_Not if I can help it,_ Stanton thought with a grim smile. * * * * * The walking seemed to take forever, but, somehow, Stanton didn't mind it. He had a lot to think over. Seeing his brother had been unnerving yesterday, but today he felt as though everything had been all right all along. His memory still was a long way from being complete, and it probably always would be. He could still scarcely recall any real memories of a boy named Martin Stanton, but--and he smiled at the thought--he knew more about him than his brother did, at that. It didn't matter. That Martin Stanton was gone. In effect, he had been demolished--what little there had been of him--and a new structure had been built on the old foundation. And yet, in another way, the new structure was very like what would have developed naturally if the accident so early in life had not occurred. Stanton skirted a pile of rubble on his right. There had been a station here, once; the street above had caved in and filled in with brick, concrete, cobblestones, and steel scrap, and then it had been sealed over when Government City was built. A part of one wall was still unbroken, though. A sign built of tile said _86th Street_, he knew, although it wasn't visible in the dim glow. He kept walking, ignoring the rats that scampered over the rubble. "Barhop to Barbell," said the soft voice near his ear. "No sign of activity from the Nipe. So far, you haven't triggered any of his alarms." "Barbell to Barhop," Stanton whispered. "What's he doing?" "Still sitting motionless. Thinking, I guess. Or sleeping. It's hard to tell." "Let me know if he starts moving around." "Will do." _Poor, unsuspecting beastie,_ Stanton thought. _Ten years of hard work, ten years of feeling secure, and within a very short time he's going to get the shock of his life._ Or maybe not. There was no way of knowing what kind of shocks the Nipe had taken in his life, Stanton thought. Not even of knowing whether the Nipe was capable of feeling anything like security. It was odd, he thought, that he should feel a kinship toward both the Nipe and his brother in such similar ways. He had never met the Nipe, and his brother was a dim picture in his old memories, but they were both very well known to him. Certainly better known to him than he was to them. And yet, seeing his brother's face on the TV screen, hearing him talk, watching the way he moved about, watching the expressions on his face, had been a tremendously moving thing. Not until that moment had he really known himself. Meeting him face to face would be easier now, but it would still be a scene highly charged with emotional tension. He kicked something that rattled and rolled away from him. He stopped, freezing in his tracks, trying to pierce the dully glowing gloom. It was a human skull. He relaxed and began walking again. [Illustration]