The operation on Hendley's wrist, for which Nik had paid him handsomely in white chips, had been a welcome diversion for the little man. The postoperative services he offered Hendley were free. "I just like to see my patients come along," he said. "Don't have many of them any more." He was a compulsive gambler. On the day Hendley lay drugged, the doctor lost all the white chips Nik had paid him. When he began to feel better, Hendley expressed curiosity about the expansion device on Nik's identity disc, which now circled Hendley's left wrist above the bandage. "Simple enough," the doctor explained. "See? A little tug and lift at the same time and it opens up. If you merely tugged, or just lifted, it wouldn't work. Very neat." Hendley was impressed. The tampering with the disc was completely invisible except on very close inspection. "He'll be caught anyway," he said with certainty. "They'll know at the Architectural Center that he's not me. And at the rec halls. Somebody's bound to notice!" "That may be," the doctor said agreeably. "Still, people are out of the habit of questioning things any more. And when I try to remember my patients, when I think back on them, it's strange, but I don't remember their faces. I remember only some of their numbers...." For the next few days Hendley kept waiting for NIK-700 to be returned to the camp. The Organization would conclude that he needed morale therapy, of course, for wanting to escape from freedom. Hendley would undoubtedly be penalized for being a party to the switch, no matter what story he told. Strangely enough, the prospect of losing his borrowed freedom did not disturb Hendley. He had only one good explanation for this: Ann was outside. No word came. Incredulity turned into uncertainty, then apprehension. Surely someone would have reported Nik as an impostor by now. RED-498 would have made inquiries about her Assigned. (But she wouldn't really care, Hendley realized uncomfortably. If Nik had been shrewd enough to act quickly to break the contract, RED-498 would have been temporarily disturbed, but only until the Marital Computer assigned another partner to her. Nik might have brought it off without ever seeing her.) At last the suspicion that no one would be concerned about the change, as long as Nik was obedient to the Organization's scheduled routine of work and play, grew into conviction. Hendley was free.