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number one, when one of its gardeners discovers a diamond mine in the barren soil and it can suddenly afford to cater to all its outré whims, and its placement officer will seem suddenly more talented—while simultaneously our own enclave has to make do without our illicit income from transmuted gold. A great fat huge lot that will prove!”
    Finesse was watching him, smiling. That only spurred him to further commitment. “I empathize with mutants because I am one, and I work hard to make my clients comfortable. Had you been a client, I would have worked just as hard for you, to place you where you would do best and be happiest. This is the one job I am really fitted for. Why should CC want to take me away?”
    “You’re beautiful when you’re earnest,” Finesse said, stroking the side of his face. “Maybe your psi talent is not useful elsewhere in the galaxy. Why don’t you just tell me what it is and let me form an opinion? I can’t make the decision, of course, but I am a trained interviewer, just as you are, and I might be able to provide some hint how CC will react.”
    There was a kind of exhilaration he obtained from fencing with another person in his specialty. Knot interviewed physical mutants and placed them compatibly; she did the same for mental mutants. But this time he was the subject, and he did not want to be placed. “Why don’t you just kiss me and slap me and go home in a huff?”
    “I’ll try,” she agreed. She stood, kissed him on the lips, slapped him lightly on the cheek—and remained blithely looking at him. “Give me a nudge. I haven’t quite mastered the third action yet.”
    Is she really as seducible as she seems? Knot thought fiercely at the weasel, not certain whether the little animal remained in range.
    “Of course I am,” Finesse said.
    He started. “Oh— Hermine broadcast to you instead of to me?”
    “She knows me better. She decided I would want to make that particular decision for myself. Most females do, regardless of what they profess openly, and she’s one of us. Not that I needed any telepathy to grasp that particular thought.”
    “You have encountered it before?” He felt jealous.
    “Many times. That’s par for the course. I hardly even need to work at it, any more; the signals come naturally. But what I really want at the moment is your secret—and Hermine, a pox on her secretive little heart, has not vouchsafed that to me.”
    “Suppose I ask her to report to me on your questions?”
    “Be my guest.”
    Knot concentrated, seeking contact with the weasel. Finesse seemed to be doing the same. They were outside Hermine’s immediate range, but within her general range.
    Knot laughed, receiving the telepathic message. “Right now!” he said, and took Finesse in his arms.
    Ellipsis, Hermine thought, and went back to the vole she was stalking.

CHAPTER 2:
     
    In the afternoon Knot called on Hlet, the enclave supervisor. Hlet was proportioned like a normal, but he had two faces—one on each side of his head. This was hardly noticeable until he walked away—and he preferred to sit at his desk, his back to the wall. Knot wondered whether the back face got bored staring at the blankness, or whether it merely slept.
    Hlet blinked. “I don’t believe I know you.”
    “I’m the new placement officer,” Knot said. “You can verify it with my secretary.”
    “Perhaps I’d better.” No one bluffed Hlet. He made the call. “York—do you have a new man, name of Knot?”
    “Yes, sir,” she replied smoothly. “Did I forget to notify you? I’m sorry; we’ve been so busy. He’s been with us several days. He’s a min-mutant, right-handed—”
    “Thank you.” Hlet cut the connection. “Never can get anything straight around here. How can I help you?”
    York had covered for him, as she always did. They had it down to a routine, and played this scene for someone almost every day. York was not immune to Knot’s psi, but she remembered the routine so