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Don’t you have a mistress?”
    “These electrical-expert types have no time for tarradiddle,” G. G. Ashwood said irritably. “Listen, Chip, this girl’s parents work for Ray Hollis. If they knew she was here they’d give her a frontal lobotomy.”
    To the girl, Joe Chip said, “They don’t know you have a counter talent?”
    “No.” She shook her head. “I didn’t really understand it either until your scout sat down with me in the kibbutz cafeteria and told me. Maybe it’s true.” She shrugged. “Maybe not. He said you could show me objective proof of it, with your testing battery.”
    “How would you feel,” he asked her, “if the tests show that you have it?”
    Reflecting, Pat said, “It seems so—negative. I don’t do anything; I don’t move objects or turn stones into bread or give birth without impregnation or reverse the illness process in sick people. Or read minds. Or look into the future—not even common talents like that. I just negate somebody else’s ability. It seems—” She gestured. “Stultifying.”
    “As a survival factor for the human race,” Joe said, “it’s as useful as the psi talents. Especially for us Norms. The anti-psi factor is a natural restoration of ecological balance. One insect learns to fly, so another learns to build a web to trap him. Is that the same as no flight? Clams developed hard shells to protect them; therefore, birds learn to fly the clam up high in the air and drop him on a rock. In a sense, you’re a life form preying on the Psis, and the Psis are life forms that prey on the Norms. That makes you a friend of the Norm class. Balance, the full circle, predator and prey. It appears to be an eternal system; and, frankly, I can’t see how it could be improved.”
    “I might be considered a traitor,” Pat said.
    “Does it bother you?”
    “It bothers me that people will feel hostile toward me. But I guess you can’t live very long without arousing hostility; you can’t please everybody, because people want different things. Please one and you displease another.”
    Joe said, “What is your anti-talent?”
    “It’s hard to explain.”
    “Like I say,” G. G. Ashwood said, “it’s unique; I’ve never heard of it before.”
    “Which psi talent does it counteract?” Joe asked the girl.
    “Precog,” Pat said. “I guess.” She indicated G. G. Ashwood, whose smirk of enthusiasm had not dimmed. “Your scout Mr. Ashwood explained it to me. I knew I did something funny; I’ve always had these strange periods in my life, starting in my sixth year. I never told my parents, because I sensed that it would displease them.”
    “Are they precogs?” Joe asked.
    “Yes.
    “You’re right. It would have displeased them. But if you used it around them—even once—they would have known. Didn’t they suspect? Didn’t you interfere with their ability?”
    Pat said, “I—” She gestured. “I think I did interfere but they didn’t know it.” Her face showed bewilderment.
    “Let me explain,” Joe said, “how the anti-precog generally functions. Functions, in fact, in every case we know of. The precog sees a variety of futures, laid out side by side like cells in a beehive. For him one has greater luminosity, and this he picks. Once he has picked it the anti-precog can do nothing; the anti-precog has to be present when the precog is in the process of deciding, not after. The anti-precog makes all futures seem equally real to the precog; he aborts his talent to choose at all. A precog is instantly aware when an anti-precog is nearby because his entire relation to the future is altered. In the case of telepaths a similar impairment—”
    “She goes back in time,” G. G. Ashwood said.
    Joe stared at him.
    “Back in time,” G.G. repeated, savoring this; his eyes shot shafts of significance to every part of Joe Chip’s kitchen. “The precog affected by her still sees one predominant future; like you said, the one luminous possibility. And