feelies before?"

"No, sir."

The doctor was aware of the apprehension behind her guardedness. "Do you have any idea why this one should have upset you so?"

"No, sir, except maybe the excitement. Ah ain't never been much away from home before but once to New Orleans."

The doctor looked at her permit card again. "This isn't a very good likeness of you."

"It does reflect me poorly," she murmured.

The doctor's smile evaporated from his suddenly stern face. "Perhaps it's because this is not your picture and this is not your card."

Her face went white.

"What is your name?"

"Robina Rowe." Her downcast eyes were locked on her fingers squirming in her lap.

"Who's Loretta Meenan?"

"Mah girlfriend."

"Why did you borrow her card?"

She was close to tears. "Ah jus' had to go to this feelie. It's got mah very favorite actor in it."

"Evidently your card doesn't permit you to attend horror feelies."

She nodded.

"Why not? Nightmares?"

She shook her head.

"Don't tell me you have a bad heart!"

She shook her head again. "Ah'm a Sensitive," she said bleakly.

In a sudden surge of anger the doctor half rose out of his chair and leaned across the desk. "Why you little fool!" he roared. "You little damn fool!"

From the open doorway a shape hurtled across the desk at the doctor and crashed with him to the floor.

"Jason!" Robina shrieked.

"Don't you talk to mah sister that way," Jason shouted as he pummelled the doctor. "Ah'll kill you!"

The usher who had guided Jason to the clinic dashed around the desk to pull the boy from the doctor. Robina tried to help but in the tussle she was knocked down, striking her head on a leg of the overturned chair. Jason, hearing her cry of pain, leaped off the doctor to aid her.

"It's only a little bump," Jason said reassuringly as he cradled her in his arms.

The doctor got to his feet and glared at the tall, strikingly handsome boy-man helping his sister to a chair.

That done, Jason whirled to face the doctor. "Now listen here—"

"Now you listen to me," the doctor shouted. He saw Jason gather himself as if for another leap but Robina placed a restraining hand on his arm and his fists slowly uncurled. "If you loved your sister as much as you pretend to you wouldn't have helped her try to kill herself!"

"What do you mean?" the boy said sullenly.

"You know damn well what I mean," the doctor said. "You know your sister is a Sensitive. She experiences things with ten times the impact of an ordinary person and her empathy threshold is so high a death scene in a feelie could kill her! And if you don't know what some of the words mean," the doctor said, noticing Jason's slight puzzlement, "you do know what your sister is and the care that has to be taken."

The guilt in Jason's abashed face agreed.

Fired by his anger, the doctor raged on. "Why the devil do you think we have laws concerning attendance permits? What do you think all that testing by doctors and psychologists before a permit is issued is for? You, you big ox, could be killed by fright too if the intensity level of the projector was set higher than your psycho-profile rating."

He saw his last words had lost the boy again. "In any case you know better. Why did you allow your sister to endanger her life by letting her illegally use another's permit? And of all things, a horror feelie!"

"Ah didn't want to take her," Jason complained, "but she jus' fussed an' fretted at me 'till Ah gave in."

"Well you've both broken the law. Your parents will be notified and you'll have to stay here until they come." The doctor buzzed and a guard appeared. "Take these two to Mr. Lemson's office," he instructed him.

The guard led them from the floating steel and crystal theater structure of the U-Live-It Corporation complex to the executive wing of the general offices. He stayed with them until the receptionist at