"No!" he rose with a shout. The guards leveled their guns. After a moment Jim sank back to his seat. "Amelia doesn't know." His voice was dull. "She thinks I'm just like her. It's better that way." The doctor's voice softened: "Didn't she ever wonder why you never had children?" "Wonder? Of course. At first. But I saw to it that she was kept too busy to care." Pride came into his tone. "We built our home ourselves, up from the ground. Made everything in it. Tilled our acres of land." His eyes gleamed, and it was almost with spite that he said: "Can you do that? Can you go without food? Can you go without sleep? Can you work without tiring? Can you cut yourself and not feel pain? And heal yourself?" Triumph made Jim's throat swell. He wanted to reach across and lift the other in his arms, just to show what strength he had, how wonderfully powered he was. "Look at me. How old would you say I was?" Was there envy in the doctor's eyes? "Twenty-five, I'd say. If I didn't know you were forty, as the records show." "And you, Doctor, must be seven or eight years younger. Look at yourself. Tired lines, gray at the temple--your body a prey to disease, and to aches. Doesn't it make you jealous that I am what I am, and you what you are?" The doctor got up abruptly and motioned to the guards. Jim rose, protesting frantically as they closed in, and took his arms. "You _are_ jealous! That's why you want to destroy me. Jealous! _Jealous!_" "Jealous, Jim Simson? Hardly." The doctor smiled pityingly just before the guards led Jim away. "You see, I have two children." They stripped him in a small closed room, and prepared him for the irrevocably final step. They put him on a rolling stretcher, strapping him down at his chest, legs and arms. The bright narrow ceiling sailed over him. They wheeled him into a large amphitheatre with blue-white lights. White garbed figures swam into view, their faces masked. One bent over him. "Hello, Roger MacComb." He stared into keen blue eyes. "Dr. Tiel!" He recognized the man, and a great relief surged through him. He lowered his voice confidentially: "Stop them, Doctor. They want to reconvert me." "Of course," the doctor said. "Didn't I promise it to you--twenty years ago? Surely, you haven't forgotten my promise?" "Forgotten?" Bitterly, he recalled that other time. Then, as now, he had been strapped to the operating table. But then he had been a poor shattered thing. Forgotten? He had never forgotten those frenzied pleas of years back: "Promise the change will only be temporary. Promise you'll find a way." "Now," the doctor said: "I'm keeping that promise. We _did_ find the way." "Dr. Tiel." Jim's chest heaved, "I've changed my mind. I don't want reconversion. I want to be me--as I am now--as you made me!" The masked man stared down at him. "They told me about this." His voice was almost sad. "They told me you were recalcitrant. I couldn't believe it."