"No! No!" Miss Erwin broke into a fit of sobbing and blindly rearranged the flowers. "Do you mean to say?--" "Some medical students on a horror spree. Damned age of--what did that Washington press secretary say?--'atomic hyper-specialization'! That means young brains growing in channels until they explode through the wall. You remember the physicist who killed his colleagues when the English won the Nobel Prize." "It can't be," said Miss Knox. She watched the hurt man grimace somewhere along his razor edge of nightmare. "It's the only likelihood. Well, we can't do anything for him now, and you look a little beat. Come on, I'll buy you coffee from the vending machine on the Administration roof." Dr. Brooks stood up, lifted Miss Knox gently beneath the arms and sat her on the motorbed, then swung a hairy shin over the driving seat. They rolled through the doorway. "Who was that big shot in the motorchair?" Miss Knox asked. "Dr. Gesner?" Dawn had just begun to spread. They crossed within a widening circle of mushroom-shaped arches containing portraits which drew farther away until they resembled portal guards, and then converged again in full austerity on the opposite side of the great dome. "Director himself--they can't reach Gesner anyplace," Brooks said. * * * * * They started to descend inward from the Mushroom's edge. Numbers flashed by as they spiraled down faster along the self-steering guide rail. Over the river, over the garden. Over the river.... She leaned back against the pillows. "What was himself doing in the hospital at this hour?" she asked. "As a matter of fact"--his shadow crossed her face as he moved the deceleration lever--"he was with me." "With you?" "I was listening to the newscasts in bed. He came to see me because, as resident radiologist, I'm the only person who knows anything at all about electronics. While we listened, his assistant with the high voice called him on my phone and told him about Boney." "How did he react?" Brooks swung his tiller bar and they veered onto the roof of the Administration wing, the door behind them cutting off all light from inside the Mushroom. They were in a formal garden filled with scent, and surrounded by distant hedges. The few remaining stars were surprised naked, floating above a monstrous concrete bird-bath. "Like a bureaucrat," he muttered as they rolled to a stop. "First he requisitioned flowers. He's probably in here somewhere now, plotting revenge against the Commissary clerk who issued the knife they found near Boney. I know he'd love to see you rushing in your bathrobe to other people's emergencies." "Disgusting. And they call him the Father of the Mushroom. Big shot." "Why?" he asked. "After all, he _is_ a bureaucrat. How did you yourself react--like a woman, no?" He helped her down. They walked within a double row of mountain laurels to the coffee machine. "I'd forgotten all about the bathrobe," she said. "Black for me."