Swanson quivered as though the word had been a whip; but Burckhardt flared: "Adjust _him_, if he'll let you--but not me! You're going to have to do me a lot of damage, Dorchin. I don't care what I cost or how much trouble it's going to be to put me back together again. But I'm going out of that door! If you want to stop me, you'll have to kill me. You won't stop me any other way!" The steel robot took a half-step toward him, and Burckhardt involuntarily checked his stride. He stood poised and shaking, ready for death, ready for attack, ready for anything that might happen. Ready for anything except what did happen. For Dorchin's steel body merely stepped aside, between Burckhardt and the gun, but leaving the door free. "Go ahead," invited the steel robot. "Nobody's stopping you." * * * * * Outside the door, Burckhardt brought up sharp. It was insane of Dorchin to let him go! Robot or flesh, victim or beneficiary, there was nothing to stop him from going to the FBI or whatever law he could find away from Dorchin's synthetic empire, and telling his story. Surely the corporations who paid Dorchin for test results had no notion of the ghoul's technique he used; Dorchin would have to keep it from them, for the breath of publicity would put a stop to it. Walking out meant death, perhaps--but at that moment in his pseudo-life, death was no terror for Burckhardt. There was no one in the corridor. He found a window and stared out of it. There was Tylerton--an ersatz city, but looking so real and familiar that Burckhardt almost imagined the whole episode a dream. It was no dream, though. He was certain of that in his heart and equally certain that nothing in Tylerton could help him now. It had to be the other direction. It took him a quarter of an hour to find a way, but he found it--skulking through the corridors, dodging the suspicion of footsteps, knowing for certain that his hiding was in vain, for Dorchin was undoubtedly aware of every move he made. But no one stopped him, and he found another door. It was a simple enough door from the inside. But when he opened it and stepped out, it was like nothing he had ever seen. First there was light--brilliant, incredible, blinding light. Burckhardt blinked upward, unbelieving and afraid. He was standing on a ledge of smooth, finished metal. Not a dozen yards from his feet, the ledge dropped sharply away; he hardly dared approach the brink, but even from where he stood he could see no bottom to the chasm before him. And the gulf extended out of sight into the glare on either side of him. * * * * * No wonder Dorchin could so easily give him his freedom! From the factory, there was nowhere to go--but how incredible this fantastic gulf, how impossible the hundred white and blinding suns that hung above!