Inside, the aura of strain was even denser. If anything, the place looked more normal than it had earlier; there were more people. The huge waiting room was packed and a dozen sweating clerks were interviewing long lines of persons. But here, as outside, the feeling was wrong; the crowds weren't noisy enough; they lacked the nervous boisterousness they should have had. Dr. Lawton looked worried. He greeted me and showed me to a small room near the elevators. There was a cocoon of milky plastic on a wheeled table; I looked closer, and inside the cocoon, recognizable through the clear plastic over the face, was the waxlike body of Luigi Zorchi. The eyes were closed and he was completely still. I would have thought him dead if I had not known he was under the influence of the drugs used in the suspension of life in the vaults. I said: "Am I supposed to identify him or something?" "We know who he is," Lawton snorted. "Sign the commitment, that's all." I signed the form he handed me, attesting that Luigi Zorchi, serial number such-and-such, had requested and was being granted immobilization and suspension in lieu of cash medical benefits. They rolled the stretcher-cart away, with its thick foam-plastic sack containing the inanimate Zorchi. "Anything else?" I asked. Lawton shook his head moodily. "Nothing you can help with. I told Defoe this was going to happen!" "What?" He glared at me. "Man, didn't you just come in through the main entrance? Didn't you see that mob?" "Well, I wouldn't call it a mob," I began. "You wouldn't _now_," he broke in. "But you will soon enough. They're working themselves up. Or maybe they're waiting for something. But it means trouble, I promise, and I warned Defoe about it. And he just stared at me as if I was some kind of degenerate." * * * * * I said sharply, "What are you afraid of? Right outside, you've got enough expediters to fight a war." "Afraid? Me?" He looked insulted. "Do you think I'm worried about my own skin, Wills? No, sir. But do you realize that we have suspendees here who need protection? Eighty thousand of them. A mob like that--" "Eighty _thousand_?" I stared at him. The war had lasted only a few weeks! "Eighty thousand. A little more, if anything. And every one of them is a ward of the Company as long as he's suspended. Just think of the damage suits, Wills." I said, still marveling at the enormous number of casualties out of that little war, "Surely the suspendees are safe here, aren't they?" "Not against mobs. The vaults can handle anything that might happen in the way of disaster. I don't think an H-bomb right smack on top of them would disturb more than the top two or three decks at most. But you never know what mobs will do. If they once get in here--And Defoe wouldn't listen to me!" As I went back into the hall, passing the main entrance, the explosion burst.