The officer hesitated. "One minute he was alive, the next minute...." "Yeah. Yeah. You better get a cab, buddy." "Fresh air. I'll be all right, with fresh air." Suddenly sympathetic, the officer helped him up the stairs. Once outside the wave of sickness began to recede. Parr waited unsteadily while the officer signaled for a cab. As he got in the cab he whispered, "Drive." The driver looked suspiciously at his fare, but the policeman said, "He's sick, that's all. He's just sick." The driver grunted, meshed gears. "Where to, Mister?" "Just drive," Parr said tonelessly, rolling down the window until he felt air hitting his face. He lay back against the seat cushions. * * * * * Balloon-like, memories floated, rose, fell. He struggled with them. Drifting away, his hotel's name. Before he lost it, he bent forward, muttered it at the driver. The Oholo--a female, he knew now--suddenly whispered in his mind from a distance: "You killed the wrong one, didn't you?" He struggled with his mind shield in terror, finally got it set against her. He shivered. At the hotel, he stumbled from the cab, started in. "Hey, Mister, what about me?" "Eh?" "Money, Mister. Come on, pay up!" He fumbled at his wallet, found a bill, handed it over. In his room at last, he peeled off his suit, his underclothes. He lay prone on the coverlette. After hours, or what seemed hours, his mind was stable enough for hate. He lay in the darkness hating her. Even above the instinctive fear he hated her. He tossed in fever thinking of after the invasion when she would be captured. The last of the sickness ebbed away. His thoughts adjusted, found more and more stability. Slowly he drifted toward sleep which would heal up the confusions. As he hovered in the dark of near sleep, he felt a wash of mental assault from too far away to be effective. Her thoughts tapped at his shield and he dissolved it partly to let a little defiance flash out. "I'll get you!" she answered coldly. And after that, he slept, healing. * * * * * He awoke, automatically assessing the damage. It was less than he had expected. Sleep had resolved it into tiny confused compartments. And he knew how hard it would be to keep up his shield for four weeks. There was fatigue on it already. Then, too, there was the pressure. A gentle insistent pressure. As if to say, "I'm here." He remembered how strong Lauri's mind was and he knew that she would be able to hold the pressure longer than he could hold the shield. Once, in training he had shielded for nearly thirteen days--but now, under the sapping of his energy by physical activity, by the multiple administrative problems, by the pressure itself.... He shook his head savagely. He looked at his suit across the edge of the bed. He shuddered with the memory of his sickness and reached for the phone to order new clothing.