* * * * * Sam Atkins' face was like that of a dead man. Across the table from him, Jim Ellerbee and John Fenwick watched silently. Faintly, between them was the crystal-projected image of Baker's body. Fenwick felt the cold touch of some mysterious unknown prickle his scalp. Sam Atkins seemed remote and alien, like the practitioner of ancient and forbidden arts. Fenwick found the question tumbling over and over in his mind, who is this man? He felt as if the very life energy of Sam Atkins was somehow flowing out through the crystal, across space, to the distant broken body of Bill Baker and was supporting it while Baker's own feeble energy was consumed in the rebuilding of his shattered organs. [Illustration] Though Fenwick and Ellerbee held their own crystals, Sam had somehow shut them out. They were in faint contact with Baker, but they could not follow the fierce contact that Sam's mind held with him. Ellerbee's face showed worry and a trace of panic. He hesitantly reached out to touch the immobile figure of Sam Atkins, who sat with closed eyes and imperceptible breath. Fenwick sensed disaster. He arrested the motion of Ellerbee's hand. "I think you could kill them both," he whispered. The life force of one man, divided between two--it was not sufficient to cope with unexpected shocks to either, now. Ellerbee desisted. "I've never seen anything like this before," he said. "I don't know what Sam's doing--I don't know how he's doing it--" Fenwick looked sharply at Ellerbee. Ellerbee had discovered the crystals, so he and Sam said. Yet Sam was able to do things with them that Ellerbee could not conceive. Fenwick wondered just who was responsible for the crystals. And he resolved that some day, when and if Baker pulled out of this, he would learn something more about Sam Atkins. Time moved beyond midnight and into the early morning hours of the day, but this meant nothing to William Baker. He was in the midst of eternity. Because the old pattern was there, and the ancient memories were clear, his reconstruction moved at a pace that was limited only by the materials available. When these grew scarce, Sam Atkins showed him how to break down and utilize other structures that could be rebuilt leisurely at a later time. There was remembered joy in the building and, once started, Baker gave only idle wonder to the question of whether this was more desirable than death. He did not know. This seemed the right thing to do. In the presence of Sam Atkins everything he was doing seemed right, and a lifetime of doubts, and errors, and fears seemed distant and vague. But Sam said suddenly, "It is almost finished. Just a little farther and you'll have to go the rest of the way alone."