out of Bill's eyes.
'There, Mr. Walden, you don't have to struggle now.'
Bill let his breath out in a long sigh. 'You've caught me.
I can't shift any more, can I?'
'That's right, Mr. Walden. Not unless we want you to.'
The young man picked up his medical equipment and stepped
aside.
Bill noticed then the Medicorps officer standing in the
background. The man was watching as though he contem-
plated some melancholy distance. 'I am Major Grey, Bill. I'm
handling your case.'
Bill did not answer. He lay staring at the hospital ceiling.
Then he felt his mouth open in a slow grin.
'What's funny?' Major Grey asked mildly.
'Leaving my hypoalter with my wife,' Bill answered can-
didly. It had already ceased to be funny to him, but he saw
Major Grey smile in spite of himself.
'They were quite upset when I found them. It must have
been some scramble before that.' Major Grey came over
and sat in the chair vacated by the young man who had
just injected Bill. 'You know, Bill, we will need a complete
analysis of you. We want to do everything we can to save
you, but it will require your co-operation.'
Bill nodded, feeling his chest tighten. Here it came. Right
to the end they would be tearing him apart to find out
what made him work.
Major Grey must have sensed Bill's bitter will to resist.
His resonant voice was soft, his face kindly. 'We must
have your sincere desire to help. We can't force you to do
anything.'
'Except die,' Bill said.
'Maybe helping us get the information that might save
your life at the trial isn't worth the trouble to you. But your
aberration has seriously disturbed the lives of several people.
Don't you think you owe it to them to help us to prevent
this sort of thing in the future?' Major Grey ran his hand
through his whitening hair. 'I thought you would like to know
Mary will come through all right. We will begin shortly to
acclimatize her to her new appointed parents, who will be
visiting her each day. 'That will accelerate her recovery a
great deal. Of course, right now she is still inaccessible.'
The brutally clear picture of Mary alone in the storage-
room crashed back into Bill's mind. After a while, in such
slow stages that the beginning was hardly noticeable, he be-
gan to cry. The young medicop injected him with a sleeping
compound, but not before Bill knew he would do whatever
the Medicorps wanted.
The next day was crowded with battery after battery of
tests. The interviews were endless. He was subjected to a
