Specifically, Psychontact had the job of co-ordinating the colonies into a working whole, thus hoping to insure that the whole would be greater—and stronger—than the sum of its parts.

"Colonies! Colonies!" blazed Parmay, one morning. "You'd think we were bacteriological cultures!"

"Well," answered Alina, "of course we aren't."

"Well of course we are!" Parmay snapped back, "We're trying to spread, disease-like, over the galaxy in order to counteract the effects of another type of organism which is trying to do the same."

Alina was putting some of his things into a travelcase, and she went right on shoving them in as she answered.

"Romm, why does the alien problem bother you? You're getting to be a fanatic on the subject, and it's not your problem at all. Why don't you let Xenology do its job and you do yours?"

Parmay grabbed the travelcase as Alina closed it. He smiled nonchalantly. "Honey chile, I am not a fanatic; I just have to have something to yell about. Relieves tension and all that. Remind me to give you a lesson some time."

"But—"

"Shaddup. Come here."

When Alina started asking too many questions, Parmay didn't require a complete detailed analysis of his wife to know that she was worried about him; and he didn't need to run a complete synthesis to know what to do.

Twenty minutes later, the phone chimed.

"Damn!" Parmay blistered. He kissed Alina once more, then answered.

Lon Tallen, commander of the HC-36, greeted him from the screen. "Romm, we've installed all your equipment; we'll leave in two hours, but I'd like to have you aboard in about an hour. Can do?"

"Can. See you." Parmay cut off and grinned at Alina. "Hear that? A whole hour."

An hour later, he was aboard the Thirty-six, checking the instruments he had had installed. But he was only checking them with half a mind; the other half was on something Alina had said.

Fanatic? Possibly. After living with a threat that hadn't materialized in fifty decades, most of the human race viewed the alien threat with apathy. A man worked to prevent their spread—or rather to increase the spread of genus Homo—but after all, nothing 

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