Psi-high! Amy Ballantine has a talent . . . and sometimes it lets her know more than she needs to know. Guess I must be good enough looking. I can read it from almost every fellow that comes near me. I wonder why? I mean, why me -- and not Marjorie over in the Main Office? She's a sweet girl, but she never gets a second look from the guys. There must be some fine differential point I'm missing somewhere, but I don't think I'll ever understand it! But now the interest being expressed is not just the usual appraising and yearning -- for someone out there is talking about how her talents might be used -- and she's not at all sure she likes how things are shaping up. Alan Nourse (1928-92) was one of the most beloved of practitioners of science fiction during the form's Golden Age.

Author Biography

Alan Edward Nourse (1928 - 1992) was an American science fiction writer and physician. He wrote both juvenile and adult science fiction, as well as nonfiction works about medicine and science. His SF works sometimes focused on medicine and/or psionics. His pen names included Al Edwards and Doctor X. He served in the U.S. Navy after World War II. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1951 from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He married Ann Morton on June 11, 1952, in Linden, New Jersey. He received a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree in 1955 from the University of Pennsylvania. He served his one-year internship at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle and practiced medicine in North Bend, Washington, from 1958 to 1963 and also pursued his writing career. He had helped pay for his medical education by writing science fiction for magazines.