MacPherson sighed and went back to the table. "Well, we'll have to get along with just the four of us." "There's always the unseen guest," said Rothman, "but you won't need to deal him a hand. He already holds all the cards." Neill looked up. "Stop hamming and sit down. Quit making like a maniac. It's not even a good act." "Okay." Rothman drew up a chair. "Now what was said about limiting the bets?" "Why bother setting a limit?" said Neill. "We're not likely to mistake each other for millionaires and we all got exactly the same pay when we were on the Project. Unless your sick pay has had two or three zeros tacked onto it, you're not going to be making any wild bets, and as for the rest of us--" "University professors are still being paid less than nightclub dancers," said Avery. "You're lucky to be out of the rat race, Rothman. While we worry about how to pay the grocery bill, you can relax, eating and sleeping at government expense. You never had it so good." "Maybe you'd like to get yourselves committed and keep me company?" MacPherson rapped the deck on the table. "Stop that kind of talk. We came here to play poker." "Did you?" asked Rothman, grinning. "Then why don't you deal?" "Cut, Neill?" said MacPherson. As he shot the slippery cards over the table top, each flick of his thumb watched by Rothman's intent eyes, he regretted this impulsive visit; it now seemed a gesture without meaning. He wondered whether the others were as nervous as he was. On the drive over from Los Angeles during the night, Neill had seemed calm enough and even Avery, who had changed a lot during work on the Project, had chatted with them unconstrainedly. It was hard to be certain what other men were feeling, even when you had known them a long time, but it could not be pleasant for any of them to be visiting a former colleague who had been removed from the Project directly to a sanitarium. "Tell me something," said Rothman as he picked up his cards. "Do you still think I'm crazy?" "Don't be an idiot," MacPherson snapped. "Do you think we'd cut our classes and drive nearly five hundred miles just to play poker with a lunatic?" "No," said Rothman. "That's how I know. But why aren't you frank about it? Why keep on pretending there wasn't a special reason for your visit?" * * * * * Neill was beating his foot against the table leg again and Avery's eyes were hard and staring as he examined his cards. "Who'll open?" MacPherson asked. "I can't." "I can," said Rothman. "I'm betting one blue chip. Listen, Avery, why won't you look at me? If you think I'm hamming, what do you call your own act? How long are we going to go on kidding each other? They've shut me up here, but that doesn't mean they've stopped me from logical thinking. My three old friends from the Project don't turn up in the middle of a Friday morning just to calm my fevered brain with a card game." "What's wrong with poker?" demanded MacPherson.