[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction
December 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: _Alcorn's wild talent was miraculous ... he brought peace to
everybody who came near him. Only one person was exempt--himself!_]
He was just emerging for the hundredth time during the week from the
frightening hallucination that had come to plague him, when Kitty
Murchinsom came into his office.
"It's almost 15:00, Philip," she said.
When she had entered, her face had taken on the placid look that
everyone wore--unwittingly, but inevitably--the instant they came near
Alcorn.
Finding Kitty's cool blonde loveliness projected so abruptly against the
bleak polar plain of his waking dream, he knew how much more she was
than either fiancee or secretary alone. She was a beacon of reassurance
in a sea of uncertainty.
"Thanks, darling," he said, and looked at his watch. "I'd have
woolgathered past my appointment and it's an important one."
He stood up. Kitty came closer and put both hands on his shoulders.
"You've had another of those dreams, haven't you? I wish you'd see a--a
doctor about them."
He laughed, and if the sound rang hollow, she seemed not to notice.
"That's why I asked you to call me. I've made an appointment with one."
* * * * *
She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. "I'm glad you're decided. You haven't
been yourself at all for a week, Philip, and I couldn't _bear_ a
honeymoon with a preoccupied husband!"
He managed the appropriate leer, though he had never felt less like it.
The apprehension that followed his daytime chimera was on him again, so
strongly that what he wanted most to do was to take Kitty's hand
tightly, like a frightened child, and run headlong until he was beyond
reach of whatever it was that threatened him.
"Small chance," he said, instead. "Any man who'd dream away a honeymoon
with you is dead already."
She sighed placidly and turned back to the business at hand. "You won't
be late for your 16:00 conference with our Mr. O'Donnell and Director
Mulhall of Irradiated Foods, will you? Poor Sean would be lost without
you."
He felt the usual nagging dissatisfaction with the peculiar talent that
had put him where he was in Consolidated Advertising. "He'd probably
lose this case without my soothing presence and CA would pay its first
ungrounded refund claim in--" he counted back over the time he had been
with Consolidated--"four years and eight months."