I backed away from the mirror, trembling violently. I forced myself to slosh through the thick blood into the bedroom, groping for a bottle of whisky on the bureau. * * * * * "What the hell are you doing here?" the boss asked when I opened his office door and peeked in. "You're supposed to be in Palm Beach. Well, damn it, come on in!" I clung to the door firmly as I maneuvered myself through the opening. And when I closed the door, I leaned back against it heavily. I could see the boss--Carson Newell, managing editor of Intergalaxy News Service--half rising from behind his big desk across the room; but he was pretty dim and I couldn't get him to stay in one place. His voice was clear enough, though: "Must be mighty important to bring you back from.... Damn it, Langston, are you drunk?" I grinned then, and said, "Carshon. Carton. Old boy. Do you know that telenosis therapy is no sonofabitchin' good on alcoholics?" Carson Newell sat back down, frowning. I stumbled to a chair by the corner of his desk and gripped the arms tightly. "Telenosis therapy," I repeated, "is just no--" "Snap out of it," Newell barked. "It's no good on dumb animals, either, and you're probably out of range by now, anyway." He took a small bottle from his desk and tossed a yellow Anti-Alch pill across the desk to me. I popped it into my mouth. It didn't take long to work. A few minutes later, still weak and a little trembly, I said, "Would have thought of that myself, if I hadn't been so damn drunk." The boss grunted. "Now what's this business about telenosis?" "Somebody's been using it on me," I said. "Maliciously. Damn near drowned in a lake of blood from a water faucet." "Couldn't have been DTs?" "I'm serious. It's been going on for three or four days now. Not the blood. That's what gave it away. But other things." "You've been working pretty hard lately," Newell reminded me. "Which is why I'm on vacation and all nice and relaxed. Or at least, I _was_. No, it's not that. Listen, Carson, I admit that I'm no technical expert on telenosis. But a long time ago--seven or eight years ago, I guess--I did a feature series on it. I learned a little bit. Enough to save my life this time." Newell shrugged. "Okay. You probably know more about it than I do. I just know it's damned restricted stuff." He paused thoughtfully. "Any missing telenizer equipment would cause a helluva fuss, and there hasn't been any fuss." "No machines in Palm Beach or vicinity that somebody on the inside could be using illegally?" And then I answered that question myself: "No ... I doubt it. The machines are used only in the larger hospitals." "Don't suppose you have any hunches?"