She looked keenly at Dr. Bemis. Something was so radically wrong somewhere that she didn't have the courage to even ask him. She just waited. "Dr. Hargrave has been taken to observation," he said without warning. "So has the crew of the _Endore_. I--ah--believe you may take an indefinite leave from the office until further notice. With full pay, of course." "Dr. Hargrave?" Martha asked, not hearing the last. "Yes!" Dr. Bemis's voice changed from harsh tenseness to contriteness. "I'm sorry, Miss Ryan, but I feel it inadvisable to discuss it just now. All I can say is that full quarantine measures are now in force as of fifteen minutes ago. There will be no landing or taking off from Earth until it is lifted; and within this area the same quarantine applies."[1] Martha Ryan hesitated, then turned and left. Dr. Bemis watched her go. After the door closed behind her he did a very peculiar thing. He took a gun out of his coat pocket and shot himself through the head. After that he went to a mirror on the wall, dressed the wounds carefully, wincing at the bite of the alcohol in the raw flesh, and, after drinking several glasses of water, returned to Dr. Hargrave's desk. * * * * * He sat there, drumming his fingers on the walnut surface, his eyes closed as if he were listening to something very far away. A buzzer under his desk gave three short buzzes. He reached over and deflected the toggle on the intercom. "Back already, Martha?" he said cheerily. "Any more left on your list for the _Endore_?" Martha checked her list. There had been two left when she went to lunch. They had been checked off, too, while she was gone. "That's all, Dr. Nale," she said. "Good," came his voice through the intercom. "Think I'll go out and have something to eat myself." The click of the intercom was followed at once by the opening of the inner office door. Martha's eyes watched Dr. Nale Hargrave as he walked through the office and out into the corridor. Her eyes remained on the exit after he had gone, a faint frown creasing the smooth skin above her eyes. She had an IRRATIONAL impression that she had seen Dr. Bemis, the super, instead of Dr. Nale, and with his head bandaged clumsily. She dismissed this with a pout and took a book out of a drawer to do her afternoon reading. The buzzer on her desk buzzed a warning. She laid the book flat as the inner office door opened and Dr. Nale escorted Ren Gravenard out into the waiting room. Martha glanced at her watch. It was ten after nine. Four minutes! She expected the nod from Dr. Nale. Her pencil wrote an O.K. after the dash she had drawn four minutes ago. "Thank you doctor," Ren Gravenard was saying heartily. The two guards left by the side door back to quarantine. Dr. Nale went over and bent close to Martha's ear. "As your psychiatrist," he said pseudo-seriously, "I can advise you that unless you kiss me I am going to feel quite frustrated."