I tried to imagine the encounter. Playmate abhors violence, yet, for a nonviolent idealist, he can be totally convincing in any argument that steps on a banana peel and slides off the intellectual plane. Playmate has sense enough to understand that not everyone shares his views. There are some people that need hammering and others that just plain need killing. There are people out there even a mother couldn't love.

"These visitors some new kind of breed?" All the races infesting TunFaire seem capable of interbreeding. Often the mechanics aren't easy to visualize but the results are out there on the street. At times nature takes a very strange turn. And some of the strangest are among my friends.

Kip shook his head. Playmate told me, "Give me a sheet of paper. I'll draw you a picture." He produced a small, polished cherrywood box with silver fittings. When opened it revealed a battery of artist's tools. He took out a couple of sticks I decided had to be Kip's inventions.

"Another unsuspected talent." I pushed over a torn sheet of paper. I'd only just started using its back side.

I recalled seeing charcoal drawings around Playmate's place but I never wondered enough about them to make a direct connection.

This detecting business requires great curiosity and attention to the tiniest details.

I was amazed once Playmate got started. "You're in the wrong racket, Play."

"Not much call for this kind of thing, Garrett." His hand moved swiftly and confidently. "Maybe in a carnival." He was a lefty, of course. They always are. The guy who did Eleanor probably had two left hands.

The portrait took shape rapidly.

"The original must've been one ugly critter." It had a head like a bottom-up pear. It had a mouth so small it was fit to eat nothing but soup. No ears were evident but Playmate was still drawing.

His hand moved slower and slower. A frown creased his forehead. Pinhead sweat beads appeared. He strained mightily to get his hand to do something it didn't want to do. He gasped, "Less call than there is for new preachers."