"You're in, Dr. Norden," he said. "What you urgently need is rest. You've had a devil of a time of it, and you show it. But we can't afford to let you go." He nodded grimly. "You're no more psychotic than I am, since you're able to work. And we need your work. The last settlement on Mars was just wiped out before we could evacuate it. Hardwick's notes are pure gobbledegook, so we _have_ to depend on your help. Come on." He stood up and led Norden through a narrow door, and into a tunnel that connected GHQ with a large Quonset-type building to the south. "We've secured everything we could for you," he explained. "We even got you an assistant, and the exclusive use of our largest computer." He threw open the door to the laboratory, and gestured. "It's _all yours_. I'll be around from time to time, but if you need anything extra-special don't hesitate to ask for it. All of our work is important but you have top priority here." Norden closed the door firmly as the general left, studying the equipment--more than he'd dreamed they could provide. To them, he was probably off balance. But at the moment, he was convinced they would have given top priority to a man who could do the Indian rope trick. It seemed like a careless way of running things, particularly since they hadn't put a guard over him, or hinted at a penalty for failure. He moved back through the laboratory, studying the equipment. Again, there was the disturbing sense that his experience had blanked out whole sections of his mind, until he had to puzzle out apparatus he must have used a thousand times. But it was still obvious that the laboratory had everything he could possibly want--and more. He wandered back and around the big computer, and almost collided with a small, brown-haired girl in a lab smock who looked up at him with eager interest, her slender hands busy with the keyboard. "Dr. Norden? I'm Pat Miles, your assistant. I hope you won't let the fact that the general is my father disturb you. I had three years of extraspectral math and paraphysics at Chitec, and I'm a registered computer operator in my own right, grade one." She smiled at him. He knew at once that she was the guard placed over him--an extremely attractive guard who would keep the general informed as to his progress. But a known factor was always better than an unknown one. He offered her his hand, and she took it quickly. "Glad to have you, Pat," he said. "But until I can decode Hardwick's notes from what little I've learned of them, there won't be much to do." He'd decided that it was a reasonable job, and one which would take up enough time for him to orient himself. After that... his mind skidded off the subject. She pointed to the work table by the machine where the notes lay spread out. "I've been systematizing it already. If you can supply half a dozen keys, the computer should be able to translate the rest."