"Yes, it's...." At last the answer came to him. With a cry that might have been a gasp of pain, he said, "NIK-700!" 11 "Are you going to the show tonight?" the doctor asked cheerfully. "I don't know." For two weeks Hendley had waited anxiously for the show to return. The first time Ann had not appeared with the troupe. The following week she had been there. He had recognized her the moment she appeared in the red spotlight. That night had been worse than the other. He could only watch at a distance. There was no way to communicate with her. When the audience reaction began to clarify itself on the giant thought-screen, Hendley could not watch it. Then the lottery began.... "I think we can leave the bandages off now," the doctor said. One by one he flexed the fingers of Hendley's left hand. "How does that feel?" "It hurts." "But not too bad, eh? You'll find it stiff for a while, and you'll have to be a little careful of it, but it's coming along fine. You're lucky. You mend quickly." Only the body mended, Hendley thought. The other, the deeper wound, did not heal. "Tell me something, Doctor," he said abruptly. "What's wrong with me?" "Eh? I just told you. You're coming along much better than we had any right to expect." "I don't mean the hand. I mean--why am I different? Why do I feel things that others don't seem to feel? Not just here in the camp--I know there are some who don't adjust to freedom--but outside, too. Why didn't I fit in? Why did I feel that something was wrong?" The doctor sat gingerly on the edge of the bed in Hendley's room, as if the question made him move with caution. "What makes you think you're different?" "I _know_ I am! Nik was different, too, but not in the same way." "Freedom sickness," the doctor said absently. "But you can't call mine freedom sickness," Hendley argued. "I haven't been here long enough. And I didn't belong in the outside Organization either. I don't belong anywhere! To me the whole system seems wrong, but why am I the only one who feels that way?" "You're not the only one." "Maybe not, but there aren't very many like me. I told you how that Morale Investigator reacted. I was a prize specimen to him. I was something new! That's why I was sent here." The doctor sighed. "This is a little out of my field," he said thoughtfully. "But I think I can make an educated guess about your trouble." "Then guess, for Organization's sake!" "I suspect that your genes failed to respond to the pre-birth treatment in the Genetic Center." "What does that mean?" "Well, you know that the chemistry of the human cell is organized in a very specific pattern. Research proved long ago that artificial mutations could be produced in the genetic material of the cell. What is not so widely known is that the series of tests in the clinics of the Genetic Center, which every expectant mother undergoes in the second month of pregnancy, are actually a course of treatment."