Cudyk had one other preoccupation: he thought often of Earth, a dark globe turning, black continents dim against the grey ocean, pricked by a few faint gleams that were cities. Or, if he thought of the cities, he saw them too drowned in shadow: the shapes of tower and arch melting into night-patterns; moonlight falling faintly, dissolving what it touched, so that shadows became as solid stone, stone as insubstantial mist. For Earth, also, was a symbol of death. There had been no more suicides since Chong had died, and no riots. It seemed to Cudyk that the whole Quarter moved, like himself, through a fluid heavier than air. All motion had slowed, and sounds came muted and without resonance. People spoke to him, and he answered, but without attention, as if they were not really there. Even the recent news about Rack's defeat had stirred him only momentarily, and he had seen in Seu's face that the Chinese felt himself somehow inadequate to the tale even as he told it. The Galactic fleet, vastly expanded, had met Rack's activist forces with a new weapon--one, indeed, which did not kill, but which was shameful enough to a citizen of the Galaxy. The weapon projected a field which scrambled the synapse patterns in the brain, leaving its victim incapable of any of the processes of coherent thought: incapable of adding two figures, of lighting a cigarette, or of aiming a torpedo. Eleven New Earth ships had been captured, and it was thought that these were all the activists' armed vessels; there had been no further attacks since then. He did not believe that anything which could now possibly happen could rouse him from his apathy. But he had forgotten one possibility. Seu came to him in Chong Yin's, where Yin's eldest son Fu now moved in his father's place, and said, "Rack wasn't taken. He's here." * * * * * Cudyk sat with his teacup raised halfway between the table and his lips. After a long moment, he saw that his hand was trembling violently. He set the cup down. He said, "Where?" "The Little Bear. Half the town has gone there already. Do you want to go?" Cudyk stood up slowly. "Yes," he said, "I suppose so." But he felt the tension that pulled his body together, the tautened muscles in back and shoulders and arms. As they reached the corner of Ceskoslovensko and Washington, they saw scattered groups of men moving ahead of them, all hurrying, some frankly running. The crowd was thick around the doorway of The Little Bear when they reached it, and they had difficulty forcing a passage. Men moved aside for Seu willingly enough, but there was little space to move. Inside, it was worse. The stairway was solidly packed; it was obviously impossible to get through.