Chip said, "I don't have my test equipment in the apt."

"I'll shoot over to the shop and pick it up for you."

"It's not at the shop." Reluctantly, he admitted, "It's in my car. I didn't get around to unloading it last night." In actuality, he had been too pizzled on papapot to get the trunk of his hovercar open. "Can't it wait until after nine?" he asked irritably. G. G. Ashwood's unstable manic energy annoyed him even at noon... this, at seven-forty, struck him as downright impossible: worse even than a creditor.

"Chip, dearie, this is a sweet number, a walking symposium of miracles that'll curl the needles of your gauges and, in addition, give new life to the firm, which it badly needs. And furthermore-"

"It's an anti what?" Joe Chip asked. "Telepath?"

"I'll lay it on you right out in front," G. G. Ashwood declared. "I don't know. Listen, Chip." Ashwood lowered his voice. "This is confidential, this particular one. I can't stand down here at the gate gum-flapping away out loud; somebody might overhear. In fact I'm already picking up the thoughts of some gloonk in a ground-level apt; he-"

"Okay," Joe Chip said, resigned. Once started, G. G. Ashwood's relentless monologs couldn't be aborted anyhow. He might as well listen to it. "Give me five minutes to get dressed and find out if I've got any coffee left in the apt anywhere." He had a quasi memory of shopping last night at the conapt's supermarket, in particular a memory of tearing out a green ration stamp, which could mean either coffee or tea or cigarettes or fancy imported snuff.

"You'll like her," G. G. Ashwood stated energetically. "Although, as often happens, she's the daughter of a-"