u're unique. We want to know why, and
perhaps how, perhaps, your ability can be duplicated."

That appealed to me. "And if you can find out what makes me tick I can
go back to living like myself again?" I took his silence for assent. I
had to. "Good. What do I do, and when?"

He shrugged. "Nothing, yet. You'll go to ... well, let's call it
college. It shouldn't take too long. A week, maybe, maybe two, or
four, at the most."

"Then what?"

He didn't know. We'd talk about that later. Okay with me. If a doctor
could find out how I was whistling chords, all well and good. If
not--could I be any worse off?

"Then it's settled. We'll leave today, if it can be arranged, and I
feel sure it can. Robert--" to Stein--"if you'll come with me we'll
try to make the necessary arrangements." Stein left, and Smith left,
and I got up and looked into the mirror. I needed a shave again.

* * * * *

My college didn't have a laboratory worth counting when I went to
school. We'd had a stadium, and a losing football team instead. Now
the balding, bearded physicists sat in the front row when the
appropriations were spooned out. I suppose that's all for the better.
I really wouldn't know. The old fellow that met us at the front door
looked like an airedale, and like an airedale he sniffed all around me
before getting into combat range.

"So you're Peter Miller!"

"That's my name," I admitted. I wondered what all the dials and the
gadgets were for. It looked to me like the front end of one of these
computers I used to see in the magazines.

"I'm Kellner. You must be Stein, right? Never mind your coats. Just
follow me," and off he trotted, and we trailed him into a bare office
with what looked like the equipment of a spendthrift dentist.

"You sit here," and he waved at a straightbacked chair. I sat down,
Stein shifted nervously from one foot to the other, and in a moment
Kellner came back with a dozen others. He didn't bother to introduce
any of them. They all stood off and gaped at who'd killed Cock Robin.

Kellner broke the silence. "Physical first?" There was a general nod.
"Physical, psychological, then--we'll come to that later." To Stein:
"Want to come along? Rather wait here? This is going to take some
time, you know."

Stein knew that. He also wanted to come along. Those were his orders.

I felt self-conscious taking off my clothes in front of that ghoulish
crew. The sheet they left me kept