Returning home as dusk descended on the city and street lights gleamed on three inches of snow, McLeod learned from his door recorder that he had one female visitor. That would be Tracy, he thought, and prepared himself for more unpleasantness. Why couldn't they leave him alone? "Come in, Darius. Shut the door." He did both, turned, and saw Tracy pointing a parabeam at him. His hand fumbled with the trick sleeve of his jacket, but the storm-coat got in his way. Tracy's parabeam zipped audibly and McLeod turned to stone. CHAPTER IV "I'll unfreeze your head so you can talk. You realize I ought to kill you." His head tingled and he found that he could open his mouth, blink his eyes and twitch his nose. He couldn't turn his neck. From the chin down he was helplessly immobile. He was a disembodied brain with a face. He wished he were sober. "Cripp still doesn't believe me," Tracy said. "He insisted I come back alone and apologize. So I came back." "But not to apologize." "To get some information, Darius. I could be wrong. I don't think I am." "Out at the Fourth Estate yesterday, you knew what kind of proposition Wainwright had made me," McLeod said, stalling for time while he tried to summon a logical defense. His mind was almost a blank. "Sometimes I talk too much. Yes, I knew. Never mind how. I'm doing the questioning, and I want answers. When I read about Cripp in the Internal Affairs section, I put two and two together. Wainwright's assignment had been vague, so I guessed you and Overman had decided some substitution might be in order." McLeod was silent. "I advise you to talk, Darius. If I killed you now, it would be a bit ahead of schedule, but I think that would still satisfy Wainwright. Don't you?" "You're bluffing," McLeod said--and hoped. "You couldn't possibly be on assignment to kill me. So you'd be subject to the same laws which face the general public for murder." "All right. Maybe I won't kill you. But you feel no pain under a parabeam, Darius. Remember that. I could start burning your hand with my lighter and work up to your elbow and you wouldn't even know--until I unfroze you." "You wouldn't," McLeod said. "Maybe we don't see eye to eye now, but we're friends." Tracy began nibbling at her lip. Her eyes were big and watery, as if she'd been fighting back tears. "Sure--I liked you. Maybe I still do. I don't know. I'm all mixed up. You know me, Darius. I'm liable to do anything--anything ... when I'm all mixed up like this. I don't want to hurt you, not if I can help it. I like you, Darius. We've had fun together. Great times." "That's better." McLeod's confidence was returning. He'd be out of freeze in no time now. "Just unfreeze me, and we can talk about this like two sensible people."