“Just a few minutes--not longer,” the nurse cautioned. Randy sat down beside him, touching his face lightly. He could feel the gentle pressure of her fingers through the bandages. “Don’t try to talk,” she said. “I’ll say everything that has to be said. And it won’t take long.” He blinked in grateful understanding. It wasn’t a wholly satisfactory form of communication, but her nearness soothed him. “We haven’t found out how that thermal capsule got there,” she said. “We know it was hot, however. It had a temperature of at least a half million degrees, despite its extreme smallness. After you get well enough to talk freely we’ll try to reconstruct what happened.” He nodded slightly, and the effort sent a wave of pain coursing through him. “So much for that,” she said. “You’ll get well. There won’t even be scars. You’re lucky. Did you know it?” He knew it. But he knew also that it wasn’t _only_ luck. Soleri had saved his life at the expense of his own. Then she said an incredible thing. “All we found of the other poor devil was his lower arm. The card was still clutched in his hand. It was scorched but not burned. I gave it to one of our mathematicians and he has worked out two curves that might fit. The man was everything you said he was--and more. I wish he’d lived.” Talbot closed his eyes in stunned protest. She was making a mistake, a crazy utterly incomprehensible mistake. He tried to tell her--but there was only a gurgle in his throat. “Don’t bat your eyes at me,” she said in mock reproof. “It’s true. The lowest empathy index registered is zero point eight. Right? Well, this man was zero point five. The mathematician couldn’t be sure, but he _thought_ it might be even lower.” She brushed the hair away from her lovely eyes. “Perhaps I should have kept it to myself. No one could possibly have the index the curve indicated. There are limits to human credulity.” Again he tried to tell her that it was Soleri who had died. Soleri! But the bandages were too tight and his weakness too overwhelming. But how could she have made such a mistake? True, he’d been wearing the same clothing as Soleri and the dead man had been clutching his employment card. But a woman who had been close to Soleri, who had seen him every day, would surely know-- She leaned over, brushing her lips against his eyes. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I disposed of the remains--and put him on the payroll. Roving assignment, reporting only to you. After six months we can arrange to make it appear that he was killed in an accident.” His eyes! She’d known Soleri well enough to remember that the dead man’s eyes were dark, not gray. Women were never in error about things like that. He blinked frantically, but she failed to draw the correct conclusion.