"I'd like to see you this morning, Mr. Barton.**

"Well, I was just going out to the ship."

"I spoke to Mr. Tarleton, there, and he tells me he wont be needing you today. So why don't you come here instead? Nine o'clock?" He had to agree, he guessed, so he did.

Seated across the desk from Arleta Pox, Barton won- dered at the tenacity with which this small woman dug for the worms in the undersoil of his mind. She was smil- ing but he didn't trust it.

After the usual perfunctory chatter, she said, "I un- derstand that Dr. Parr's corrective surgery on your com- panions has been remarkably successful."

Barton nodded.

**Do you suppose the woman-Limila?-might con- sent to taking a few evaluative tests now?" Limila had refused anything of the sort, earlier, and the Agency (meaning Tarleton) didn't see that it had any right or authority to try to coerce her.

"I dont know; I'll ask her, if you like. But what do you expect to learn that she hasn't already toy the biological and cultural teams?" ^CQ?ll4D

"Why, a million things! She's the first persfiET-we've met of a whole new race. If we're going to have contact with them, and I assume we are, we need to know some-

102.

thing of what they are like psychologically, as individ- uals."

"Do you think she'll be typical, after what she's been through?" Then he could have kicked himself. Why re- mind the doctor that Barton had been through a few atypical experiences himself?

"Given a little time to stabilize, now that her appear- ance has been restored, I think she can give us a valid picture of what the Tilari are like. I wish she had been willing to cooperate before; the comparison would be very informative. Well, at least I can extrapolate after retesting Siewen and Heimbach."

"You've tested them?" He shook his head incredu- lously. "What did you find out?" Yes, lady, let's talk about somebody else, everybody else. Anybody but Bar- ton.

"Doktor Siewen, as you probably know, seems to be devoid of normal motivations. It remains to be seen whether his change in appearance will reactivate him to any significant extent. I had little time to work with Heim- bach between his reversion to human speech and the beginning of the surgery by Dr. Parr; he is a very con- fused man. I realize that he was semi-amnesiac for a time from the results of the so-called, sleep gun, but my feeling is that Heimbach has a very weak ego." She paused.

"Quite different from yourself, for instance, Mr. Barton.

Quite, quite different."

"Oh, hey. Doctor," Barton stammered. "Am I all that much of an egomaniac, in your book?" Watch it. Barton;

watch it!

"A strong ego is not the same thing as egotism, Mr.

Barton. I mean that unlike Heimbach you have a strong, even a fierce sense of your own individuality; it is of cen- tral importance to you. And you have a very powerful .will to survive."

"That's what the tests say?" So he hadn't fooled her much, after all.

"I didn't need the tests to tell me that; your report of the eight years with the Demu was enough. The tests, in fact, have been unsatisfactory because they dc not show me the man who could do what you obviously did."

Barton felt that he was in over his head. "Well, we all know a person can-do more than he thinks he can, when he has to. Maybe it's just that I was under a lot of stress

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there, and back home here I can let down and relax."

Like hell he could!

"Possibly. Another thought is that due to repeated ex- posure to the Demu sleep gun you still may have been partly amnesiac when you first took the personality tests."

"But I took the IQ tests at the same time; just before, actually. And you said they read about the same as what was already on file for me."

"Well, as 1 say, I'm not sure yet. So that is why I'd like you to retake the personality test series now, Mr. Barton, if you would."

When in doubt, stall! "I really wouldn't have time for all that today. Doctor. Early this afternoon I'm supposed

to pick Limila up at Dr. Parr's; he thinks she can come borne now."

"I didn't mean the entire series, Mr. Barton," she said. "A few key sections; a couple of hours at most. And it's only nine-thirty ..."

He was hooked. He knew he couldn't get away with hallucinating bis younger self again to answer all the questions; for one thing it would look fishy if he asked for full privacy a second time. Well, maybe he could halluci- nate a little of it now and then, without her noticing.

Throw a modicum of confusion into the works. Unless she were more devious than he suspected-and he sus- pected one hell of a lot, where Arleta Pox was concerned -by now he had her fooled into thinking he was sane, safe to be at large. Ail he needed to do, probably, was soft-pedal himself on the parts he couldn't hallucinate.

She brought out the test forms-Form B, so his an- swers from last time would have done him no good even if he could have remembered them-and he sat down. He wasn't directly under her eagle eye, but she could look him over any time she wished, while he couldn't look to

see if she were looking without being conspicuous about it

He did the first few questions straight, then tried to dredge the younger Barton up to answer the next few.

He couldn't do it. Whether it was her presence or whether he'd simply lost the knack, he didn't know. He hadn't practiced self-hypnosis since his escape, maybe that was the answer. But one way or another, he was stuck with

his present self and its attitudes, to cope with a lot of tricky questions.

All right; the hell with it. Tarleton needed the help of 10^.

the Tilari and other races. He couldnt get it without Limila's cooperation; in effect, that meant Barton's. Even if this lady does catch me out, he thought, she still works for Tarleton. He kept telling himself that, trying to be- lieve it

Finally he was done. Sweat from his armpits ran down his sides. He took the finished sheets to Arleta Fox, who did not look, up until he laid the papers before her.

"All completed, Mr. Barton?"

"Best I can do. Doctor."

She pressed a button: a girl came in to take the test sheets. Presumably for scoring; no reason the doc should do al! that routine stuff. The girl had gone before Barton realized he hadn't noticed what she looked like-whether she was pretty or not. That wasn't like him.

"Would you like a cup of coffee before you go, Mr.

Barton? 1 would have offered you some before, but I didn't want to interrupt your concentration."

"Yeh, sure; thanks." He -sat across from her. He didn't want coffee; he wanted a drink, and to get out of here.

But best to play along, just now.

The girl returned, bringing coffee- This time Barton no- ticed that she was slim and pretty, with blond hair cut considerably shorter than be would have preferred.

Well, at least she could grow it if she wanted to, he thought with a pang, thinking how nice it would be if Limila had the same option.

"Do you have any idea when the expedition is leav- ing, Mr. Barton?"

Barton looked at her. Not the old security-leak ploy, for Cbrissakes!