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indifferent to his advances?”
    “Well, that depends on the fruit, Doctor. Generally speaking, I’m friendly. I figure I might need a reserve supply someday.”
    Listening with only half an ear. Captain Hansen felt that McCormick might be pulling the doctor’s leg, but there was an air of sincerity about the chief, and Hansen felt an affinity for this man who was pouring out his secrets to aid his comrades. However, the affinity was strained slightly near the close of the interview when McCormick started to come up with some theorizing in answer to the doctor’s more general questions.
    “And when you’re talking to them, Doctor, concentrate on that little thing… Get them close to a piano playing bass notes.”
    “Wonderful! Wonderful! Sympathetic vibrations.”
    Hansen rose and went to the porthole, looking out as he tried to hit upon some method of verifying the chief’s story. Personally, he didn’t doubt it—the American woman had too much independence to join in a general boycott—but he could not officially testify on the ground of personal belief.
    “Don’t sit like a Frenchman,” he heard the chief instruct an awed doctor, “with your kneecaps together, nor like an American with your legs crossed. Hold your knees about three feet apart, rest your arm over your leg so that your hand droops, like this. All lines draw attention to your crotch. Now, for dancing, we got the whore’s waltz. That’s a real twanger when you’re doing a tango.”
    Well, the doctor had used frank language, himself, the captain mused, glancing at his watch, but he wished McCormick would belay the theories. He wanted to get the verification in before Captain Arnold was on the line asking for a report.
    “Marvelous! Now, Chief, would you cross your legs as the Americans do?”
    Gresham leaned down and pulled a small rubber mallet from his briefcase. “And pull your trouser leg above your knee. That’s right. Thank you.” He flicked the mallet and tapped beneath the chief’s kneecap. In response, the leg kicked slightly forward. “Fabulous!” the doctor chortled. “That’s called the Babinski reflex. If you don’t have that, you don’t have anything. Chief, you’ve got it.”
    Somewhat befuddled, the chief rolled down his trouser leg and stood up.
    “Stand by in the passageway. Chief,” the captain said, “I want to talk to you, later.”
    After the chief stepped out, the captain asked, “Weren’t you reading too much into the Babinski reflex, Doctor?”
    “That was a joke, Captain. He pulled my leg. I punched his.”
    “Then he could have been lying?”
    “Absolutely! But my questions were cross-keyed to establish median attitudes and motives. For my purposes, a lie consistently adhered to becomes a truth… Now, Captain, would you witness an official act?”
    “Certainly, Doctor.”
    Gresham removed from his briefcase a bright-red folder with TOP SECRET Stamped across its face. Using a plastic ruler, he connected the dots he had made on the graph paper with a black line which zigzagged down the page. “That’s McCormick,” he said, laying the clipboard face up on the desk. He unzipped the red folder. “This little baby you’re going to look at has a security rating a few grades lower than nerve gas. Believe me. Captain, this doll is a triumph of cybernetics, psychology, and literary research. Observe Lothario X, profile of the perfect lover. Pure sex appeal!”
    To Hansen, Lothario X was just another squiggly line, this one on a sheet of lucite.
    “This profile. Captain, is synthesized from the reconstructed profiles of the Marquis de Sade, on the one hand, and Saint Francis of Assisi, on the other. It matches, incidentally, the reconstructed profiles of Casanova, Rubirosa, and Willie Jefferson. It inspired the first practical utilization of a computer-stored bibliography in researching memoirs and private letters.”
    “Do you think McCormick lied about the girl, Doctor?”
    “I tend to think not,