The Federal agent frowned puzzledly. "Lobotomized? Like those operations they do on psychotics?" "Similar," said Mallon. "But no psychotic was ever butchered up like this; and what I had to do to him to save his life didn't help anything." The men looked at each other, then the big one said: "I'm sure you did the best you could, Dr. Mallon." The neurosurgeon rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead and looked steadily into the eyes of the big man. "You wanted him alive," he said slowly, "and I have a duty to save life. But frankly, I think we'll all eventually wish we had the common human decency to let Paul Wendell die. Excuse me, gentlemen; I don't feel well." He turned abruptly and strode off down the hall. * * * * * One of the men in the conservative suits said: "Louis Pasteur lived through most of his life with only half a brain and he never even knew it, Frank; maybe--" "Yeah. Maybe," said the big man. "But I don't know whether to hope he does or hope he doesn't." He used his right thumbnail to pick a bit of microscopic dust from beneath his left index finger, studying the operation without actually seeing it. "Meanwhile, we've got to decide what to do about the rest of those screwballs. Wendell was the only sane one, and therefore the most dangerous--but the rest of them aren't what you'd call safe, either." The others nodded in a chorus of silent agreement. NOCTURNE--TEMPO DI VALSE "Now what the hell's the matter with me?" thought Paul Wendell. He could feel nothing. Absolutely nothing: No taste, no sight, no hearing, no anything. "Am I breathing?" He couldn't feel any breathing. Nor, for that matter, could he feel heat, nor cold, nor pain. "Am I dead? No. At least, I don't _feel_ dead. Who am I? What am I?" No answer. _Cogito, ergo sum._ What did that mean? There was something quite definitely wrong, but he couldn't quite tell what it was. Ideas seemed to come from nowhere; fragments of concepts that seemed to have no referents. What did that mean? What is a referent? A concept? He felt he knew intuitively what they meant, but what use they were he didn't know. There was something wrong, and he had to find out what it was. And he had to find out through the only method of investigation left open to him. So he thought about it. SONATA--ALLEGRO CON BRIO The President of the United States finished reading the sheaf of papers before him, laid them neatly to one side, and looked up at the big man seated across the desk from him. "Is this everything, Frank?" he asked. "That's everything, Mr. President; everything we know. We've got eight men locked up in St. Elizabeth's, all of them absolutely psychotic, and one human vegetable named Paul Wendell. We can't get anything out of them."