Rule of Three
Theodore Sturgeon
From “Baby is Three”
Volume VI: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon

	They were a decontamination squad—three energy-entities (each triple)—on a routine check of a known matter-entity culture. What they traveled in was undoubtedly a ship, since it moved through space, except that it was not a physical structure of metal. It slowed down like a light wave that had suddenly grown tired.
	"There it is," said RilRylRul.
	The two other triads merged their light-perceptions and observed it. "Out at the edge," said KadKedKud, in satisfaction. "It should not be too difficult to handle out there. When infection spreads near the heart of a Galaxy, it can be troublesome."
	MakMykMok cautioned, "Don't underestimate the job until it's surveyed."
	"It's a very small sun," said Ril. "Which one of the planets is it? The fourth?"
	"No, the greenish-blue one, the third."
	"Very well."
	In due time the ship—a bubble of binding energy and collapsed, rarefied gas molecules—entered the atmosphere. It reshaped itself gradually into a round-nosed, tapered transparency and dropped sharply, heading due west over the planet's equator.
	"Busy little things, aren't they?"
	As the world turned under them, they watched. They saw the ships, the cities. In the microscopic, intangible fluxes of force which were nerve and sinew and psyche to their triple structure, they stored their observations. They recorded the temperature of steel converters and ships' power plants, calculated the strength of materials of buildings and bridges by their flexure in a simply computed wind velocity, judged and compared the flow-shapes of air and ground vehicles.
	"We could return right now," said Kad. "Any race which has progressed this far in such a brief time must be a healthy one. Otherwise, how could—"
	"Look!" Ril flashed.
	They watched, appalled. "They are killing one another!"
	"It must be a ritual," said Kad, "or perhaps a hunt. But we'd better investigate closer."
	They dropped down, swiftly overtook a low-flying open-cockpit biplane with a black cross on the fuselage, and settled on the cowling behind the pilot's head. Mak interpenetrated the ship's wall and, treading and passing the air molecules which fled past, reached the pilot's leather helmet at the nape of the neck. Contact was made and broken almost in the same moment of time, and Mak hurtled back in horror to the skin of their ship.
	"Get clear!" he ordered.
	In three microseconds the invisible ship was in the upper atmosphere, with Mak still clinging to the outer skin.
	"What was it?"
	"Pa'ak, the most vicious, most contagious energy-virus known. That creature is crawling with them! Never have I seen such an infestation! Examine me. Irradiate me. Be careful, now—be sure."
	It was strong medicine, but effective. Mak weakly permeated through the ship's wall and came inside. "Disgusting. Utterly demoralizing. How can the creature live in that condition?"
	"Worse than Murktur III?"
	"Infinitely worse. On Murktur I never saw a concentration higher than 14, and that was enough to reduce the natives to permanent bickering. These bipeds can apparently stand a concentration of over 120 on the same scale. Incredible."
	"Perhaps that individual is quarantined."
	"I doubt it. It was flying its own machine; it can apparently land at will anywhere. But we will check further. Mak, you were quite right," said Ril. "Don't underestimate the job indeed. Why, with an infestation like that, and a drive like that...what couldn't they accomplish if they were clean?"
	They swooped close to the land, barely touched the hair of a child on a hilltop, and soared again, shaken and frightened.
	"From what we've seen, that one was no more than 15% of maximum size. How do you read the Pa'ak concentration?"
	"Over 70. This place is a pesthole. These creatures must be stopped—and soon. You know how soon such a technology reaches for the stars."
	"Shall we send for reinforcements?"
	"Before investigating? Certainly not. And after all, there are three of us."
	"We shall have to protect ourselves," Ril pointed out.
	"You mean—dissociate? Divide our triple selves?"
	"You know that's the only way we can remain undetected by the Pa'ak. Of course, once we know exactly how they have developed here, and have analyzed the psychic components of the natives, we can re-synthesize."
	"I hate the thought of dividing myself. So weak, so impotent..."
	"So safe. Don't forget that. Once we've encased ourselves in the minds of these creatures and analyzed them, we'll have to join ourselves again to fight the Pa'ak."
	"Yes, indeed. And we'll be together again soon. Take care," added Mak, the cautious one. "The Pa'ak are mindless, but exceedingly dangerous."
	"Hungry," Kad supplemented.
	"Especially for our kind. Shall we begin?"
	The ship disappeared, bursting like a bubble. The three dropped, sharing a wordless thought that was like a handclasp. Then each of them separated into three, and the nine particles drifted down through the atmosphere.

	The news is apples for the unemployed...disarmament... the Model A Ford.

	A young girl lay on her stomach under a tree, reading. She yawned widely, choked a little, swallowed, and went back to her book.
	Two friends shook hands. Later, one absentmindedly palmed the back of his neck. Something was rubbed into his skin. The other young man scratched his wrist as he walked away.
	Something was in the drinking water, though neither the nurse, as she filled the glass, nor the little girl, as she drank, knew of it.
	Some dust settled on a toothbrush.
	A small boy sank his teeth into his bread-and-jam. The rich, red preserve drooled to the table. The boy put his finger in it, thrust the finger into his mouth.
	Another youngster ran through the dewy morning grass in his bare feet.
	Somewhere, two dust motes were waiting their turn.
	And a number of years went by.

	The news is Korea and Tibet...protein synthesis...Aureomycin...leaf and grain hormone poisons...the McCarran Act.

	There was a character at the party named Irving, and Jonathan Prince, Consulting Psychologist, didn't like him. This Irving played guitar and sang folk songs in a resonant baritone, which was fine; but after that he would put a lampshade on his head and be the "March of the Wooden Soldiers" or some such, and that was as funny, after the fourth viewing, as a rubber crutch. So Jonathan let his eyes wander.
	When his gaze came to the dark girl sitting by the door, his breath hissed in suddenly.
	Priscilla was sitting next to him. She said "Ouch," and he realized he had squeezed her hand painfully.
	"What's the matter, Jon?"
	"I just—nothing, Pris." He knew it was tactless, because he knew the sharpness of Priscilla's tilted eyes, but he couldn't help it; he stared back at the dark girl.
	The girl's hair was blue-black and gleamed like metal, yet he knew how soft it would be. Her eyes were brown, wide apart, deep. He knew how they would crinkle on the outside ends when she smiled. He knew, as a matter of fact, that she had a small brown mole on the inside of her left thigh.
	Irving was still singing. Of course it had to be "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair." Priscilla pressed Jon's hand, gently. He leaned toward her.
	She whispered, "Who's the charmer? Someone you know?" 
	He hesitated. Then he nodded and said, without smiling, "My ex-wife."
	Priscilla let his hand go.
	Jonathan waited until Irving finished his song and, in the applause, rose. " 'Scuse ..." he muttered. Priscilla didn't seem to be listening.
	He crossed the room and stood in front of the dark girl until she looked up at him. He saw the little crinkle by her eyes before he saw the smile.
	"Edie."
	"Jon! How are you?" Then she said, in unison with him, "Can't complain." And she laughed at him.
	He flushed, but it was not anger. He sat on the ottoman by her feet. "How've you been, Edie? You haven't changed."
	"I haven't," she nodded seriously. There was an echo in his mind. "We'll always be friends, Jon. Nothing can change that." Was that what she meant? She said, "Still trying to find out how the human mind works?"
	"Yes, on the occasions when I find one that does. Are you in town for long?"
	"I've come back. They closed the Great Falls office. Jon ..." 
	"Yes?"
	"Who's the redhead?" 
	"Priscilla. Priscilla Berg. My assistant." 
	"She's lovely, Jon. Really lovely. Is she...are you..." 
	At last he could smile. "You can ask, Edie," he said gently. "Here, I'll ask you first. Are you married?" 
	"No."
	"I didn't think so. I don't know why, but I didn't think so. Neither am I."
	He looked down at his hands because he knew she was smiling, and somehow he didn't want to look into her eyes and smile too. "I'll get us a drink."
	She waited until he was on his feet and a pace away before she said what she used to say: "Come back quickly."
	Someone jostled him at the bar.
	"What's up, Doc?" said Irving, and nickered. "Hey, that assistant of yours, she drinks scotch, doesn't she?"
	"Rye on the rocks," he said absently, and then realized that the scotch suggestion was Irving's shot in the dark, and that he'd given the idiot an opening gambit with Priscilla. He was mildly annoyed as he ordered two Irish-and-waters and went back to Edie.

	***

	Communication was dim and labored.
	"We're trapped ..."
	"Don't give up. Ked is very close to me now."
	"Yes, you and Ked can achieve proximity. But these creatures won't combine emotionally in threes!"
	"They can—they must!"
	"Do not force them. Remain encysted and work carefully. Did you know the Pa'ak got Mak?"
	"No! How horrible! What about Myk and Mok, then?"
	"They will be guardians, watchers, communicators. What else can they do?"
	"Nothing...nothing. How terrible to be one-third dead! What happened to Mak?"
	"The creature Mak occupied killed itself, walked in front of a speeding vehicle as Mak tried to synthesize. Mak could not get clear in time from the dead thing."
	"We must hurry or these beasts will leap off into space before we join our strength again."

	***
	
	The club wouldn't be open for hours yet, but Derek knew which of the long row of herculite doors would be unlocked. He shouldered it open and sidled in, being careful not to let it swing shut on his bass viol.
	Someone was playing the piano out back. Piano...hadn't Janie been knocking herself out looking for a piano man before he went away? He mumbled, "Hope she—" and then Jane was on, over, and all around him.
	"Derek, you tall, short underdone yuk, you!" she crooned. She hugged him, and put a scarlet print of her full mouth on his cheek. "Why didn't you wire? God, man, I missed you. Here, put down that Steinway and smooch me once. Am I glad to see your ugly head...Look at the man," she demanded of the empty club as he leaned the big bass against the wall and stroked its rounded flank with the tips of his fingers. "Hey, this is me over here."
	"How are you, Janie?" He delivered a hug. "What's been giving around here?"
	"Me," she said. "Giving, but out. Ma-an...a hassle. For ten days I had a sore throat clear from neck to tonsil, carrying that piano man. Damn it, I got a way I sing, and a piano's got to walk around me when I do it. Chopsticks this square makes—eggs— ack—ly—on—the—beat," she stressed flatly. "And then a bass player I had, a doghouse complete with dog, and tone-deaf to boot. I booted him. I worked the last three nights without a bass, and am I glad you're back!"
	"Me too." He touched her hair. "We'll get you a piano player and everything'll riff like Miff."
	"A piano I got," she said, and her voice was awed. "Little cat I heard in a joint after hours. Gives his left hand a push and forgets about it. Right hand is crazy. Real sad little character, Derek. Gets the by-himself blues and plays boogie about it. Worse he feels, the better he plays. Sing with him? Man! All his chords are vocal cords for little Janie. He's back there now. Listen at him!"
	Derek listened. The piano back there was talking to itself about something rich and beautiful and lost. "That just one man?" he asked after a moment.
	"Come on back and meet him," she said. "Oh, Derek, he's a sweetheart."
	"Sweetheart?"
	She thumped his chest and chuckled. "Wait till you see him. You don't need to lie awake nights over him. Come on."
	He was a man with a hawk face and peaceful eyes. He huddled on the bench watching what his hands did on the keyboard as if he hadn't seen them before but didn't much care. His hands were extraordinarily eloquent. He didn't look up.
	Derek said, "I'm going to go get my fiddle."
	He did, and picked up the beat so quietly that the pianist didn't hear him for three bars. Then he looked up and smiled shyly at Derek and went on playing. It was very, very good. They volleyed an intro back and forth for a while and then, before Derek fully realized what they were playing, Janie was singing "Thunder and Roses":

	"When you gave me your heart You gave me the world ..."

	And, after, there was a chord with a tremendous emphasis on an added sixth, and then it was augmented—a hungry, hungry leading tone, which led, with a shocked sort of satisfaction, into silence.
	Derek put by his bass, carefully, so it wouldn't make any sound.
	Jane said, in a mouselike voice, "I can breathe now?"
	The pianist got up. He was not tall. He said, "You're Derek Jax. Thanks for letting me play along with you. I always wanted to."
	"Thanks, he says." Derek gestured. "You play a whole mess of piano. What's your name?"
	"Henry. Henry Faulkner."
	"I never heard of you."
	"He was head of the Orchestration Department at the Institute for twelve years," said Jane.
	"Hey? That's all right," said Derek. "Symphony stuff. What'd you leave for?"
	"Squares," said Henry. To Derek, it was a complete explanation. "I'd like to work here."
	Jane closed her eyes and clasped her hands. "Yummy."
	Derek said, from a granite face, "No."
	Jane stood frozen. Henry came out from behind the piano. He walked—he all but trotted up to Derek. "No? Oh, please! A—joke?"
	"No joke. Just no."
	Jane breathed, "Derek, what are you on? Goofballs?"
	Derek threw up his hands. "No. It's a good word. Ain't 'no' better than a whole lot of yak? No, that's all."
	"Derek—"
	"Mr. Jax," said Derek.
	"Mr. Jax, please think it over," Henry said. "I've been wanting to work with you ever since you recorded 'Slide Down.' " You know how long ago that was. I don't just want to play piano someplace. I want to play here—with you. I don't care about the pay. Just let me back up that bass."
	"He never talked like that to me," said Jane with a small smile. "You've made yourself a conquest, puddin'head. Now—"
	"I don't want to hear that kind of talk," exploded Derek. "I don't want to hear any kind of talk. I said no!"
	Jane came to him. She squeezed Henry's forearm and gave him a long look. "Walk around some," she said kindly. "Come back and see me later."
	Derek stood looking at the piano. Jane watched Henry go. He walked slowly, holding himself in, his head forward. At the other side of the dance floor he turned and opened his mouth to speak, but Jane waved him on. He went out.
	Jane whirled on Derek. "Now what the God—"
	Derek interrupted her, rasping, "If you got any more to say about this, you can look for a new bass man too."

	***
	
	Pallas McCormick was fifty-three years old and knew what she was about. She strode briskly down Eleventh Street, a swift, narrow figure with pointed shoulders and sharp wattles at the turn of her thin jaw. It was late and the tea room would be closed before long.
	Verna was there before her, her bright white hair and bright blue eyes standing out like beacons in the softly lit room.
	"Good evening, Pallas." Verna's voice was soft and pillowy, like her pudgy face and figure.
	"Evening," said Pallas. Without preliminaries she demanded, "How are yours?"
	Verna sighed. "Not so well. Two are willing, one isn't. The little fool."
	"They're all fools," said Pallas. "Two billion stupid fools. Never heard of such a place."
	"They want to do everything by twos," said Verna. "They're all afraid they'll lose something if they don't pair off, pair off. They've been schooled and pushed and ordered and taught that that's the way it must be, so—" she sighed again—"that's the way it is."
	"We haven't much more time. I wish we hadn't lost—" There followed a dim attempt to project "Mak," a mental designation for which there was no audible equivalent.
	"Oh, dear, stop saying that! You're always saying that. Our first third is gone, all eaten up, and that's the way it is."
	"We're two," said Pallas caustically, "and we don't want to be. Are you all right?"
	"Thoroughly encysted, thank you. Pa'ak can't get to me. I'm so well encased I can barely get through to control this—" she lifted her arms and dropped them heavily on the table—"this bag of bones. And I can't telepath. I wish I could communicate with you and the others directly, instead of through this primitive creature and its endless idioms. I've even got to use that clumsy terrestrial name of yours—there's no vocalization for our real ones." Again there was an effort to identify the speaker as "Myk" and the other as "Mok," which failed.
	"I wish I could get through to the others. Goodness! A weak signal once in a while—a mere 'come close' or 'go away'—and in between, nothing, for weeks on end."
	"Oh, but they've got to stay closed up so tight! You know how the Pa'ak infection works—increasing the neurotic potential so that the virus can feed on the released nervous energy. There are two groups of three people who must come together by their own free emotional merging, or Ril's three parts and Kad's three parts can never become one again. To allow them that emotional freedom is to allow the Pa'ak virus which infests them to remain active, since they tend to be attracted to one another for neurotic reasons. At least we don't have that much trouble. There was so little neurosis or anything else left in these minds when we took them over that they were poor feeding grounds for Pa'ak. And that's the—"
	"Verna, can you spare me that everlasting—"
	"—the way it is," finished Verna inexorably. "I'm sorry, Pallas, truly. There's a horrid little pushbutton in this mind that plays that phrase off every once in a while no matter what I do. I'm rebuilding the mind as fast as I can; I'll get to it soon. I hope."
	"Verna ..." said Pallas with an air of revelation. "We can speed this thing up. I'm sure we can. Look. These fools won't group in threes. And Ril and Kad can't complete themselves unless their three hosts are emotionally ready for it. Now then." She leaned forward over her teacup. "There's no important difference between two groups of three and three groups of two."
	"You really think...why, Pallas, that's a marvelous idea. You're so clever, dear! Now the first thing we'll have to—"
	They both froze in an attitude of listening.
	"My word," said Verna. "That's a bad one."
	"I'll go," said Pallas. "That's one of the creatures I'm guarding. Ril is in it."
	"Shall I come too?"
	"You stay here. I'll take a taxi and keep in touch with you. When I'm far enough away I'll triangulate. Keep watch for that signal again. Goodness! What an urgent one!"
	She trotted out. Verna looked across at Pallas's untouched teacup. "She left me with the check." A sigh. "Well, that's the way it is."

The news is the artificial satellite program and flying discs...three-stage rockets and guilt by association.

	Dr. Jonathan Prince was saying, "The world's never been in such a state. Industrialization is something you can graph, and you find a geometric increase. You can graph the incidence of psychoneuroses the same way and find almost the same curve, but it's a much larger one. I tell you, Edie, it's as if something were cultivating our little traumas and anxieties like plowed fields to increase their yield, and then feeding off them."
	"But so much is being done, Jon!" his ex-wife protested.
	Jon waved his empty glass. "There are 39,000 psychotherapists to how many millions of people who need their help? There's a crying need for some kind of simple, standardized therapy, and people refuse to behave either simply or according to standards. Somewhere, somehow, there's a new direction in therapy. So-called orthodox procedures as they now exist don't show enough promise. They take too long. If by some miracle of state support and streamlined education you could create therapists for everyone who needed them, you'd have what amounted to a nation or a world of full-time therapists. Someone's got to bake bread and drive buses, you know."
	"What about these new therapies I've been reading about?" Edie wanted to know.
	"Oh, they're a healthy sign to a certain extent; they indicate we know how sick we are. The most encouraging thing about them is their diversity. There are tools and schools and phoneys and fads. There's psychoanalysis, where the patient talks about his troubles to the therapist, and narcosynthesis, where the patient's troubles talk to the therapist, and hypnotherapy, where the therapist talks to the patient's troubles.
	"There's insulin to jolt a man out of his traumas and electric shock to subconsciously frighten him out of them, and CO2 to choke the traumas to death. And there's the pre-frontal lobotomy, the tran-sorbital leukotomy, and the topectomy to cut the cables between a patient's expression of his aberrations and its power supply, with the bland idea that the generator will go away if you can't see it any more. And there's Reichianism which, roughly speaking, identifies Aunt Susan, who slapped you, with an aching kneecap which, when cured, cures you of Aunt Susan too.
	"And there's—but why go on? The point is that the mushrooming schools of therapy show that we know we're sick; that we're anxious—but not yet anxious enough, en masse—to do something about it, and that we're willing to attack the problem on all salients and sectors."
	"What kind of work have you been doing recently?" Edie asked. "Electro-encephalographics, mostly. The size and shape of brain-wave graphs will show a great deal once we get enough of them. And—did you know there's a measurable change in volume of the fingertips that follows brainwave incidence very closely in disturbed cases? Fascinating stuff. But sometimes I feel it's the merest dull nudging at the real problems involved. Sometimes I feel like a hard-working contour cartographer trying to record the height and grade of ocean waves. Every time you duplicate an observation to check it, there's a valley where there was a mountain a second ago.
	"And sometimes I feel that if we could just turn and look in the right direction, we'd see what's doing it to us, plain as day. Here we sit with our psychological bottle of arnica and our therapeutic cold compresses, trying to cure up an attack of lumps on the headbone. And if we could only turn and look in the right place, there would be an invisible maniac with a stick, beating us over the head, whom we'd never detected before."
	"You sound depressed."
	"Oh, I'm not, really," he said. He stood up and stretched. "But I almost wish I'd get away from that recurrent thought of looking in a new direction; of correlating neurosis with a virus disorder. Find the virus and cure the disease. It's panacea; wishful thinking. I'm probably getting lazy."
	"Not you, Jon." His ex-wife smiled at him. "Perhaps you have the answer, subconsciously, but what you've learned won't let it come out."
	"Very astute. What made you say that?"
	"It's a thing you used to say all the time."
	He laughed and helped her up. "Edie, do you have to get up early tomorrow?"
	"I'm unemployed. Didn't I tell you?"
	"I didn't ask," he said ruefully. "My God, I talk a lot. Would you like to see my new lab?"
	"I'd love to! Oh, I'd love it. Will it be—all right?"
	"All right? Of course it—oh. I see what you mean. Priscilla. Where is she, anyway?"
	"She went out. I thought you noticed. With that man who plays the guitar. Irving." She nodded toward the discarded instrument.
	"I hadn't noticed," he said. Over his features slipped the poker expression of the consulting psychologist. "Who did you come with?"
	"The same one. Irving. Jon, I hope Priscilla can take care of herself."
	"Let's go," he said.

	***

	Faintly, and with exasperation, Ril's thought came stumblingly through to Ryl and Rul:
	"How can a thinking being be so stupid? Have you ever heard a more accurate description of the Pa'ak virus than that? 'Cultivating our little traumas and anxieties like plowed fields to increase their yield, and then feeding off them.' And 'a new direction.' Why haven't these people at least extrapolated the idea of energy life? They know that matter and energy are the same. An energy virus is such a logical thing for them to think of!"
	And Rul's response: "They can no more isolate their experiments from their neuroses than they can isolate their measuring instruments from gravity. Have patience. When we are able to unite again, we will have the strength to inform them."
	Ril sent: "Patience? How much more time do you think we have before they start to spread the virus through this whole sector of the cosmos? They are improving rockets, aren't they? We should have sent for reinforcements. But then—how could we know we'd be trapped like this in separate entities which refuse to merge?"
	"We couldn't," Ryl answered. "We still have so much to learn about these creatures. Sending for reinforcements would solve nothing."
	"And we have so little time," Rul mourned. "Once they leave Earth, the Pa'ak pestilence will no longer be isolated."
	Ril responded: "Unless they are cured of the disease before they leave."
	"Or prevented from leaving," Ryl pointed out. "An atomic war would lower the level of culture. If there is no choice, we could force them to fight—we have the power—and thus reduce their technology to the point where space flight would be impossible."
	It was a frightening idea. They broke contact in trembling silence.

	***

	They had a drink, and then coffee, and now Irving was leading her homeward. She hadn't wanted to go through the park, but it was late and he assured her that it was much shorter this way. "There are plenty of places through here where you can cut corners." It was easier not to argue. Irving commanded a flood of language at low pitch and high intensity that she could do without just now. She was tired and bored and extremely angry.
	It was bad enough that Jon had deserted her for that bit of flotsam from his past. It was worse that she should have walked right past him with her hat on without his even looking up. What was worst of all was that she had let herself be so angry. She had no claims on Jonathan Prince. They were more than friends, certainly, but not any more than that.
	"Who's the girl you came to the party with, Irving?" she asked.
	"Oh, her. Someone trying to get a job at the plant. She's a real bright girl. Electronics engineer—can you imagine?"
	"And—"
	He glanced down at her. "And what? I found out she was a cold fish, that's all."
	Oh, she thought. So you ditched her because you thought she was a cold fish, and scooped me up. And what does that make me? Aloud she said, "These paths wind around the park so. Are you sure it's going to take us out on the downtown side?"
	"I know everything about these woods." He peered. "This way."
	They turned off the blacktop walk and took a graveled path away to the right. The path was brilliantly lit by a street-lamp at the crossing of the walks, and the light followed the path in a straight band through the undergrowth. It seemed so safe...and then Irving turned off to still another path. She turned with him, unthinking, and blinked her eyes against a sudden, oppressive darkness.
	It was a small cul de sac, completely surrounded by heavy undergrowth. As her eyes became accustomed to the dim light that filtered through the trees, she saw benches and two picnic tables. A wonderful, secluded, restful little spot, she thought—for a picnic.
	"How do you like this?" whispered Irving hoarsely. He sounded as if he had been running.
	"I don't," she said immediately. "It's late, Irving. This isn't getting either of us anywhere."
	"Oh, I don't know," he said. He put his arms around her. She leaned away from him with her head averted, swung her handbag back and up at his face. He caught her wrist deftly and turned it behind her.
	"Don't," she gasped. "Don't..."
	"You've made your little protest like a real lady, honey, so it's on the record. Now save us some time and trouble. Let's get to it."
	She kicked him. He gasped but stood solidly. There was a sharp click behind her. "Hear that?" he said. "That's my switch-blade. Push a button and zip!—seven inches of nice sharp steel. Now don't you move or make a sound, sweetheart, and this'll be fun for both of us."
	Locking her against him with his left arm, he reached slowly up under the hem of her short jacket. She felt the knife against her back. It slipped coldly between her skin and the back of her low-cut dress. "Don't you move," he said again. The knife turned, sawed a little and the back strap of her brassiere parted. The knife was removed; she heard it click again. He dropped it in his jacket pocket.
	"Now," he breathed, "doesn't that feel better, lamb-pie?"
	She filled her lungs to scream, and instantly his hard hand was clamped over her mouth. It was a big hand, and the thumb was artfully placed so that she couldn't get her mouth open wide enough to use her teeth on it.
	"Let's not wrestle," he said, his voice really gentle, pleading. "It just doesn't make sense. I'd as soon kill you as not—you know that."
	She stood trembling violently, her eyes rolled up almost out of sight. Her mouth sagged open when he kissed it. Then he screamed.
	His arms whipped away from her and she fell. She lay looking dully up at him. He stood straight in the dim light, stretched, his face up and twisted with pain. He had both hands, apparently, on one of his back pockets. He whirled around and her eyes followed him.
	There was someone else standing there...someone in black. Someone who looked like a high-school teacher Priscilla had once had. Gray hair, thin, wattled face.
	Moving without haste but with great purpose, the spinsterish apparition stooped, raised her skirts daintily and kicked Irving accurately in the groin. He emitted a croaking sound and dropped to a crouch, and began a small series of agonizing grunts. The old lady stepped forward as if she were dancing a minuet, put out one sensible shoe and shoved. Irving went down on his knees and elbows, his head hanging.
	"Get out," said the old lady crisply. "Now." She clapped her hands once. The sound stiffened Irving. With a long, breathy groan he staggered to his feet, turned stupidly to get his bearings and hobbled rapidly away.
	"Come on, dear." The woman got her hands under Priscilla's armpits and helped her up. She half-carried the girl over to one of the picnic tables and seated her on the bench. With an arm around Priscilla's shoulders, she held her upright while she put a large black handbag on the table. Out of it she rummaged a voluminous handkerchief which she thrust into Priscilla's hands. "Now, you sit there and cry a while."
	Priscilla said, still trembling," I can't," and burst into tears.
	When it was over she blew her nose weakly. "I don't...know what to say to you. I—he would have killed me."
	"No, he wouldn't. Now while I'm alive and carry a hatpin."
	"Who are you?"
	"A friend. If you'll believe that, child, that's good enough for me and it'll have to be good enough for you."
	"I believe that," said Priscilla. She drew a long, shuddering breath. "How can I ever thank you?"
	"By paying attention to what I tell you. But you must tell me some things first. How did you ever get yourself mixed up with such an animal? You surely have better sense than that."
	"Please don't scold...I was silly, that's all."
	"You were in a tizzy, you mean. You were, weren't you?"
	"Well," sniffed Priscilla, "yes. You see, I work with this doctor, and he and I—it isn't anything formal, you understand, but we work so well together and laugh at the same things, and it's...nice. And then he—"
	"Go on."
	"He was married once. Years ago. And he saw her tonight. And he didn't look at me any more. I guess I'm foolish, but I got all upset."
	"Why?"
	"I told you. He just wanted to talk to her. He forgot I was alive."
	"That isn't why. You were upset because you were afraid he'd get together with her again."
	"I—I suppose so."
	"Do you want to marry him?"
	"Why, I—I don't... No, I wouldn't. It isn't that."
	The old lady nodded. "You think if he married her again—or anyone else—that it would make a big difference in the work you do together, in the way he treats you?"
	"I... don't suppose there would be any difference, no," Priscilla said thoughtfully. "I'd never thought it through."
	"And," continued the old lady relentlessly, "have you thought through any other possible course of action he could have taken tonight? He was married to her for some time. He apparently hasn't seen her for years. It must have been a small shock to him to find her there. Now, what else might he have done? 'Goodness gracious, there's my old used-up wife. Priscilla, let's dance.' Is that what you expected?"
	At last she giggled. "You're wonderful. And you're right, you are so absolutely right. I have been sil—Oh!"
	"What is it?"
	"You called me Priscilla. How did you know my name? Who are you?"
	"A friend. Come along, girl; you can't sit here all night." She drew the startled girl to her feet. "Here, let me look at you. Your lipstick's smeared. Over here. That's better. Can you button that jacket? I think perhaps you should. Not that it should matter if your bust does show, the way you brazen things dress nowadays. There now, come along."
	She hurried Priscilla through the park, and when they reached the street, turned north. Priscilla tugged at the black sleeve. "Please— wait. I live that way." She pointed.
	"I know, I know. But you're not going home just yet. Come along, child!"
	"Where are you—we—going?"
	"You'll see. Now listen to me. Do you trust me?"
	"Oh, my goodness, yes!"
	"Very well. When we get where we're going, you'll go inside alone. Don't worry now, it's perfectly safe. Once you're inside you'll do something very stupid indeed."
	"I will?"
	"You will. You'll turn around and try to leave. Now, then, I want you to understand that you must not leave. I shall be standing outside to see that you don't."
	"But I—But why? What am I supposed...where ..."
	"Hush, child! You do as you're told and you'll be all right."
	Priscilla walked along in silence for a time. Then she said, "All right." The old lady turned to look into the softest-smiling, most trusting face she had ever seen. She put her arm around Priscilla's shoulders and squeezed.
	"You'll do," she said.

	***

	Henry Faulkner sat in a booth, far from the belly-thumping juke box and the knot of people chattering away at the head end of the bar. Henry's elbows were on the table and his thumbs, fitted carefully into the bony arches over his eyelids, supported the weight of his head. The cafe went round and round like a Czerny etude, but with a horizontal axis. The walls moved upward in front of him and down behind him, and he felt very ill. Once he had forced down three beers, and that was his established capacity; it had bloated him horribly and he'd had a backache in the morning. Tonight he'd had four double ryes.
	"There he shtood," he said to one of the blonde girls who sat opposite, "nex' to the conductor, watching the orch'stra, an' sometimes he'd beat time wiz arms. When the last movement ended, th' audience rozhe up as one man an' roared. An' there he shtood, nex' to the conductor—"
	"You said that before," said the girls. They spoke in unison, and the pair of them had only one voice, like the doubled leading tone in a major chord.
	"There he shtood," Henry went on, "shtill beating time after the music stopped. An' the conductor, wi' eyes in his tears—wi' tears in his eyes—turned him around so he could shee the applause."
	"What was the matter with him?" asked the girls.
	"He was deaf."
	"Who was?"
	"Beethoven." Henry wept.
	"My God. Is that what you're tying one on about?"
	"You said to tell you the sad story," said Henry. "You didn't say tell you my sad story."
	"Okay, okay. You got money, ain't you?"
	Henry lifted his head and reared back to get perspective. It was then that the girl merged and became one; he realized that there had been one all along, in spite of what he had seen. That explained why they both had the same voice. He was extravagantly pleased. "Sure I got money."
	"Well, come on up to my place. I'm tired uh sittin' around here."
	"Very gracious," he intoned. "I shall now tell you the sad story of my laysted wife."
	"What type wife?"
	"I beg your pardon? I've never been married."
	The girl looked perplexed. "Start over again."
	"Da capo," he said, with his finger beside his nose. "Very well. I repeat. I shall now tell you the story of my wasted life."
	"Oh," said the girl.
	"I have had the ultimate in rejections," said Henry solemnly. "I fell in love, deeply, deeply, deeply, dee—"
	"Who with?" said the girl tiredly. "Get to the point and let's get out of here."
	"With a string bass. A bull, as it were, fiddle." He nodded solemnly.
	"Ah, fer Pete's sake," she said scornfully. She stood up. "Look, mister, I can't waste the whole night. Are you comin' or ain't you?"
	Henry scowled up at her. He hadn't asked for her company. She'd just appeared there in the booth. She had niggled and nagged until he was about to tell her all the things he had come here to forget. And now she wanted to walk out. Suddenly he was furious. He, who had never raised his hand or his voice in his whole life, was suddenly so angry that he was, for a moment, blind. He growled like the open D on a bass clarinet and leaped at her. His clawed hand swept past her fluffy collar and got caught, tore the collar a little, high on the shoulder.
	She squealed in routine fear. The bartender hopped up sitting on the bar and swung his thick legs over.
	"What the hell's going on back there?" he demanded, pushing himself onto the floor.
	The blonde said, shrilly and indignantly, exactly what she thought Henry was trying to do.
	"Right there in the booth?" said a bourbon up the row.
	"That I got to see," replied a beer.
	They started back, followed by the rest of the customers.
	The bartender reached into the booth and lifted Henry bodily out of it. Henry, sick and in a state of extreme panic, wriggled free and ran—two steps. The side of his head met the bridge of the bourbon's nose. Henry was aware of a dull crunch. There were exploding lights and he went down, rolled, got to his feet again.
	The girl was screaming in a scratchy monotone somewhere around high E flat. The bourbon was sitting on the floor with blood spouting from his nose.
	"Get 'im!" somebody barked.
	Powerful hands caught Henry's thin biceps. A heavy man stood in front of him, gigantic yellow mallets of fists raised.
	"Hold him tight," said the heavy man. "I'm gonna let him have it."
	And then a sort of puffball with bright blue eyes was between Henry and the heavy man. In a soft, severe voice it said, "Leave him alone, you—you bullies! You let that man go, this very minute!"
	Henry shook his head. He regretted the movement, but among the other things it made him experience was clearing sight. He looked at the puffball, which became a sweet-faced lady in her fifties. She had gentleness about her mouth and sheer determination in her crackling blue eyes.
	"You better stay out of this, Granny," said the bartender, not unkindly. "This character's got it comin' to him."
	"You let him go this instant!" said the lady, and stamped a small foot. "And that's the way it is."
	"Al," said the heavy man to the bartender, "just lead this lady off to one side while I paste this bastard."
	"Don't you put a hand on me."
	"Watch your language, Sylvan," said the bartender to the heavy man. He put a hand on the lady's shoulder. "Come over here a sec—uh!"
	The final syllable was his staccato response to the old lady's elbow in the pit of his stomach. That, however, was not the end of her— literally—chain reaction. She swung her crocus reticule around in a full-armed arc and brought it down on the heavy man's head. He sank to the floor without a whimper. In the same movement she put her other hand swiftly but firmly against Henry's jaw and pushed it violently. His head tipped back and smashed into the face of the man who stood behind him holding his arms. The man staggered backward, tripped, and fell, bouncing his skull off an unpadded bar stool.
	"Come along, Henry," said the old lady cheerfully. She took him by the wrist as if he were a small boy whose face needed washing, and marched him out of the cafe.
	On the street he gasped, "They'll chase us….”
	"Naturally," said the lady. She put two fingers into her mouth and blew a piercing blast. A block and a half away, a parked taxi-cab slid away from the curb and came toward them. There was shouting from the cafe. The taxicab pulled up beside them. The lady whipped the door open and pushed Henry in. As four angry men shouldered out on the sidewalk, she reached deep into her reticule and snatched a dark object from it. She stood poised for a moment, and in the neon-shot half-light Henry saw what was in her hand—an old-fashioned, top-of-stove flat iron. He understood then why the heavy man had drowsed off so readily.
	The lady hefted the iron and let it fly. It grazed the temple of one of the men and flew straight through a plate glass window. The man who was hit went to his knees, his hands holding his head. The other three fell all over each other trying to get back out of range. The lady skipped into the cab and said calmly, "Young man, take us away from here."
	"Yes, ma'am!" said the driver in an awed tone, and let in his clutch.
	They jounced along in silence for a moment, and then she leaned forward. "Driver, pull up by one of these warehouses. Henry's going to be sick."
	"I'm all right," said Henry weakly. The cab stopped. The lady opened the door. "Come along!"
	"No, really, I—"
	The lady snapped her fingers.
	"Oh, all right," said Henry sheepishly. In the black shadows by the warehouse he protested faintly, "But I don't want to be sick!"
	"I know what's best," she said solicitously. She took his hand, spread it, and presented him with his long middle finger, point first, as if it were a clinical thermometer. "Down your throat," she ordered.
	"No!" he said loudly.
	"Are you going to do as you're told?"
	He looked at her. "Yes."
	"I'll hold your head," she said. "Go on."
	She held his head.
	Afterward, in the cab, he asked her timidly if she would take him home now.
	"No," she said. "You play the piano, don't you, Henry?"
	He nodded.
	"Well, you're going to play for me." She reached forcefully into her reticule again, and his protest died on his trembling lips. "Here," she said, and handed him an old-fashioned mint.

	***

	Priscilla mounted the stairs. She had a "walking-underwater" feeling, as if she were immersed in her own reluctance. She had trod these stairs many times at night—usually downward after a perplexing, intriguing series of experiments. She did not know why she should be returning to the laboratory now, except that she had been ordered to do so. She freely admitted that if it were not for the thin, straight figure in black who waited downstairs, she would certainly be in bed by now. But there was an air of command, of complete certainty, about the old lady who had saved her that was utterly compelling.
	She walked quietly down the carpeted hall. The outer door of the lab office was ajar. There was no light in the office, but a dim radiance filtered in from the lab itself, through the frosted panel of the inner door. She crossed to it and went in.
	Someone gasped.
	Someone said, "Priscilla!"
	Priscilla said, "Excuse me!" and spun around. She shot through the office and out into the hall, her cheeks burning, her eyes stinging. "He—he—" she sobbed, but could not complete the thought, would not review the picture she had seen.
	At the lower landing she raced to the street door, valiantly holding back the tears and the sobs that would accompany them. Her hand went out to the big brass doorknob, touched it—
	As the cool metal greeted her hand she stopped.
	Outside that door, standing on the walk by the iron railings, radiating strength and rectitude, would be the old lady. She would watch Priscilla come out of the building. She would probably nod her head in knowledgeable disappointment. She would doubtless say, "I told you you would want to leave, and that it would be foolish."
	"But they were—" said Priscilla in audible protest.
	Then came the thought of trustfulness: "Listen to me. Do you trust me?"
	Priscilla took her hand away from the knob. She thought she heard the murmur of low voices upstairs.
	She remembered the talk about Jon and his meeting with Edie at the party. She remembered herself saying, "I—just didn't think it through."
	She turned and faced the stairs. "I can't, I can't possibly go back. Not now. Even if...even if it didn't make any difference to me, they'd...they'd hate me. It would be a terrible thing to do, to go back."
	She turned until the big brass knob nudged her hip. Its touch projected a vivid picture into her mind—the old lady, straight and waiting in the lamplight.
	She sighed and started slowly up the stairs again.
	When she got to the office this time the light was on. She pushed the door open. Jon was leaning against the desk, watching it open. Edie, his ex-wife, stood by the laboratory door, her wide-spaced eyes soft and bright. For a moment no one moved. Then Edie went to Jon and stood beside him, and together they watched Priscilla with questions on their faces, and something like gentle sympathy. Or was it empathy?
	Priscilla came in slowly. She went up to Edie and stopped. She said, "You're just what he needed."
	The wide dark eyes filled with tears. Edie put her arms out and Priscilla was in them without quite knowing which of them had moved. When she could, Edie said, "You are so lovely, Priscilla. You're so very lovely." And Priscilla knew she was not talking about her red hair or her face.
	Jon put a hand on each of their shoulders. "I don't understand what's happening here," he said, "but I have the feeling that it's good. Priscilla, why did you come back?"
	She looked at him and said nothing.
	"What made you come back?"
	She shook her head.
	"You know," he smiled, "but you're just not talking. You've never done a wiser thing than to come back. If you hadn't, Edie and I would have been driven apart just as surely as if you'd used a wedge. Am I right, Edie?
	Edie nodded. "You've made us very happy."
	Priscilla felt embarrassed. "You are giving me an awful lot of credit," she said in a choked voice. "I didn't really do anything. I wish I had the—the bigness or wisdom you think I have." She raised her eyes to them. "I'll try to live up to it, though. I will ..."
	The phone rang.
	"Now who could that—" Jon reached for it.
	Priscilla took it out of his hand. "I'll take it."
	Edie and Jon looked at each other. Priscilla said into the phone, "Yes...yes, it's me. How in the world did you...Tonight? But it's so late! Will you be there? Then so will I. Oh, you're wonderful... yes, right away."
	She hung up.
	Jon said, "Who was it?"
	Priscilla laughed. "A friend."
	Jon touched her jaw. "All right, Miss Mysterious. What's it all about?"
	"Will you do something if I ask you? You, too, Edie?"
	"Oh, yes."
	Priscilla laughed again. "We do have something to celebrate, don't we?" When they nodded, she laughed again. Well, come on!"

	***
	
	It was easier to carry the chopsticks piano-player with Derek to help, Jane concluded. She watched the rapt faces in the club. The house counted good, and it was going great, but she couldn't help thinking what it would be like if Derek hadn't been so pigheaded about little Henry. She finished her chorus and the piano took it up metro-nomically, nudged on the upbeats of the authoritative beat of Derek's bass. She looked at him. He was playing steadily, almost absently. His face was sullen. When he got absent-minded he wasn't colossal any more; only terrific.
	The piano moved through an obvious C-sharp seventh chord to change key to F-sharp, her key for the windup. She drifted into the bridge section with a long glissando, and disgust moved into her face and Derek's in perfect synchronization as they realized that the pianist was blindly going into another 32 bars from the beginning.
	Derek doubled his beat and slapped the strings hard, and the sudden flurry of sound snapped the pianist out of it. Blushing, he recovered the fluff. Jane rolled her eyes up in despair and finished the number. To scattered applause she turned to the piano and said, "Tinkle some. Derek and I are going to take ten. And while you're tinkling," she added viciously, "practice, huh?"
	She smiled at the audience, crossed the stand and touched Derek's elbow. "I'm going behind that potted palm and flip my lid. Come catch it."
	He put his bass out of harm's way and followed her into the office. She let him pass her and slump down on the desk. She banged the door.
	"You—"
	He looked at her sullenly. "I know what you're going to say. I threw out the best ten fingers in the business. I told you I don't want to talk about it. You don't believe that, do you?"
	"I believe it," she said. Her eyes glittered. "Derek Jax, I love you."
	"Cut it out."
	"I'm not kidding. I'm not changing the subject, either. I love you this much. I'm going to call your hand, kid. I love you so much that I'm going to make you talk about what's with this business of Henry, or I'm going to see you walk out of here with, and into, your doghouse."
	"That don't make a hell of a lot of sense, Janie," he said uncomfortably.
	"No, huh? Listen, the guy I love talks to me. I understand him enough so he can talk to me. If he won't talk to me, it's because he thinks I won't understand. I think you see what I mean. I love the guy I think you are. If you won't talk about it, you're just not that guy. Maybe that doesn't mean anything to you."
	"Could be," he growled. He rose and stretched. "Well, I guess I'll be going. Nice working with you, Janie."
	"So long," she said. She went and opened the door.
	"By God," he said, "you really mean it."
	She nodded.
	He licked his lips, then bit them. He sat down. "Shut the door, Janie."
	She shut the door and put her head against it. He flashed her a look. "What's the matter?"
	She said hoarsely, "I got something in my eye. Wait." Presently she swung around and faced him. Her smile was brilliant, her face composed. The vein in the side of her neck was thick and throbbing.
	"Jane ..." he said with difficulty, "that Henry—did he ever make a pass at you?"
	"Why, you egghead. No! To him I'm something that makes music, like a saxophone. It's you he's interested in. Hell, did you see his face when you came in with your bass this afternoon? He'd rather play to that bass than go over the falls in a barrel with me. If that's all that was on your mind, forget it."
	"You make it tough for me," he said heavily. "I'll play it through for you a note at a time. Got a stick?"
	She rummaged in the desk drawer and found him a cigarette. He lit it and dragged until he coughed. She had never seen him like this. She said nothing.
	He seemed to appreciate that. He glanced at her and half his mouth flashed part of a smile. Then he said, "Did I ever tell you about Danny?"
	"No."
	"Kids together. Kids get close. He lived down the pike. I got caught in a root one time, swimming in a rock quarry. Danny seemed to know the instant I got tangled. He couldn't swim worth a damn, but in he came. Got me out, too."
	He dragged on his cigarette, still hungry, hot and harsh. The words came out, smoking. "There was a lot of stuff...we played ball, we run away from home, we broke into an ol' house and pried loose a toilet and threw it out a fourth-floor window onto a concrete walk. We done a lot.
	"We jived a lot. He had natural rhythm. We used to bang away on his ol' lady's piano. I played trumpet for a while, but what I wanted to do was play string bass. I wanted that real bad.
	"We grew up and he moved away. Some lousy job trying to learn cabinet-making. Saw him a couple times. Half-starved, but real happy. I was playing bass by then, some. Had to borrow a fiddle. Wanted my own instrument so bad, never had the money. So one day he called me up long distance. Come over. I didn't have no trainfare, so I hitchhiked. Met him at a barrelhouse joint in town. He was real excited, dragged me out to his place. A shack—practically a shanty. When we got in sight of it he started to run. It was on fire."
	Derek closed his eyes and went on talking. "We got to it and it was pretty far gone. I got there first. One wall was gone. Inside everything was burning. Danny, he—he screamed like a stung kid. He tried to jump inside. I hung on to him. Was much bigger'n him. Then I saw it—a string bass. A full-size string bass, burning up. I sat on Danny and watched it burn. I knew why he'd moved out of town. I knew why he took up cabinet-making. I knew why he was so hungry an'—an' so happy. Made the box with his own two hands. We watched it burn and he tried to fight me because I would not let him save it. He cried. Well—we cried. Just two kids."
	Jane said a single, unprintable word with a bookful of feeling behind it.
	"We got over it. We roomed together after that. We done everything together. Crowd we ran with used to kid us about it, and that just made it better. I guess we were about nineteen then."
	He squeezed out a long breath and looked up at her with stretched, blind eyes. "We had something, see? Something clean and big that never happened before, and wasn't nothing wrong with it.
	"Then I come home one night and he's at the back window staring into the yard. Said he was moving out. Said we weren't doing each other any good. He was in bad shape. Somebody'd been talking to him, some lousy crumb with a sewer mouth and sewer ideas. I didn't know what it was all about. We were still just kids, see?
	"Anyway, I couldn't talk him out of it. He left. He was half-crazy, all eaten up. Like the time we watched the bull-fiddle burn up. He wouldn't say what was the trouble. So after he went I milled around the joint trying to make sense out of it and I couldn't. Then I—"
	Derek's voice seemed to desert him. He coughed hard and got it back. "—Then I went and looked out the window. Somebody'd wrote our names on the fence. Drew a heart around 'em.
	"I never gave a damn what anyone thought, see? But Danny, he did. I guess you can't know how someone else feels, but you can get a pretty fair idea. First I was just mad, and then I pretended I was Danny looking at a thing like that, and I got an idea how bad it was. I ran out lookin' for him.
	"Saw him after a time. Up by the highway, staggering a bit like he was half-soused. He wasn't, though. I ran after him. He was waiting for the light to change. There was a lot of traffic. Tried to get to him. Couldn't begin to. He sort of pitched off the curb right under oh my God I can still see it the big dual wheel it run right over his head ..." he finished in a rapid monotone.
	Jane put her hand on his shoulder. Derek said, "I didn't know then and I don't know now and I never will know if he was so tore up and sick he just fell, or if he done it on purpose. All I know is I've lived ever since with the idea I killed him just by being around him so much. Don't try to talk me out of it. I know it don't make sense. I know all the right answers. But knowing don't help.
	"That's the whole story."
	Jane waited a long time and then said gently, "No, Derek."
	He started as if he had suddenly found himself in an utterly strange place. Gradually his sense of presence returned to him and he wiped his face.
	"Yeah," he said. "Your boy Henry. Danny—he played piano, Janie. I started with him. Danny played piano like nothing that ever lived except this Henry. Everything I ever drug out of a string bass was put in there first by the way he played piano. He used to sit and play like that and every once in a while grin at me. Shy.
	"So I walk in here on a guy playing that kind of piano and he grins shy like that when he plays, and besides, here's that real close stuff around him like a fog. That Henry's a genius, Janie. And he's a—he's the type of guy they ought to use for a mold to make people out of. And he just wants to be near my fiddle. And me. And you want me to keep him around here until he knocks hisself off.
	"Janie," he said, with agony in his voice, "I'm not goin' through that again!"
	Jane squeezed his shoulder. She looked back over the afternoon and evening and words flitted through her mind: "You won't have to lose any sleep over him..." "Looks like you've made a conquest..." "Did he ever make a pass at you?" Aloud she told him, "I've sure said all the right things...take a swing at me, pudd'nhead."
	Derek pulled her hand close against his cheek, and pressed it there so hard it hurt her. She let him do it as long as he wanted. "I love you, Janie," he whispered. "I shoulda told you all that about Danny a long time ago."
	"How could you tell till you tried?" she asked huskily. "Let's go on out there before ol' Kitten on the Keys drives all the customers away."

	***

	"I can't go in there," said Henry Faulkner in genuine panic.
	"You can and you will," said the old lady firmly.
	"Listen, there's a man in there who'll throw me out on sight."
	"Have I been wrong yet? This is your night to do as you're told, young man, and that's the way it is."
	In spite of himself he grinned. They went in through the herculite doors. Janie was just finishing a number. The piano fluffed the last chorus badly. Henry and the old lady stood in the back of the club until Derek and Jane walked off the floor.
	"Now," she said briskly, "go on up there and play for me. Play anything you want to."
	"But they have a piano player!"
	"He's in a pet. Just go up there."
	"Wh-what'll I say to him?"
	"Don't say anything, silly! Just stand there. He'll go away."
	He hesitated, and the lady gave him a small shove. He shambled around the dance floor and diffidently approached the piano.
	The pianist was playing a dingdong version of Stardust. He saw Henry coming. "You again."
	Henry said nothing.
	"I suppose you want to take my job again."
	Henry still said nothing. The man went on playing. Presently, "You can have it. How anyone can work with a couple sourpusses like that..." He got off the stool in mid-chorus, leaving Stardust's garden gate musically ajar. Henry's right hand shot out and, catching the chord as if it had been syncopated instead of shut off, began molding it like a handful of soft clay. He sat down still playing.

	***

	Edie said, "I can't help feeling a little peculiar. This is wonderful, so wonderful—but there are still two of us and one of you."
	"Three of us," corrected Priscilla.
	"In some ways that's so," said Jon. He swallowed the rest of his drink and beckoned the waiter. "Pris is the best statistician and psychological steno I've ever run across. And you're a genius with the machines. Why, between us we will do research that'll make history."
	"Of course we will. But—isn't three a crowd?"
	Priscilla said, without malice, "From anyone but you I'd consider that a hint. Don't worry about me. I have the most wonderful feeling that the miracles aren't finished."
	"Pris, are you ever going to tell us about the miracles?"
	"I don't know, Jon. Perhaps." Her eyes searched the club. Suddenly they fixed on a distant corner table. "There she is!"
	"Who?" Jon twisted around. "Well, I'll be damned!"
	"What is it?" asked Edie.
	"Excuse me," said Jon, and rose. "Someone I've got to see." He stalked over to the corner table and glowered down at its occupants. "May I ask you what you're doing here?"
	"Why, Dr. Prince!" said Pallas. "Imagine meeting you here!"
	"What are you two doing here at this time of night?"
	"We can go where we like," said Verna, smoothing her snowy hair, "and that's the way it is."
	"There's no law against a lady having a spot at bedtime," amended Verna.
	"You two never cease to amaze me," Jon said, chuckling in spite of himself. "Just be careful. I'd hate to see my prize exhibits get hurt."
	They smiled up at him. "We'll be all right. We'll talk to you again later, won't we, Verna?"
	"Oh, yes," said Verna. "Definitely. That's the way it is."
	Still chuckling, Jon went back to his table. "There sits the damnedest pair of human beings I've encountered yet," he said as he sat down. "Three years ago they were senile psychotics, the two of them. As far as I can determine, they had no special therapy— they were in the County Home, and as mindless as a human being can get and stay alive. First thing you know they actually started feeding themselves—"
	"Pallas and Verna!" said Priscilla. "You've mentioned—holy Pete! Are you sure?"
	"Of course I'm sure. I'm on the Board out there. You know the case history. They have to report to me every sixty days."
	"Well—I—will—be—damned," Priscilla intoned, awed.
	"What is it, Pris? I didn't think you'd ever seen them. They've never been to the lab___Say, how did you recognize them just now?"
	"Could...could you bring them over?"
	"Oh, come now. This celebration is only for—"
	"I've heard enough to be curious about them," said Edie. "Do invite them, Jon."
	He shrugged and returned to the other table. In a moment he was back with the two spinsters. He drew out chairs for them in courtly fashion, and called a waiter. Pallas ordered a double rye, no chaser. Verna smiled like a kitten and ordered scotch on the rocks. "For our colds," she explained.
	"How long have you had colds?" he demanded professionally.
	"Oh, dear, we don't get colds," explained Verna sweetly. "That's because we drink our liquor straight."
	Dr. Jonathan Prince felt it within him to lay down the law at this point. A patient was a patient. But there was something in the air that prevented it. He found himself laughing again. He thought he saw Pallas wink at Priscilla and shake her head slightly, but he wasn't sure. He introduced the girls. Without the slightest hesitation he introduced Edie as "my wife." She colored and looked pleased.
	"Listen to that music," breathed Priscilla.
	"Thought you'd notice it," said Pallas, and smiled at Verna.
	They all listened. It was a modal, moody, rhythmic invention, built around a circle of chords in the bass which beat, and beat, and beat on a single sonorous tone. The treble progressed evenly, regularly, tripped up on itself and ran giggling around and through the steady structure of the bass modulations, then sobered and marched again, but always full of suppressed mirth.
	Priscilla was craning her neck. "I can't see him!"
	Verna said, "Why don't you go up there, dear? I'm sure he would not mind."
	"Oh...really not?" She caught Pallas's eye. Pallas gave her one firm nod. Priscilla said, "Do you mind?" She slipped out of her chair and went up past the dance floor.
	"Look at her," breathed Edie. "She's got that—that 'miracle' expression again.... Oh, Jon, she's so lovely."
	Jon said, looking at the spinsters, "What are you two hugging each other about?"
	Henry looked up from the keyboard and smiled shyly.
	"Hello," Priscilla said.
	"Hello." He looked at her face, her hair, her body, her eyes. His shyness was there, and no boldness was present; he looked at her the way she listened to his music. It was personal and not aggressive. He moved over on the bench. "Sit down."
	Without hesitation she did. She looked at him, too—the hawk profile, the gentle gray-green eyes. "You play beautifully."
	"Listen."
	He played with his eyes on her face. His hands leaped joyfully like baby goats. Then they felt awe and hummed something. Henry stopped playing by ear. He began to sight-read.
	Note followed note followed note for the line of her nose, and doubled and curved and turned back for her nostrils. The theme became higher and fuller and rounded and there was her forehead, and then there were colorful waves up and back for her hair. Here was a phrase for an earlobe, and one for the turn of the cheek, and now there were mysteries, two of them, long and subdued and agleam and end-tilted, and they were her eyes....
	Derek came out of the office and stopped so abruptly that Jane ran into him. Before she could utter the first startled syllable, her breath was taken away in a great gasp.
	Derek turned and gestured at the music. "You—"
	She looked up at him, the furious eyes, the terrified trembling at the corners of his mouth. "No, Derek, so help me God, I didn't ask him to come back. I wouldn't do that, Derek. I wouldn't."
	"You wouldn't," he agreed gently. "I know it, hon. I'm sorry. But out he goes." He strode out to the stand. Jane trotted behind him, and when they turned the corner she caught his arm so violently that her long fingernails sank into his flesh. "Wait!"
	There was a girl on the bench with Henry, and as he played he stared at her face. His eyes moved over it, his own face moved closer. His hands made music like the almost visible current which flowed between them. Their lips touched.
	There was a tinkling explosion of sound from the piano that built up in fullness and sonority until Jane and Derek all but blinked their eyes, as if it were a blaze of light. And then Henry's left hand picked up a theme, a thudding, joyous melody that brought the few late-owls in the club right to their feet. He no longer looked at the girl. His eyes were closed, and his hands spoke of himself and what he felt—a great honest hunger and new riches, a shy and willing experience with a hitherto undreamed-of spectrum of sensation.
	Jane and Derek looked at each other with shining eyes. Jane said, deliberately, "Son, you got a rival," and Derek laughed in sheer relieved delight.
	"I'm going to get my fiddle," he said.
	When Derek started to play, four people left their table and came up to the piano as if cables drew them. Hand in hand, Jon and Edie stopped close by Priscilla and stood there rapt as she, Pallas and Verna stood at the other end of the bench, their eyes glowing.
	And out of the music, out of the bodies that fell into synchronization with the masterful pulse of the great viol, came a union, a blending of forces from each of six people. Each of the six had a part that was different from all of the others, but the shape of them was a major chord, infinitely complete and completely satisfying.
	"Ril!"
	"Oh, make it formal, KadKedKud!"
	"RilRylRul, then ..."
	"If only Mak were here."
	"Myk is with us, and Muk. Poor partial things, and how hard they have worked, guarding and guiding with those pitifully inadequate bodies as instruments. Come, Ril; we must decide. Now that we can operate fully, we can investigate these creatures."
	Just as they had investigated, compared, computed and stored away observations on industrial techniques, strength of materials, stress and temperature and power and design, so now they took instant and total inventory of their hosts.
	RilRylRul found classicism and inventiveness, tolerance and empathy in Henry. In Derek were loyalty and rugged strength and a powerful interpretive quality. In Jane was the full-blown beauty of sensualism and directive thought, and a unique stylization of the products of artistic creation.
	KadKedKud separated and analyzed a splendid systematization in Priscilla, a superior grasp of applied theory in Edie, and in Jon that rarest of qualities, the associative mind—the mind that can bridge the specialties.
	"A great race," said Ril, "but a sick one, badly infected with the Pa'ak pestilence."
	"The wisest thing to do," reflected Kad, "would be to stimulate the virus to such an extent that humanity will impose its own quarantine—by reducing itself to savagery through atomic warfare. There is such a great chance of that, no matter what we do, that it would seem expedient to hasten the process. The object would be to force atomic warfare before space travel can begin. That at least would keep the virus out of the Galaxy, which is what we came here to effect."
	"It's a temptation," conceded Ril. "And yet—what a tremendous species this human race could be! Let us stay, Kad. Let us see what we can do with them. Let us move on to other human groups, now that we know the techniques of entry and merging. With just the right pressure on exactly the right points, who knows? Perhaps we can cause them to discover how to cure themselves?
	"It will be a close race," worried Kad. "We can do a great deal, but can we do it soon enough? We face three possibilities: Mankind may destroy itself through its own sick ingenuity; it may reach the stars to spread its infection; or it may find its true place as a healthy species in a healthy Cosmos. I would not predict which is more likely."
	"Neither would I," Ril returned. "So if the forces are that closely balanced, I have hope for the one we join. Are you with me?"
	"Agreed. Myk—Muk...will you join us?"
	Faintly, faintly came the weak response of the two paltry parts of a once powerful triad: "Back in our sector we would be considered dead. Here we have a life, and work. Of course we will help."
	So they considered, and, at length, decided. And their meeting and consideration and decision took four microseconds.

	***

	The six people looked at one another, entranced, dazed.
	"It's—gone," said Jon. He wondered, then, what he meant by that.
	Henry's fingers slid off the keys, and the big bass was silent. Priscilla opened her tilted eyes wide and looked about her. Edie pressed close to Jonathan, bright-faced, composed. Jane stood with her head high, her nostrils arched.
	They felt as if they were suddenly living on a new plane of existence, where colors were more vivid and the hues between them more recognizable. There was a new richness to the air, and a new strength in their bodies; but most of all it was if a curtain had been lifted from their minds for the first time in their lives. They had all reached a high unity, a supreme harmony in the music a second before, but this was something completely different, infinitely more complete. "Cured" was the word that came to Jonathan. He knew instinctively that what he now felt was a new norm, and that it was humanity's birthright.
	"My goodness gracious!"
	Verna and Pallas stood close together, like two frightened birds, darting glances about them and twittering.
	"I can't think what I'm doing here," said Pallas blankly, yet aware. "I've had one of my spells..."
	"We both have," Verna agreed. "And that's the way it is."
	Jonathan looked at them, and knew them instantly as incomplete.
	He raised his eyes to the rest of the people in the club, still stirring with the final rustle of applause from the magnificent burst of music they had heard, and he recognized them as sick. His mind worked with a new directiveness and brilliance to the causes of their sickness.
	He turned to Edie. "We have work to do ..."
	She pressed his hand, and Priscilla looked up and smiled.
	Derek and Jane looked into each other's eyes, into depths neither had dreamed of before. There would be music from that, they knew.
	Henry said, with all his known gentleness and none of the frightened diffidence, "Hey, you with the red hair. I love you. What's your name?" And Priscilla laughed with a sound like wings and buried her face in his shoulder.
	On earth there was a new kind of partnership of three. And ...

The news is new aggression threatens unleashing of atomic weapons…President calls for universal disarmament....First flight to the Moon possible now with sufficient funds....Jonathan Prince announces virus cause of neurosis, promises possible cure of all mental diseases....
	
	Watch your local newspapers for latest developments.