The clear, cold question jarred him. Ann saw things with a more candid eye than his. She would know what confinement in the camp meant. She would not blind herself to the impossibility of escape. She would be relieved to know that he was safe, glad, even happy--but she would know that his assumption of a Freeman's role erected a wall far more solid and impregnable than any previous barrier of social status. Shadowy images flickered on the great thought-screen above the stage. Lurid shapes of desire, created by the minds of Freemen who had exhausted every normal area of pleasure, writhed and twisted on the screen like fugitives from the deepest caverns of the imagination. Dreading what was coming, loathing it because Ann had been involved in that same monstrous pantomime, Hendley turned away from the screen. And in that moment, when his attention shifted, he felt again the pressure of eyes on the back of his neck. He looked around. Three rows back, sitting almost directly behind Hendley, the visitor quietly watched the performance on stage. He was smiling thinly. It could have been coincidence. Hendley had come to the Rec Hall directly from the park. The show had already started, and the only remaining seats were in the balcony. The visitor must have arrived shortly after him, and it was natural that he should have found a seat nearby. But Hendley knew that the big man's presence was no accident. His seat had been deliberately chosen. Why? What did he hope to accomplish? In the crowded Rec Hall Hendley was safe from attack--and in any event why should the man pursue him? Was it because of that ridiculous-sounding message Hendley had failed to recognize? The visitor's gaze started to swivel toward him. Hendley swung quickly back toward the screen. The pressure was repeated at the back of his head. BAM, he thought. What could the word mean? The show went on. The erotic audience impression of it danced above the stage on the giant screen. And at last the lottery began. Through it all Hendley sat and watched, torturing himself with fears about Ann's absence and what it meant. And whenever his self-absorption wavered, he would become conscious of the patient watch of the visitor sitting behind him. The last number was called, the last nude figure stood submissively in the spotlight of stage center. The light-curtain fell, obscuring the stage. There was a rush of movement toward the exits. Hendley started up the aisle, turned quickly and pushed his way through the crowd toward another escalator. The visitor was unfamiliar with the camp. If Hendley could reach the sidewalk strip ahead of him without being seen, he could easily elude pursuit.