Now he knew what Randy had refused to tell him because she didn’t believe it herself. The empathy index of the man she supposed dead was not zero point five. It was much less than that. It was zero. And zero was identity. The face looking back at him was not that of Hal Talbot. It was Evan Soleri. It was Evan Soleri even to the dark eyes and the stubble of black hair that was beginning to grow in on his burned scalp. Talbot or Soleri, he went back to bed. He lay very still. His mind raced back, to the scene in the office. He had _thought_ there were two sounds, the strange one slightly before the thermal explosion. But the first had not been a sound at all. He knew that now. It was Evan Soleri’s mental reaction to the approach of death. No one else could have heard it--no one except a man whose empathy index was zero. It was the crisis that had brought out his latent ability. He had responded by recreating himself as the identity of a person a microsecond removed from extinction. He had done this successfully--but what came next? He had been thinking of escape. It was no longer possible. As far as his immediate future was concerned he _was_ Evan Soleri. He might be able to prove otherwise. But it could be a dangerous undertaking. They might think he’d had his face surgically altered with the deliberate, prior intention of replacing Soleri. Besides--well, he had liked Soleri. Without a second’s thought Soleri had given his life for a man he hardly knew. Quite possibly the person who had tossed in the thermal bomb had meant to kill Talbot. But he owed the unknown assassin something for that too. His face hardened. In his new identity as Soleri he was in the best possible position to track down the assailant. Soleri had been powerful, wealthy, the head of the research department. The place to begin was right here, where it had started. He’d be Soleri. Talbot-Soleri rang for the nurse. He’d been inactive long enough. He had no very definite plans, but he’d take care of things as they came up. The nurse came in. She stared at him in consternation. “You are not supposed to sit up,” she said. “And you must have been mad to take those bandages off. Here, I’ll put them back.” He scowled at her, and she didn’t come near. “Get Miss Farrell,” he said. “Tell her I must see her at once.” “The doctor gave strict orders that you’re not to be disturbed,” said the nurse hesitantly. She paled as he returned her stare, for there was a dangerous light in his eyes. “Get her,” he demanded. When Randy entered the room there was a moment of complete silence. She seemed stunned by his aspect of well-being. “The miracle of medicine,” he said dryly. “Randy, I want to look over the personnel records of everyone in the department. Please get them and bring them to me here.” “Everything?” She looked at him in amazement. “You went over the technical staff last week.”