haviour had begun at about the same time that Bill Walden
started cheating on the shifts. That kid Mary must have
known something was going on, or she would not have done
such a disgusting thing as to come to their apartment.
Conrad had let the rocket fall nose-down, until now it was
screaming into the upper ionosphere. With no time to spare,
be swivelled the ship on its guiding jets and opened the
drive blast at the uprushing earth. He had just completed
this wrenching manoeuvre when two appalling things happened
together.
Conrad suddenly knew, whether as a momentary leak from
Bill's mind to his, or as a rapid calculation of his own, that
Bill Walden and Clara shared a secret. At the same mo-
ment, something tore through his mind like fingers of chill
wind. With seven gravities mashing him into the bucket-
seat, he grunted curses past thin-stretched lips.
"Great blue psychiatrists! What in thirty strait-jackets is
that three-headed fool trying to do, kill us both?"
Conrad just managed to raise his leaden hand and set the
plummeting racer for automatic pilot before Bill Walden
forced him out of the shift. In his last moment of conscious-
ness, and in the shock of his overwhelming shame, Conrad
felt the bitter irony that he could not cut the power and kill
Bffl Walden.
When Bill Walden became conscious of the thunderous
clamour of the braking ship and the awful weight of deceler-
ation into which he had shifted, the core of him froze. He
was so terrified that he could not have thought of reshifting
even had there been time.
His head rolled on the pad in spite of its weight, and he
saw the earth coming at him like a monstrous swatter aimed
at a fly. Between his fright and the inhuman gravity, he lost
consciousness without ever seeing on the control panel the
red warning that saved him: Automatic Pilot.
The ship settled itself on the ramp in a mushroom of fire.
Bill regained awareness several seconds later. He was too
shaken to do anything but sit there for a long time.
When at last he felt capable of moving, he struggled with
the door till he found how to open it, and climbed down to
the still hot ramp he had landed on. It was at least a mile to
the Rocket Club across the barren flat of the field, and he
set out on foot. Shortly, however, a truck came speeding
across to him.
The driver leaned out. "Hey, Conrad, what's the matter?
Why didn't you pull the ship over to the hangars?"
With Conrad's make-up on. Bill felt he could probably
get by. "Controls aren't working," he offered noncommittally.
At the club, a place he had never been to before in his
life. Bill found an unused helicopter and started it with his
wrist band. He flew the machine into town to the landing
station nearest his home.
He was doomed, he knew. Conrad certainly would report
him for this. He had not intended to force the shift so
early or so violently. Perhaps he had not intended to force
it at all this time. But there was something in him more
powerful than himself... a need to break the shift and be
with Clara that now acted almost independently of him and
certainly without regard for his safety.
Bill flew his craft carefully through the city traffic, working
his way between the widely spaced towers with the uncertain
hand of one to whom machines are not, an extension of the
body. He put the helicopter down at the landing station
with some difficulty.
Clara would not be expecting him so early. From his apart-
ment, as soon as he had changed make-up, he visiophoned
her. It was strange bow long and how carefully they needed to
look at each other and how few words they could say.
Afterwards, he seemed calmer and went about getting
ready with more efficiency. But when he found himself ad-
dressing the package of Conrad's clothes to his home, he
chuckled bitterly.
It was when he went back to drop the package in the mail
chute that he noticed the storage-room door ajar. He disposed
of the package and went over to the door. Then he stood still,
listening. He had to stop. his own breathing to hear clearly.
Bill tightened himself and opened the door. He flipped
on the light and saw Mary. The child sat on the floor in the
comer with her knees drawn up against her chest. Between
the knees and the chest, the frail wrists were crossed, the
hands closed limply likelike those of a foetus. The fore-
head rested on the knees so that, should the closed eyes stay
open, they would be looking at the placid hands.
The sickening sight of the child squeezed down on his
heart till the colour drained from his face. He went forward
and knelt before her. His dry throat hammered with the
words, what have I done to you, but he could not speak.
The question of how long she might have been here, he
could not bear to think.
He put out his hand, but he did not touch her. A shudder
of revulsion shook him and he scrambled to his feet. He hur-
ried back into the apartment with only one thought. He must
get someone to help her. Only the Medicorps could take care
of a situation like this.
As he stood at the visiophone, he knew that this involuntary
act of panic had betrayed all that he had ever thought
and done. He had to call the Medicorps. He could not face
the result of his own behaviour without them. Like a ghostly
after-image, he saw Clara's face on the screen. She was lost,
cut off, with only himself to depend on.
A part of him, a place where there were no voices and a
great tragedy, had been abruptly shut off. He stood stupidly
confused and disturbed about something he couldn't recall.
The emotion in his body suddenly had no referent. He stood
like a badly frightened animal while his heart slowed and
blood seeped again into whitened parenchymas, while tides
of epinephrine burned lower.
Remembering he must hurry, Bill left the apartment. It
was an apartment with its storage-room door closed, an apart-
ment without a storage-room.
From the moment that he walked in and took Clara in his
arms, he was not worried about being caught. He felt only
the great need for her. There seemed only one difference from
the first time and it was a good difference, because now
Clara was so tense and apprehensive. He felt a new tender-
ness for her, as one might feel for a child. It seemed to him
that there was no end to the well of gentleness and compas-
sion that was suddenly in him. He was mystified by the depth
of his feeling. He kissed her again and again and petted her
as one might a disturbed child.
Clara said, "Oh Bill, we're doing wrong! Mary was here
yesterday!"
Whoever she meant, it had no meaning for him. He said,
"It's all right. You mustn't worry."
"She needs you, Bill, and I take you away from her."
Whatever it was she was talking about was utterly unim-
portant beside the fact that she was not happy herself. He
soothed her. "Darling you mustn't worry about it. Let's be
happy the way we used to be."
He led her to a couch and they sat together, her head
resting on his shoulder.
"Conrad is worried about me. He knows something is
wrong. Oh, Bill, if he knew, he'd demand the worst penalty
for you."
Bill felt the stone of fear come back in his chest. He