They had been allowed to die for a specific purpose. To abort that purpose at this time would be to make their deaths, retroactively, murder. Mannheim put his head on the pillow and lifted his feet up on the bed. All he wanted was a few minutes of relaxation. He'd get ready for sleep later. He pressed the control button on the bedframe that lifted the head of the bed up so that he was in a semi-reclining position. He picked up his drink and took a second long pull from it. Then he touched the phone switch and put the receiver to his ear. "Beta-beta," he said when he heard the tone. He heard the hum, and he knew that the ultraprivate phone on the desk of Dr. Farnsworth, in St. Louis, was signaling. Then Farnsworth's voice came over the linkage. "_F_ here." "_M_ here," Mannheim replied. Then he asked guardedly, "Any sign of our boy?" "None." "Keep on him," Mannheim said. "Let me know immediately." "Will do. Any further?" "No. Carry on." Mannheim cut off the phone. Where the hell had Stanton disappeared to, and why? He had wanted to bring the young man to Government City to show him off before the Executives. It would have helped. But Stanton had disappeared. Mannheim was well aware that Stanton had been in the habit of leaving the Institute for long walks during the evenings, but this was the first time he had been gone for twenty-four hours. And even Yoritomo, that master psychologist, had been unable to give any solid reason for Stanton's disappearance. "You must remember, my dear Colonel," Yoritomo had said, "our young Mr. Stanton is a great deal more complex in his thinking than is our friend the Nipe." _A hell of a job for a police officer_, Mannheim thought to himself. _I know where the criminal is, but I have to hunt for the only cop on Earth who can arrest him._ He drained his glass, put it on the nightstand, and closed his eyes to think. * * * * * An operator on duty at the spy screens that watched every move of the Nipe while he was in the tunnels underneath Government City thumbed down a switch and said, "All stations alert. Subject is moving southward toward exit, carrying raiding equipment." It was all that was necessary. The Nipe could not be followed after he left his lair, but the proper groups would be standing by. Somewhere, the Nipe would hit and raid again. Somewhere, there were human lives in danger. All anyone could do was wait. * * * * * Cautiously and carefully, the Nipe lifted his head out of the cool salt water of the Hudson River, near the point where it widened into New York Harbor--still so called after the city that had been the greatest on the North American continent before the violence of a sun bomb had demolished it forever.