President Winthrop turned to the Secretary, his eyes brightening momentarily. "Tell you what, Art. I'm not planning on breaking the proposal to the public until next Monday. What say we have a little private dinner party on Saturday evening, just the Cabinet members and their wives? Sort of a farewell celebration, in a way, but we won't call it that, of course? Chef tells me there's still twenty pounds of hamburger in the freezers." "Twenty pounds of hamburger? You mean it?" The Secretary of State was smiling, too. "That's right." The President of the United States grinned in anticipation. "Been a long time since I've tasted a real, honest-to-goodness hamburger." 4. Harry Collins--2000 Harry didn't ask any questions. He just kept his mouth shut and waited. Maybe Dr. Manschoff suspected and maybe he didn't. Anyway, there was no trouble. Harry figured there wouldn't be, as long as he stayed in line and went through the proper motions. It was all a matter of pretending to conform, pretending to agree, pretending to believe. So he watched his step--_except in the dreams, and then he was always falling into the yawning abyss_. He kept his nose clean--_but in the dreams he smelled the blood and brimstone of the pit_. He managed to retain a cheerful smile at all times--_though, in the dreams, he screamed_. Eventually, he even met Myrna. She was the pretty little brunette whom Ritchie had mentioned, and she did her best to console him--_only in dreams, when he embraced her, he was embracing a writhing coil of slimy smoke_. It may have been that Harry Collins went a little mad, just having to pretend that he was sane. But he learned the way, and he managed. He saved the madness (_or was it the reality?_) for the dreams. Meanwhile he waited and said nothing. He said nothing when, after three months or so, Myrna was suddenly "transferred" without warning. He said nothing when, once a week or so, he went in to visit with Dr. Manschoff. He said nothing when Manschoff volunteered the information that Ritchie had been "transferred" too, or suggested that it would be best to stay on for "further therapy." And he said nothing when still a third nurse came his way; a woman who was callid, complaisant, and nauseatingly nymphomaniac. The important thing was to stay alive. Stay alive and try to learn. * * * * * It took him almost an additional year to find out what he wanted to find out. More than eight months passed before he found a way of sneaking out of his room at night, and a way of getting into that Third Unit through a delivery door which was occasionally left open through negligence. Even then, all he learned was that the female patients did have their living quarters here, along with the members of the staff and--presumably--Dr. Leffingwell. Many of the women _were_ patients rather than nurses, as claimed, and a good number of them were in various stages of pregnancy, but this proved nothing.