Abruptly he mashed out his cigarette and stood up.

"The night's washed up," he growled. "Let's get out of here."

Joe, with a thought of regret, assented, and the two of them left.

It was bitter to end the last night upon such an uncompleted note.

The two of them strolled back in the direction of the bus station. The fresh night, bright with the blaze of stars and saloon signs, should have exhilarated them; but the mental tension which filled the street pressed hard on Joe's receptors, and, through him, against Grey.

A pair of police cars squatted at the corner. Fleet Police milled through the crowds, shock sticks in hand. An ambulance helicopter roaring in from the Fleet Base settled down in the center of the street.

The fight was over, but so keyed up were the Fleetmen in town that for Grey and the Canopan to walk through the street was to walk through a sticky, obscene glue of malevolence.

Joe's fur colors had faded to a dismal blue. Grey glanced at this with alarm.

The thoughts in the crowd around them had been impersonal ones—fight thoughts, pleasure thoughts, passion thoughts—violent and unnerving to the pair who had to thread their way through this tumult, but yet impersonal.

It began to change.

They began again with the snake thoughts and the thoughts about the Terran who walked with the damn snake. They looked at the pair who walked in their midst, and in their state of excitement with violence not yet out of their minds, there was a redirection of passion from the recent fight to the new center of attention.

Grey gasped as the force of this new agitation struck them.

The pair of Fleet Police ahead of them changed their direction of motion and started walking towards them. Grey's face twitched as he felt the increased tension within Joe's nervous system.

"Hold it, son," he cautioned. "Remember we're supposed to be tough. Remember the nerves of steel we're supposed to have, like it says in the books."

Joe's grip on Grey's arm tightened, and then relaxed.

"I thought I could take anything. Tonight has been almost too much."

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