The ugly man gave him a bewildered stare. Then, seeing the forces now ranged against him--including his own belated prudence--were too strong, he stumbled off. He hadn't really wanted to fight, only to smash back, and now it was too late for that. Gabe studied the newcomer curiously. "So, it's you again?" The man in the gray suit smiled. "Who else in any world would stand up for you?" "I should think you'd have given up by now. Not that I mind having you around, of course," Gabriel added too quickly. "You do come in useful at times, you know." "So you don't mind having me around?" The nondescript man smiled again. "Then what are you running from, if not me? You can't be running from yourself--you lost yourself a while back, remember?" Gabe ran a hand through his thick blond hair. "Come on, have a drink with me, fellow-man, and let's let bygones be bygones. I owe you something--I admit that. Maybe we can even work this thing out." "I drank with you once too often," the nondescript man said. "And things worked out fine, didn't they? For you." His eyes studied the other man's incredibly handsome young face, noted the suggestion of bags under the eyes, the beginning of slackness at the lips, and were not pleased with what they saw. "Watch yourself, colleague," he warned as he left. "Soon you might not be worth the saving." "Who was that, Gabe?" the girl asked. He shrugged. "I never saw him before in my life." Of course, knowing him, she assumed he was lying, but, as a matter of fact, just then he happened to have been telling the truth. * * * * * Once the illuminators were extinguished in Gabriel Lockard's hotel suite, it seemed reasonably certain to the man in the gray suit, as he watched from the street, that his quarry would not go out again that night. So he went to the nearest airstation. There he inserted a coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions, reserving only a sum of money. After setting the locker to respond to the letter combination _bodyguard_, he went out into the street. If he had met with a fatal accident at that point, there would have been nothing on his body to identify him. As a matter of fact, no real identification was possible, for he was no one and had been no one for years. The nondescript man hailed a cruising helicab. "Where to, fellow-man?" the driver asked. "I'm new in the parish," the other man replied and let it hang there. "Oh...? Females...? Narcophagi...? Thrill-mills?" But to each of these questions the nondescript man shook his head. "Games?" the driver finally asked, although he could guess what was wanted by then. "Dice...? Roulette...? Farjeen?" "Is there a good zarquil game in town?" The driver moved so he could see the face of the man behind him in the teleview. A very ordinary face. "Look, colleague, why don't you commit suicide? It's cleaner and quicker."