainly enough when I
knew exactly where to look, but that was all.”
“How do you know that was all? You’ve been fighting the whole concept, haven’t you, the
same way I was?” “Could be, I guess … maybe I have got something … latent, I mean .
. . . at that.”
“I don’t suppose we really need to ask you two, then, if you want to come along with us.”
“I’ll say you don’t-and thanks a million for asking us,” Cecily breathed; and Train agreed
fervently. He went on, “You have room enough, I suppose? And when’s your zero?”
“Plenty. Nineteen hours today was announced, but we can hold it up without hurting
anything a bit.”
“No need to. That gives us over seven hours and we won’t need half that. Except for our
bags at the hotel all our stuff’s in the shed. We’ll be seeing you-let’s jet, Curly.”
Train called an aircab and they were whisked across the city. Nothing was said until they
were in the girl’s room. He put both arms around her and looked straight into her eyes;
his hard but handsome face strangely tender. “This hasn’t been enough, Sess. I asked
you once before to marry, me….”
“I’m glad you brought that up, Perce. I was just going to ask you if you still harbored the
idea.”
There is no need to go into exactly what happened then. After a time, however, he said,
“I knew why you wouldn’t, before.”
“Of course,” she replied, soberly. “We would have been at each other’s throats half the
time-we would have hurt each other unbearably.”
“And this changes things completely,” he said, just as soberly. “Exploring the universe
with those four . . . as well as the unknown universe of psionics. . . .”
“Oh, wonderful!” she breathed. “Just the thought of it-especially that you’re so strongly
psionic, too-rocks me. It changes my whole world. And besides,” her expression
changed completely; she gave him a bright, quick grin, “children, especially such
super-children as yours and mine, ought to have two parents. Married. To each other.
You know?”
“Children!” Train gasped. “Why, I didn’t know . . . you didn’t tell me you were . . .”
“Of course not, silly. I’m not. I’m talking about the ones we’re going to have.
Super-children. Half a dozen of ’em.”
“Oh.” Train gulped. “Okay. But why the ‘super’?” “Have you ever scanned Teddy Deston
and Babbsy Jones?”
No. Why should I have? Or any other little toddlers?” “They aren’t ordinary little toddlers,
Perce. Not by seven thousand rows of apple trees. I got a flash once. Just a flash and
just once, but I know damn well it was a mind-block. They scare me witless. Babe and
Here think they’re ordinary babies, too, but Bobby and Bun know very well they aren’t.
They won’t admit it, of course, even to themselves, to say nothing of to each
other-Bobby and Bun, I mean, not the kids-so don’t ever breathe a word of this to
anybody-besides, they’d snatch you bald-headed if you did. So-verbum sap.”
“I think you’re more than somewhat nuts, presh, but I’ll be as verbum sappy as you say.
Now, one for the road,” which turned out to be several, “and we’ll go hunt us up a
preacher.”
“But we can’t!” she wailed. “I forgot-just thought of it. Three days-those blood tests and
things!”
“That’s right . . . hut with the physicals we’ve been taking every ten days-proof enough of
perfect health so they’ll waive ’em.”
“One gets you ten they won’t. Did you ever hear of a small-type bureaucrat cutting one
inch o£ his damned red tape?”
“I sure have. All you got to have to push bureacrats around is weight, and we’re
heavyweights here . . . it’d be quicker, though, to do it the sneaky way-some starship’s
chaplain.”
“Oh, let’s!” She squealed like a schoolgirl. “I know you meant `sneaky’ in its engineering
sense, but I don’t. She has as much cat blood in her as I have. Maybe more.”
“She?” Train raised his eyebrows. “Better break that up into smaller pieces, presh. Grind
it a little finer.”
“Comet-gas! You know who, and why, Bun. If you don’t tell her who the chaplain was or
what world he was from-registry, you know-she’ll never find out when we were married.”
Train laughed “I see, kitten-but I always did like cats, and I don’t leak. Okay, little
squirt-let’s jet.”
Long before nineteen hours, then, the Trains and their belongings arrived at the
Explorer’s dock. Leaving her husband at the freight hoist, Cecily went up in the pas-
senger elevator and looked Bernice up. “Where’s our room, Bun?” she asked, in a
perfectly matter-of-fact tone and without turning a hair.
Bernice started to say something; but, as she saw the heavy, plain, yellow-gold
band-Cecily had never worn a ring on either hand-she said instead, “Why, I didn’t know
you were-when did this happen?”
“Oh, we’ve been married quite a while. We didn’t want it to get out before, of course, but
I thought sure you’d guessed.”
“I guessed something, but not that. I’m awfully sorry, Curly, really, but . . .”
“You needn’t be, Bun, at all; you had every right to. But I’ll tell you one thing right now
that I really mean there’ll be no more monkey-business for me. Ever.”
“Oh, I’m so glad, Curly,” and this time the two women did kiss each other. This was the
beginning of a friendship that neither had thought would ever be.
At exactly nineteen hours the Explorer cut gravs. No one aboard her knew where they
were going. Or what they were looking for. Or how long they would be gone.
When Maynard told Deston that he did not have time to cope with two such
trouble-makers as Train and Byrd, he was stating the exact truth; for he was busier than
ever he had ever been before. It was a foregone conclusion that the opposition, which
included the most corrupt and farthest-left government WestHem had ever known, would
not and could not accept its two minor defeats as having decided the issue.
The crucial question was- Would they call one more local, single-business strike-in an
industry that could not possibly be automated-before taking the supreme gamble of a
general strike?
The Galaxians had been trying for a long time to answer that question. As has been said,
GalMet’s spy system (officially, it did not exist; actually, it was an invisible division of the
Public Relations Department) was very good. So was WarnOil’s; and InStell’s, by the
very nature of things, was better than either. And, long before, Maynard had engineered
a deal whereby Stevens Spehn had been put in charge of the combined “Information