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idea that we in the department have already taken under consideration, the inadvisability of removing the human element entirely from the manipulation of machinery. Once, an invention came before the board for review…”
    Haldane noted the phrase, “we in the department.” His father was preening. Ordinarily he said merely “the department.”
    When they were introduced in the living room, she had said, “Citizen, your father tells me you are interested in poetry.”
    “Only by association.”
    “One would expect you to attend only mathematics lectures.”
    He had entered the dining room with a singing heart and his faith in the law of averages restored. She had been seeking him at the mathematics lectures while he was seeking her.
    Now, as his father talked, Haldane’s thoughts vibrated between mathematics and analytics. She had about her a quality of freshness, half aetherial, half of earth, which reminded him of spring grass rising between patches of melting snow, and the vivacity of her thoughts were caught in the nuances of her face.
    She was a logical impossibility. He knew that she must have liver and lungs and a thorax that functioned as those of any girl, but the whole was greater than the parts.
    He leaned over and refilled his father’s wine glass.
    Haldane III diverted his attention from the girl long enough to ask, “Are you trying to get me drunk in order to impress our guest with your wit and brilliance while I sleep?”
    “Would you care for water instead?”
    Haldane had offered alternatives to ensure a choice. He cared little what his father drank as long as he drank.
    As his father watched him pour, Helix said, “If you’re determined to be a vivisectionist of poetry, citizen, perhaps you might be interested in its birth. As a class project, I’m writing a poem about Fairweather I, and I need help in translating his mathematics into words. Your father tells me you have an understanding of his works.”
    “Indeed, citizen,” Haldane answered, “rather than destroy my father’s confidence, I’ll rush into the library after the meal and write a one paragraph explanation of his Simultaneity Theorem and draw a diagram demonstrating the Fairweather Effect. The last is simple, really. He merely uses quarks to jump the time warp.”
    Haldane III interrupted. “I’d like to see us mathematicians get some of the adulation given to the sociologists and psychologists, but I hardly think Fairweather would make a good subject.”
    “Why, Dad?”
    “Among other things, he dealt with hardware, instruments and physical phenomena. He was somewhat of a manual worker, not entirely a pure theorist I wouldn’t advise Fairweather as a subject Would you excuse me a moment. Helix?”
    As his father rose to leave, Haldane made a rapid decision. Of late his research had led him to believe more and more in the validity of his mathematics of aesthetics, but he had put too much effort in his search for the girl to be thwarted by his integrity. Before Haldane III had passed through the door, Haldane IV had conquered his principles.
    He leaned forward. “I’ll help you.”
    “I knew you would.”
    “Listen, Helix. I’ve got to talk fast Something happened to me that day on Point Sur. Ever since, I’ve felt like a charged electrode without a negative pole. I’ve been unhappy and happy about it. Am I an atavistic poet or a Neanderthal mathematician? You’re an expert. You tell me.”
    Her facile face revealed gentle understanding and gleeful amazement. “You’ve fallen in love with me!”
    “I haven’t fallen anywhere! I’ve soared like an acidhead skylark. Shelley, Keats, Byron, I know how they felt. I’m a nova to their street lamps I’ve got the black belt!”
    “Oh, no,” she shook her head. “The primitives knew all about what you have, and they called it ‘puppy love.’ But it’s merely a symptom. If the germ incubates properly it develops into what the primitives called ‘mature