"I like you, but I'm in love with Cripp." Tracy removed her lighter from a pocket of her blouse with trembling fingers. She lit a cigarette and didn't extinguish the flame. She came closer to McLeod. "Cut it out," he said. He felt sweat rolling down his forehead from his hairline and making his eyes blink. Parabeaming did peculiar, unpredictable things to the metabolism. The room seemed furnace-hot. "Then answer my question." There was no sense being maimed, McLeod finally decided. Tracy knew the truth anyway. She just wanted to hear him say it. But now she brought a tiny mini-recorder into view from where it had been resting on a table and flipped the switch to on. "What's that for?" "Cripp. I want him to know. I want him to be able to protect himself from you. We're recording now, Darius. Answer this question: do you and Overman plan to use Cripp as a substitute corpse to satisfy Weaver Wainwright and the _World_? Is that why Cripp got his raise and all that unexpected publicity?" McLeod licked his lips and tried to look down as Tracy's hand disappeared from view with the lighter. He saw no smoke but imagined his flesh beginning to crisp. "Answer me. Did you and Overman plan to kill Cripp and give Wainwright his story that way?" McLeod read nothing in her eyes, not even hatred. He said, "Yes. That's right." Tracy shut off the mini-recorder, pocketed her lighter. She reversed the parabeam and McLeod felt his limbs begin to tingle with minute sparks of pain. "Don't try anything," Tracy said. "I'm still pointing this at you." Her voice caught. She tried to speak again but sobbed. McLeod brought his arm up slowly and examined it. No damage. "I--I guess you know I couldn't do it, Darius. I couldn't hurt you. But I don't want you to hurt Cripp. I want to give Cripp a fair chance. Have you signed an application for his death yet?" "No." "Will you?" They were friends again. McLeod couldn't sense it. Friends who might try to hurt each other, of necessity, but friends. "I don't know," he said. "Give him a break, Darius. There must be another way out. I could tell you things, if I could only trust you...." McLeod laughed easily, massaging his forearms. "Better not," he said. "Better get out of here." "Maybe someday." "Maybe. Thanks for telling me you couldn't do it. That's good to know." He shouldn't have said that. He was acting compulsively, striking back blindly. The color left Tracy's face. "That was only because you haven't actually threatened Cripp yet. Don't rely on it, though." She was striking back, too. He staggered to the door and watched her go. Crippens had himself a good woman there, the lucky s. o. b. Maybe that was why he hadn't rejected the idea of killing Crippens, McLeod thought. * * * * *