Corriston couldn't stand still. He walked back and forth across the control room while the executive officer continued to talk. He paid no heed at all. Corriston heard a footfall as he paced. He turned and saw that Commander Clement had returned. He was standing in the doorway with a strange look on his face. Corriston felt bewildered, unable to quite believe that Clement was really back. It was like a dream that had suddenly turned real, a looking glass reversal with a strange quality of distortion about it. It was real enough. Clement entered and shut the door behind him, very firmly and carefully, as if he wanted to make sure that Corriston would not attempt to escape. He walked slowly forward, looking at the executive officer as if Corriston had no place at all in his thoughts. "Everything he told me was a lie," Clement said. "Everything. There was no girl. The compartment was locked; so was the emergency door leading down to the Selector. The ladder was standing against the wall in the Selector compartment. Miss Ramsey could not have been in the compartment--not at any time. There was nothing to indicate it. She just wasn't there." Corriston moved toward him, his face white. "That's a lie and you know it. What have you done with her? You'd better tell me. You can have me court-martialed, but you can't stop me from talking. I can prove she was there. The grate--" "The grate? What are you talking about? There was no ripped-out grate. The grate was in place. I feel very sorry for you, Lieutenant. But I can't let sympathy stand in the way of my duty. In some respects you're very rational. You can think logically and clearly ... up to a point. But the shock weakness is there. It's very serious when you start having actual hallucinations." The executive officer had drawn his gun. He was holding it rather loosely in his hand now, triggered and ready for any dangerous or suspicious move on Corriston's part. There was nothing in Clement's gaze as he swung about to refute the dark mistrust that had come into the executive officer's eyes. He seemed intent only on bolstering that mistrust by driving even deeper nails into Corriston's coffin. "I'm afraid we'll have to continue to regard Lieutenant Corriston as dangerously unstable," he said. "Keep your gun on him when you take him back to the Ward. Don't relax your vigilance for an instant." "I won't," the executive officer promised. "Good. You're not going to make any further trouble for us, are you, Lieutenant?" The question seemed to call for no answer and Corriston made none. He turned slowly and walked toward the door, despairingly aware that a man he had rather liked had fallen into step behind him and would shoot him dead if he so much as wavered.