Heirson read the paper and his eyebrows went askew. "Yes, yes, we have discovered that there is a basic difference between you and the others who maintain they have no Riders. It would seem it _has_ been established that you really _do not_ have a Rider. Remarkable! Yes. Well, I have no alternative but to dismiss you from this institution, Michael Malloy, and to extend to you my personal apology for any inconvenience your three-and-a-half-years' detainment may have caused you." A trick, Malloy thought. Only what point would there be in tricking him? The oppressive horror of it crushed down upon him with its full weight. "Oh no," he said. "No, sir. Take me back to my padded cell. I've got my rights. I'm not going out there again. Maybe I could have learned to live with it once, but not now. I can't face up to living with a world of supermen, people who can do everything better than I can. _Take me back._ I think I'm going to get violent any minute now!" He took a swing at the nearest guard, but naturally the guard's Rider told him what was coming and he dodged deftly, caught Malloy's arm and twisted it into half-nelson to hold him completely, infuriatingly helpless. Malloy had to hold back tears of frustration. "Fortunately," Dr. Heirson croaked, "you can do no harm even if you do get violent, and I'm sure everyone will want to do everything possible for a poor unfortunate like yourself. We all will make allowances." "No, no, no!" Malloy announced with the rhythm of his stomping feet. "I won't leave here! I _won't_!" * * * * * The man beside Heirson favored Malloy with a smile; Malloy wasn't sure whether it was friendly or mocking. The stranger nodded his head briefly to the guards. Malloy was dragged, protesting, down the marble-floored hallway to the entrance of the mental hospital. His anguished cries echoed across the ornate ceiling of the old building. He was shoved out the front door with a parcel in brown paper under his arms. Malloy made one desperate attempt to get back inside but the massive door clanged in his face, and he could hear the reverberations dying away inside and the steady retreat of footsteps. Malloy turned away in pain from the unaccustomed brilliance and warmth of the sun and banged on the door with his fists and demanded to be readmitted. He grew hoarser and hoarser and he slid further and further down until he was squatting on the threshold, his cheek rested against the warm varnished surface of the door. Malloy had never been an overly proud or vain man before the Riders had come. After all, he'd had one of the most menial jobs on Earth; he had been a magazine editor. But now he felt squashed under the thumb of humiliation. The monstrous indignity of it all! To be thrown out of an asylum! After a time, Malloy felt a coolness, a wetness on his head. He dreamed a little dream to himself that he knew was a dream: they were coming to wrap him in warm sheets again.