He smiled at her widening eyes and said, "Sit down. Care for a drink? Brandy and a water chaser? Good! How did I know? It's easy. Yewliss, as you have gathered by now, isn't the only one with access to the Comprob. The Government allows me about anything I want, you know.

"But before I tell you things about yourself you think only you know, I want to make a confession. After I kissed you, I said, `A long time.' You thought that tonight was the first time I'd held a woman in my arms for two years, didn't you? Well, it wasn't." He sipped from his glass, tasted the liquor on his tongue, and then swallowed.

"For a long time the Government has been shipping me women. They take the anti-asp shot, stay overnight, and leave. I've had a hundred. They all had high-sounding motives. They wanted to get the secret from me for the good of mankind, in the interests of peace, but they didn't fool me for a minute. All they were after was the glory, the rewards that would be heaped upon them by the worried populace. "That was until six months ago. Suddenly, I became enraged, disgusted. Those nights left me feeling nothing. Nothing. Or, rather, a deep uneasiness. Maybe that is a moral reaction, who knows? Whatever the definition, it was a definite emptiness. Sex wasn't enough. I had some of Earth's most beautiful and passionate women, and they left me unfulfilled. They just weren't ..."

He looked down at his drink as if he didn't want to face her. "About that time I came to know a Martian. He was one who shared my outstanding feature, the ability to create fear. Not by any evil in him. Just by his presence. We became friends, despite certain difficulties of communication, and soon knew each other as well as might be expected. He is quite a master of the mind. He has a new slant on the psyche, perhaps because he cannot think like a human and so is more objective. I can confide in him as I never could in ... human therapists ... because I don't feel ashamed. He seems so non-personal, although in fact he is quite friendly and has many admirable qualities. So, while we play chess, he rids me of demons that have been riding me. The fact that I went to my wife showed me I wasn't free of her yet. But that act broke the last puppet-string. I'm through with her!"

"You seem a little confused," she said. She was thinking that Yewliss should check on the visor-records to find out who was playing long-distance chess with him. He might pry useful information from him. She continued, "Did you forget your wife because you think now you've found a satisfactory substitute?"

"Barbara, I've not known you long. But I'm sure there's no one like you, and I'm sure you're the real thing." He looked up from his glass. His eyes searched hers. "Barbara, all those women? Will they make any difference in your decision?"

"No. I'm not-as they say in historical novels-pure."

"Yewliss?"

"Yes, and several others."

"What about me?"

"Too short an acquaintance. I know your index, but a man on paper and one in the flesh are two different things. Tell me how you know about me?"

"How do I know you? Easy. After rejecting hundreds of offers, I asked the Comprob to find the woman I would best like. She had to be one who'd be capable of loving me, too. You fit both roles."

"And Yewliss was also asking for a woman whose specifications happened to fit me?"

"Yes. He sent for you before I was disentangled from my wife. I put off contacting you."

"So you insulted me because you were still angry at your wife? You transferred your rage from one Barbara to another?"

"Partly. I was contemptuous, too, because the Old Fox thought he was dealing with a stupid young cock." He took another drink, then said, "Would you mind taking my temperature? I feel hot again. Comes on me suddenly."

She raised her eyebrows and reached for the thermodial. "When did you last eat?"

She was troubled. The amount of pyretigen she detected in his blood should not have been there. It should long ago have oxidized. Possibly, Yewliss had also part some fever-inducer in his liquor, but she doubted that. An excess would be serious. The General, whatever his philosophy of ends and means, did not want to kill Ogtate. The dial rose to 100 and stopped.

He took it from his mouth and said, "It always comes up fast and stays at about 100.8 for an hour. Then it quickly goes back to normal."

"When did you first notice this fever?"

"Three days ago. Right after lunch."

"Why didn't you call a doctor?"

"I felt fine between attacks, and, to be frank, I didn't care whether I lived or died." He touched the back of her hand. "I do now."

She ignored his last remark and said, "Let me think a moment." She lighted a cigarette and gazed at him. He looked bad. His eyes were hot and red, and fatigue subtly crumpled his body-fullness. The possible reactions to the pyretigen were complicated and frightening. And there were the asps, too. A visor-screen wit had called them Anti-Social Perfume, and the initials, with their association of the venemous snake, had stuck. Bill Ogtate was the Asp. If you came near him, you were `bitten'.

Ogtate's identity as a true Asp would last at least eight years. During the final eight months, the semivirus, for a reason not yet determined, would literally `kick off.' Perhaps the body becomes tired of feeding the parasite and starves them of electromagnetic power by building a powerline around them. No one knew. The asps were created in laboratory animals and would never have been applied to human beings, had not a man with a desire to control and revenge perverted it to this end.

"Any conclusions, Doc?" croaked Bill.

"Not yet. You'd better reach over for a drink. Water, I mean."

The problem was whether or not the pyretigen, also a semivirus, acted in conjunction with the asps to produce the temperature again. As far as she knew, the combination had never been put in a living body.

Another question. What prevented the complete oxidization of the fever-maker? Pyretigen would naturally combine with oxygen after a change in chemical structure.

"How long did you say the fever lasts?" she asked.

"About an hour. It goes away fast, but three hours later it returns fast."

There was something about that rhythm that should have strummed a resonant chord in her mind. She tried vainly to strike it.

"You'd better lie down," she said, rising to help hint to the divan.

He shook his head. "Nothing doing. I do not need a nurse."

Accepting his stubbornness. knowing what was behind it, she silently took his temperature and pulse again. Then she drew out another sample of blood. A minute's work showed her that the amount of pyretigen had not diminished: it had increased!

He said, "All this talk, and you still haven't answered me. Will you marry me?"

Barbara kept her back to him. "I think I could. But I'm not in love with you."

"Could you be in the future?"

"What is love?"

"If you can endure eight years of living with me, without wanting to kill me or to be indifferent to me, you'll be in love. After all, we don't have to stay here. We can travel anywhere, be assured of privacy, entirely at Government expense. Eight years would fly."

"How could we travel without creating a fuss? Anyway, that does not matter. I've a question. If I promise to marry you, will you give Earth the Belos?"

"Are you trading yourself for the Belos?"

"You're sick. Otherwise, I'd knock you down for that."

"Try it. You're not as tough as you think you are, Barbara."

"Look at the man. Already he's quarreling."

"That was childish. I shouldn't have said it. The point is, I want you, Barbara. But I must feel you're not just a woman provided by the Government."

"My point is this. Will you give Earth the Belos? Madly in love with you or not, I still have my duty, to induce you to give up the secret."