THINGS WERE GROWING blacker. Waves of darkness clouded my mind and I found it hard to think straight. My esper sense faded first and as it faded I let it run once more over Martha’s attractiveness and found my darkening mind wishing that she were the girl I’d believed her to be instead of the female louse she was. It could have been fun.
But now I was about to black out from stun-gun paralysis, and Martha was headed for the readjustment chamber where they’d reduce her mental activity to the level of a menial, sterilize her, and put her to work in an occupation that no man or woman with a spark of intelligence, ambition, or good sense would take.
She would live and die a half-robot, alone and ignored, her attractiveness lost because of her own lack-luster mind.
And I’d been willing to go
