As the doors opened, she drove out with a jolt and entered the sparkling newness of a tubular bridge which rose through the night across First Avenue. The Mushroom towered overhead, its spiral corridors glowing. Night traffic vibrated beneath her as she crossed--a crowd of trucks was baying north along the hidden cobblestones, following traffic lights which jumped from red to green, one after another, like an electronic rabbit. The trucks passed out of sight under their own diesel cloud and another pack approached in a higher key.... Then a lurch as towing cables grated and took hold in the curve of the many-windowed corridor. Whining under glass, the motorbed veered off in a rising circle around the stem of the Mushroom. Around and around again, faster, while room numbers flashed red one by one on the silver doors, over the river, over the roof garden of the Administration wing, over the river, over the garden, around and around and out, out--far out over a city of dark crumbling toys and up and up over the rim.... * * * * * She approached the great transparent dome of the Mushroom looking ahead into the sky, as though enemies in immense distance were triangulating upon her. An echo of voices rolled out. Far across the marble floor, one of the emergency rooms had its lights on. The door opened and a tiny figure in a motorchair sped out and along the wall, followed by a line of running dolls in white. Some of them clustered around the man in the chair, waving their arms. Thinning like a comet's tail, the procession vanished down the south escalator. The door of the room slid shut. She hurtled across beneath the stars and drove straight at the room, applying brakes sharply with a tightening in her stomach as the door began to open. Her long hair swept forward against her cheeks and shoulders. She jarred to a stop inside and rose, refocusing her senses on the enclosed white space. The bedside table held a pot of paper geraniums. Something lay beneath the covers like lumber on edge, the angles of knees projecting sideways. Out of the sheets stuck part of a thin white drainpipe neck and a face like a broken roof shingle, over which the weeping Miss Erwin cast her shadow. Brooks sat hunched over the stool, fingers buried in his hair. His lab coat was twisted awry; a bare knee protruded between two buttons. "What happened?" asked Miss Knox. "He's all right," Miss Erwin sobbed at her. "Delinquents--vandals--they cut his throat by the river, right in front of the hospital. The mutape says--he didn't--see their faces." "Don't worry about him," said a low muttered voice. "He's been conscious. The doctors say he'll speak, in time." Dr. Brooks had raised his head and was trying to cover himself with the lab coat. "River rats," Miss Knox snapped, peering at Boney's wasted face. "What do you mean, in time?" "Two or three weeks. An expert job of quick surgery, really."