He walked without aim or purpose. Careless of the menace lurking in deeply shadowed places, he was protected by his very indifference--or perhaps by the distant activity of the hunt. No yelling band of attackers burst upon him. He wandered through the camp, pausing here and there at a bar to gulp down whiskey he neither tasted nor felt. His whole body grew numb, and his thoughts became mercifully fuzzy, with only a small projection of reality poking up through the haze to bring him pain. At last he came reeling along the street leading to the dwelling unit he had inherited from Nik. Hazily he thought: it is mine now. It is really mine. And mine is his, as if I had never occupied it. With painful perception he realized that the room in which he had lived for so many years in the outer ring of the Architectural Center bore no mark of his personality, no stamp that made it his. Everything in it belonged to the Organization. Everything had been issued--not to a man, but to a number. To a faceless tool which had been taught a limited pattern of activity. A tall figure loomed in Hendley's way. He stopped, trying to focus his gaze. A strange face, youthful in outline but lined and reddened as if the skin did not react well to the sun's direct rays, smiled at him. "I say there," the man cried cheerfully. "Out having your jolts, eh?" Hendley tried to stumble past him, made vaguely uneasy by the stranger's hearty manner and forced good humor. But the tall Freeman caught his arm. "What's your hurry?" he asked, his tone cajoling rather than resentful. "The night's young!" "I've had enough," Hendley mumbled. The grip tightened on his arm. The man's fingers were not still. Hendley became aware of a gentle kneading of his bicep. "I can teach you some real pleasure-pure," the tall man suggested, suddenly coy. "A new experience! I'll bet you haven't--" "No, I haven't!" Angrily Hendley jerked away from the overfriendly grasp. "But you don't know what you've missed!" The young-old face was eager. The "s" sound hissed through his teeth in coquettish invitation. "You'll never know unless you try. I can show you!" Hendley struck furiously at the simpering smile. Something of the long day's frustration went into the brutal blow. The Freeman staggered back. Through bleeding lips came an outraged protest. "Beast! You have no sensitivity, no imagination! I should have known it!" Hendley spun away. He wanted only to reach the privacy of his room, to find the oblivion of drugged sleep. But before he had traveled a hundred feet his legs gave way and he crumpled to the pavement. He lay where he had fallen, head whirling, the ground revolving slowly. He had a sense of flying, and then of the surface on which he was borne beginning to tip at an angle until he felt sure that he would slide off into empty space.