Maria Larsen stood at the foot of his bed. She smiled as his eyes opened. "Hello, Ken," she said. "I've been waiting so long. I've been afraid you'd never wake up." "Tom Doyle," he said. "Did you find Tom Doyle?" Maria frowned. "I don't know who you mean!" "You haven't found his family yet?" Ken cried, struggling to rise in the bed. "Go and find them right now. I promised Tom Doyle I'd do it." Maria approached and pushed him gently back upon the pillow, drawing the covers over him once more. "Tell me about Tom Doyle," she said. "You've never told me who he is." It seemed utterly stupid for her not to know, but Ken patiently told her about Doyle's Service, the best little station in the world, at the corner of First and Green. "I told Tom I'd take care of them," he said. "Now go and bring them here!" "Ken," Maria said, "all the nomads who escaped, and there weren't many, retreated around the south end of town and picked up the women and children they'd left there. They moved on south. That was 3 days ago. We've no idea where they've gone." Ken tried to rise again against her struggles to hold him down. "They couldn't have gone so far that a man on horseback couldn't find them! Why won't you help me? I promised I'd see to it!" He lay back weakly, covering his face with his arm. "Go and find Tom Doyle," he said. In detail he described where he had left the man. "You don't believe what I'm saying. Get Tom Doyle and he'll tell you it's the truth." "He wouldn't be there now. All the wounded, including the nomads, have been moved to homes where they are being cared for. The dead, both theirs and ours, have been burned and their ashes buried." "Do what I tell you!" Ken implored. With bewilderment and fear on her face, Maria stood back from the bed and looked at Ken's troubled face. Then quietly she stole from the room and shut the door behind her. * * * * * He had been overworking himself for weeks, Dr. Adams was saying, and had been living on a poor diet that would scarcely keep a medium-sized pup going. "Then you had a shock, the kind of shock that shakes a man to his very roots. Now you're on your way up again." Ken glanced about the room. It seemed normal now and there was only a great emptiness within him to replace the frantic urgency he remembered. "What you're trying to say, Doc, is that I went off my rocker for a while." Dr. Adams smiled. "If you want to put it that way. However, you're fine now." Ken stared at the ceiling for a few moments. "Will you still say so if I ask again about Tom Doyle?" "What do you want to know?" "Was he found?" "No. Maria actually tried to find him for you. I'm afraid your Tom Doyle was among the dead." "I killed him." "We killed a lot of them--and they killed a lot of our people." "How did it end?" asked Ken. "I remember the darkness and just wandering around the streets shooting, but I don't know what I hit or where I went."