The name sprang from his lips before he realized it. He stared at me dumbfounded, then he was on his feet, yelling like a man suddenly freed from a nightmare. "That's it. Pilon. Pilon. Why didn't I think of it before?" I said amen to that. Exhaustion took hold of me. I just wanted to sleep. But first I had to wire Armstrong to find out all he could about a geologist named Pilon, first name unknown. Then, without bothering to crawl between the clean sheets, I fell on the bed in the Budnicks' spare room and sank into a black void that kept receding into a deeper and blacker void. _EXTRACTS, HOSPITAL CASE HISTORY NO. 3007:_ _6:05 P.M. Patient rapidly weakening. White cell count now barely 100. Pulse very feeble. Transfusions now given continuously. Emergency call to Vancouver to fly in fresh supply.... 6:10 P.M. Pain more intense. Morphine given at increasingly frequent intervals. Patient still appears rational._ The days following the visit to the atomic labs and the Budnicks were, I remember, tedious, floor-pacing days. Back home at the University I mechanically prepared my lecture notes and waited tensely for word from Armstrong. Tuesday came without news. I gave my lecture, stumbling stupidly several times, so great had the strain on me become. I could stand it no longer and immediately after class I phoned Armstrong in Washington. He sounded high-strung himself. Unable to get official cooperation he was being forced to dig up the information on Pilon by devious methods. "We have to get official support, Arnold," he snapped angrily. "Otherwise, some of these Washington worshippers of red-tape, clerks parroting, 'That's another department, sir,' and 'put it through channels' sticklers are going to kill any chance of our tracking down Chetzisky." "And kill two billion people," I added with wry humor. When I hung up, I had my mind made up. I was going to look up an old Princeton schoolmate, Nevil Oxford, now a famous newscaster for the Federal Broadcasting Company. * * * * * Nevil was sipping coffee from a paper cup as he bent over the news bulletins on the clattering teletypes when I entered his office in the F.B.C. Building. After a preliminary exchange of the usual alumni gossip I got down to cases and told him about Chetzisky. "And you really believe he could do it, Arnold?" "I do. Most certainly." Nevil's face hadn't much color in it now. "Come on," he said, "Let's go downstairs; I need a drink." Over scotch and sodas I hammered away at him, trying to get him to break the Chetzisky story on his eleven o'clock broadcast. "I can't, Arnold. We've been asked to lay off the sensational stuff. Besides, it would start a panic. Remember what happened a month ago when some jaded announcer pulled the gag about the Russians being in the outskirts of the city."