shockproof as they come."

Parmay left communications and took a drop down sixty-three levels to the Hypersee Physics section. Alina's lab was deadly silent when he opened the door. The four technicians under her were watching their instruments and ignoring the door.

Parmay resisted the impulse to pull the same gag on his wife that he had pulled on Kerrman. It might ruin an expensive research project.

Alina Starrnel's blonde, closely-cropped head was bent over an array of instruments that meant almost nothing to her husband. She moved her hand over a series of switch plates and looked up at the screen facing her.

The un-normal face of an alien stared out at her with its blank eyes. The fronds on the face flickered gently.

Parmay watched for the better part of ten minutes as the face blurred, shifted, and underwent other strange transformations beneath Alina's manipulations of the controls. Her technicians spoke softly now and then, making small adjustments in the instruments they were controlling.

Suddenly Alina slapped at the switch plates. The alien face in the screen had faded out. "Damn!" she said softly.

She turned to the four technicians. "Get as much out of that as you can, though I'm pretty sure we've lost another round."

"Bong!" said Parmay. "Round over."

"Romm!" Alina turned, seeing him for the first time. "What are you doing here?"

"Got bored. Decided I needed a kiss."

"Well, come get it."

He did.

"Now," she said, "the truth. You don't come wandering down here at this time of day to neck. Out with it."

"I came to take you to lunch."

"At this hour? I don't usually take off this early."

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