ld expect to find in
the rough, sharp dueling of pinlighting.

Underhill had been amused one time when he found one of the most
sluggish of the Partners coming away happy from contact with the mind
of the girl named West.

Usually the Partners didn't care much about the human minds with which
they were paired for the journey. The Partners seemed to take the
attitude that human minds were complex and fouled up beyond belief,
anyhow. No Partner ever questioned the superiority of the human mind,
though very few of the Partners were much impressed by that
superiority.

The Partners liked people. They were willing to fight with them. They
were even willing to die for them. But when a Partner liked an
individual the way, for example, that Captain Wow or the Lady May
liked Underhill, the liking had nothing to do with intellect. It was a
matter of temperament, of feel.

Underhill knew perfectly well that Captain Wow regarded his,
Underhill's, brains as silly. What Captain Wow liked was Underhill's
friendly emotional structure, the cheerfulness and glint of wicked
amusement that shot through Underhill's unconscious thought patterns,
and the gaiety with which Underhill faced danger. The words, the
history books, the ideas, the science--Underhill could sense all that
in his own mind, reflected back from Captain Wow's mind, as so much
rubbish.

Miss West looked at Underhill. "I bet you've put stickum on the
stones."

"I did not!"

Underhill felt his ears grow red with embarrassment. During his
novitiate, he had tried to cheat in the lottery because he got
particularly fond of a special Partner, a lovely young mother named
Murr. It was so much easier to operate with Murr and she was so
affectionate toward him that he forgot pinlighting was hard work and
that he was not instructed to have a good time with his Partner. They
were both designed and prepared to go into deadly battle together.

One cheating had been enough. They had found him out and he had been
laughed at for years.

Father Moontree picked up the imitation-leather cup and shook the
stone dice which assigned them their Partners for the trip. By senior
rights, he took first draw.

* * * * *

He grimaced. He had drawn a greedy old character, a tough old male
whose mind was full of slobbering thoughts of food, veritable oceans
full of half-spoiled fish. Father Moontree had once said that he
burped cod liver oil for weeks after