"Paresi!" spat Anderson. "Medic or no, you'll watch your mouth!" "Sorry, Captain. That _was_ panic seed. Hoskins--" "Don't explain it to me," said the engineer mildly. "I know what you meant. Suicide's the direct product of survival compulsions--drives that try to save something, just as fight and flight are efforts to save something. I don't think you need worry; immolation doesn't tempt me. I'm too--too interested in what goes on. What are you going to do about Ives?" "Bunk him, I guess, and stand by to fix up that headache he'll wake up to. Give me a hand, will you?" Hoskins went to the bulkhead and dropped a second acceleration couch. It took all three of them, working hard, to lift Ives' great bulk up to it. Paresi opened the first-aid kit clamped under the control console and went to the unconscious man. The Captain cast about him for something to do, something to say, and apparently found it. "Hoskins!" "Aye." "Do you usually think better on an empty stomach?" "Not me." "I never have either." Hoskins smiled. "I can take a hint. I'll rassle up something hot and filling." "Good man," said the Captain, as Hoskins disappeared toward the after quarters. Anderson walked over to the doctor and stood watching him clean up the abraded bruise on Ives' forehead. Paresi, without looking up, said, "You'd better say it, whatever it is. Get it out." Anderson half-chuckled. "You psychic?" Paresi shot him a glance. "Depends. If you mean has a natural sensitivity to the tension spectra coupled itself with some years of practice in observing people--then yes. What's on your mind?" Anderson said nothing for a long time. It was as if he were waiting for a question, a single prod from Paresi. But Paresi wouldn't give it. Paresi waited, just waited, with his dark face turned away, not helping, not pushing, not doing a single thing to modify the pressure that churned about in the Captain. "All right," said the Captain irritably. "I'll tell you." Paresi took tweezers, a retractor, two scalpels and a hypodermic case out of the kit and laid them in a neat row on the bunk. He then picked up each one and returned it to the kit. When he had quite finished Anderson said, "I was wondering, _who's next?_" Paresi nodded and shut the kit with a sharp click. He looked up at the Captain and nodded again. "Why does it have to be you?" he asked. "I didn't say it would be me!" said the Captain sharply. "Didn't you?" When the Captain had no answer, Paresi asked him, "Then why wonder about a thing like that?" "Oh ... I see what you mean. When you start to be afraid, you start to be unsure--not of anyone else's weaknesses, but of your own. That what you mean?" "Yup." His dark-framed grin flashed suddenly. "But you're not afraid, Cap'n." "The hell I'm not."