In the street, I had a violent attack of cramps in my upper diaphragm, and I got down on one knee and made a pretense of adjusting a shoe strap as I fought the torment. Perspiration gathered in clammy globules all over my body. When the pain left, I rose and pushed grimly on. Opposite Minneapolis Mining's main offices, and a quarter of a block down, I found the type of commercial building I was looking for, and went in and sought out the building superintendent. "Do you have an office for rent on one of the lower floors?" I asked him. "One that faces the front street?" "We have several," he answered with professional courtesy. He thumbed through a row of cards and pulled out one with a small brown envelope attached. "Here's a fine office on the sixth floor. It's only one room, but--" "I'll take a look at it," I interrupted him. "Of course." He tore open the small envelope and took out a brass key. "I'll take you up." "I'd rather go alone." As he hesitated, I took out my billfold and separated a hundred-dollar bill from two others of its kind and laid it on his desk. "I'll leave a deposit--in case I should like it," I said, taking the key from his hand. "I suppose it will be all right," he murmured doubtfully. "Thank you," I called back over my shoulder. "I may be a while. I want to look it over carefully." I ignored the fact that he seemed to have more he wanted to say. The office was small, but that made little difference to me. There was a clear view of the street from the window. That was all I cared about. In one corner was a small packing case, left by the former tenant. I dragged it over by the window and sat down. From my grip I took a rifle barrel and stock and assembled them, and filled the magazine with ammunition. I kept part of my attention on the building down the street while I worked. I hoped I had guessed right--that Zealley would get free of the police, and that he would return to his office. The day-shift workers had begun to pour from the Mining building before a taxi drew up to the curb and a man in a yellow hat alighted. Zealley had come. He was alone. I aligned the sights of my rifle on his head, waited until I had a clear shot, and squeezed the trigger. The yellow hat sprang upward and Zealley sank from sight among the hurrying workers. The job was done. * * * * * Finding a way back to New Nebraska took me a year, for I no longer fitted my passport picture and description at all. "Except for the danger to others," I said when I reported in, "I wouldn't have bothered coming back." "A good thing for you that you did bother to come back here," I was told. The biochemists had gone on with their work through the years I'd searched for Zealley. They had learned that the symbiotes' life cycle developed in three distinct stages: five years of propagation, fifteen years in the dormant aging process, an undetermined number of years in the final form.