And a cellar workshop was no place to conduct them!
He straightened up from the workbench and moved forward on the balls of his feet. He spread his arms wide as he approached the mechanism, like a basketball player approaching a wary opponent who had the ball. Smoke from the cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth streamed up and stung his eye. He wished he had left it back on the workbench.
At first, the little mechanism ignored him. Then, almost instinctively, it seemed to notice him. It went sliding away from him, toward the wall.
Morrow moved forward, cautiously.
It glided close to the wall, then rebounded gently. It came drifting back toward him—then hesitated, started off in a tangent—and he grabbed for it. A faint, tingling shock went up his arm as he clawed at the shiny metal loops, but that was all. He hung on grimly as it tugged at his fingertips; then, as its influence swept through him and attuned his body to it, it snuggled up to him, suddenly friendly.
He snapped it off and felt its inert weight settle down familiarly in his hands. He carried it back to the workbench, set it down, and threw a rag over it.
Then he pulled off his coveralls, went upstairs to the kitchenette, and washed his hands.
There were other factors to consider, of course. Especially the ones he didn't want to think about—the frightening ones—
He stared down at his hands, feeling the cool water run pleasantly over them. Strong, supple hands. Well-proportioned, muscular. A little bit like the rest of him. Not fat or skinny, not soft-muscled nor, again, as bulgingly muscular as a wrestler. Just firm flesh, strong and not too much of it, on a strong-boned skeleton frame. Nerves well-coordinated, reflexes good. But tired. Mentally fatigued, the psycho-therapists said, from living in a world of raw tensions. According to them, ninety percent of the American public suffered mental fatigue. There had been a slew of magazine articles and several books about it.