“Phil, the truth is, he--The way it is now, he _hates_ you! He hates so many--Oh, I’m _sorry_, Phil! Does everyone treat you like this? Like a piece of furniture or something? As if you had no feelings?” _Not everyone, kid. Just my patients._ “If I’m lucky they do,” he said, laughing. “That’s how you can tell your friends from a psychiatrist. Sure, Johnny hates me, Lee. He’s got reasons. How would you feel about a doctor who told you what was wrong with you, and then wouldn’t cure you?” “_Wouldn’t?_ Oh. I guess he does feel that way.” “I’m not sure he’s wrong, Lee. I’ve been over that file fifty times in the last year if I’ve looked at it once. And I _still_ don’t know why it fizzled. Which makes it pretty sure that the blind spot’s in _me_.” “But nobody else got anywhere at all with it!” “That’s just what I mean. He had some good solid frontline defenses. I got through. Period. Then I got lost somehow. I’m the guy who’s peddling road maps, see? And I didn’t have one for him. So he found his own way out. Period and exclamation point.” He ate a forkful of high-priced sawdust, and added, “Also crazy-mixed-up metaphors. But you dig me, kid.” _Only you don’t_, he realized with an unanticipated pang of dismay. _You used to, but now you don’t. Lee, honey, can’t you think anything any more but Johnny Wendt? Or see, or hear, or feel._ _Ah, cut the crap, Kutler!_ he told himself. Of course she couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Shouldn’t. He knew that beforehand. He had it all planned for them. _What the hell, Doc? You wrote the prescription yourself!_ _So open up. Take the nice medicine._ _Mexcity--12_ M. (_C.S.T._) It was not excessively hot, for late June in Mexcity. But four blocks, from the air-conditioned Government office to the cool stone walled interior of the club left Chris sweat-sodden and near exhaustion. He was a big man, with a powerful frame, who tended to run to flesh. He was conscientious about exercise; he had to be, more than most of them. They came up, mostly, for six months, a year--maybe six years. He had gone up with the first crew to work on the Dome; he had every intention of dying there--or farther out. But meantime, he thought (as he thought every time he came down) he ought to come Earthside more often; his muscles were in good condition, and the regular centrifuge workout topside kept the giant gravity down here from overcoming him. But his heart pumped too hard; his blood rushed too much; and the unfiltered air out of doors clogged his nostrils; the sun bursting out from behind clouds seared his eyeballs; clouds hiding the sun obscured his vision. It was always too bright or too dim, too damp or too dry, too cold or too hot, when you were used to Dome-regulated atmosphere. Today, it was--for him--steaming hot. And, when he entered the cool lobby of the club, it was clammy cold.