"Not at all, Mr. Condemeign," Dr. Munro's lips parted in a smile. "We can never be too sure about anything, you know, and it is possible, ultimately inevitable, that Bios could successfully smuggle an agent or agents past our screening." His voice dropped to a confidential level, and Condemeign thought it might also be appealing. "I myself would not wish to be present when that interesting event takes place. I'm just wondering, Mr. Condemeign, whether or not you really are a fanatic." A fluttery, almost frightened look crept into Dr. Munro's eyes. "We are quite used to death on Nepenthe, and yet, somehow, it never seems to lose its novelties or its terrors." "I'm afraid I'm not a fanatic, Dr. Munro, nor an adherent of Bios." The Doctor's eyes grew sadder. "Somehow, I wish you were a fanatic, Mr. Condemeign. A fanatic about something." "Why?" "Because a fanatic is far from being the most dangerous person in the world." Dr. Munro's pointed chin quivered. "And just what kind of person is, Dr. Munro?" The Doctor rose, stubbing out his cigarette. "I think--I think ..." he said slowly, "that every man is entitled to a few professional secrets. And that fact is one of mine." His voice became explosive. "Come, come, Mr. Condemeign, surely you have a better question than that. One usually does." Condemeign smiled. He had, of course. The obvious one. The last surrender to the delicious, trivial preoccupation with the ordinaries. The already flagellant skin eager for roughening against the last bark edges of the grain. He saw himself, just once more, not abject at the foot of the cross, but smiling into the wide bore of a pregnant pistol. And a tiny chill shot through him, small, diffuse, but cold as the black spaces beyond the dome. "I really would like to know if the manner of my departure has already been arranged." Dr. Munro measured him with a professional eye. To Condemeign it seemed as though invisible tapes were recording his dimensions, that hammers and saws were already building a coffin. But there would be no coffin, he knew. There hadn't been for hundreds of years. "I rather think so, Mr. Condemeign," the Doctor remarked. "As you know--as Miss Froon told you--all of the reports have not been fully checked, but they are, most likely on my desk now. Of course, I can't show them to you. We take special pains to...." "I quite realize that," said Condemeign, satisfied. "Of course, I hope that your staff has devised a suitable end." Dr. Munro slithered close to Condemeign. He expanded. Whole ideologies, entire universes of bulked emotion framed in his eyes.