After what seemed eternity--in reality seconds--the wall before him slid silently aside. A long corridor stretched before him. It led to the public rooms. The sudden shock of overwhelming relief had the quality of vertigo. The quadrangle walls seemed to lose solidity and become curved. He shut his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, the wall on the left side of the quadrangle bore a message in brilliant letters as if they'd emerged glowing from the plastic substance itself. It was a message and a question: "PUBLIC ROOMS NOT NEUTRAL. DISGUISE DESIRED?" Julian stared. Behind the silver-grey brilliance of his eyes, a mind trained to irrevocable decisions worked at the level of maximum awareness. His judgment balanced factors and variables. True, his instructions had been to seek sanctuary here, at this place, and on this street that for all its seemingly deserted obscurity was honeycombed with palaces fabulous for luxury and unlimited pleasures. Even the exotic tastes of jaded minds whose more esoteric interests could only be aroused by pain--the wild suffering of crucified flesh--were catered to. Fugitives from half a dozen worlds lost their identity in the opulent warrens where "life" so often could be bought and sold with oblique indifference. But he had to visit the Public Rooms--his only contact with what he had come to seek _was there_! Someone who had devoted a lifetime to the Dekka, in Ganymede. Imperturbably he re-read the fading words, and with a mental squaring of his shoulders, he replied: "Yes. Nothing _organic_, of course. But it must be more than merely skillful!" Instantly the wall glowed again: "THE SIXTH PANEL TO YOUR LEFT AWAITS YOUR PLEASURE." * * * * * Julian strode down the hall and paused before the sixth panel, it opened inwardly with the same silent precision that characterized everything in the place. Thus far he had seen no one. The maximum anonymity was, of course, essential. Still, there was something eerie in the atmosphere of complete detachment. He entered and found himself in a circular room with curving, almost translucent walls. The floor was firm, yet resilient under foot. He felt like a fop at a rejuvenation center, and laughed suddenly at the thought. His whole countenance was lit by that rare smile. From somewhere a slim, completely masked creature glided silently into the room. Julian judged its height at slightly less than five feet; however, beyond the fact that its body was undeniably human, and exquisitely proportioned, Julian was unable to go, for the being's skin-tight garment left not an inch of surface exposed--except its hands. These were long, and marvelously sensitive, with a nervous life of their own as if they acted independently of the Ganymedean's guiding brain.