He stayed with them more for companionship than any other reason. When Dorrine had come back for her short stay, Houston had met with them and tried to get them to help him trace down the megalomaniac Controller who was doing so much damage, but they'd balked at the idea. Their job, they claimed, was to get enough members so that they could protect themselves from arrest by the Normals, and then just let things ride. "After all," Dorrine had said, "things will work themselves out, darling; they always do." "Not unless somebody helps them, they don't," Houston had snapped back. "Someone has to do something." "But, Dave, darling--we _are_ doing something! Don't you see?" He didn't, but there was no convincing either the Group or Dorrine. She was passionately interested in the recruiting work she was doing, and she thought that the Group was the answer to every Controller's troubles. And then she had rushed back to England. "I'll be back soon, Dave," she'd said. "I think I have a lead on a girl in Liverpool." So far, the girl hadn't been found. Controllers didn't like to give themselves away to anyone, so they kept a tight screen up most of the time. It seemed as though everyone on Earth was in deadly fear all the time. The Normals feared losing their identities to Controllers, and the Controllers feared death at the hands of the Normals. And death or the Penal Cluster were their only choices if they were discovered. Houston worried about the risks Dorrine was taking, but there was nothing he could do. She was doing what she thought was right, just as he was; how could he argue with that? Houston went on with his job, putting together facts and rumors and statistical data analysis, searching out his quarry. And, at the end of the eighth week, everything blew high, wide, and hellish. * * * * * It was late evening. A cool wind blew over New York, bringing with it a hint of the rain to come. Church Street, in lower Manhattan, was not crowded, as it had been in the late afternoon, but neither was it entirely deserted. The cafes and bars did a lively business, but the tall, many-colored office buildings gaped at the street with blind and darkened eyes. Only a few of the windows glowed whitely with fluorescent illumination. In one of the small coffee shops, David Houston sat, smoking a cigarette and stirring idly at a cup of cooling coffee. Across the street was the Lasser Building; high up on the sixtieth floor, a whole suite of offices was brightly lit. The rest of the building was clothed in blackness.