The Keeper of the House of Five Regulations, an old man, Citizen Harmane, looked in on his charges--approvingly at Boyne, with a beclouded expression at Glenn Tropile. It was thought that even Wolves were entitled to the common human decencies in the brief interval between exposure and the Donation of Fluid. The Keeper would not have dreamed of scowling at the detected Wolf or of interfering with whatever wretched imitation of meditation-before-dying the creature might practice. But he could not, all the same, bring himself to offer even an assurance-of-identity gesture. Tropile had no such qualms. He scowled at Keeper Harmane with such ferocity that the old man almost hurried away. He turned an almost equally ugly scowl upon Citizen Boyne. How dared that knife-murderer be so calm, so relaxed! Tropile said brutally: "They'll kill us! You know that? They'll stick a needle in our spines and drain us dry. It _hurts_. Do you understand me? They're going to drain us, and then they're going to drink our spinal fluid, and it's going to _hurt_." He was gently corrected. "We shall make the Donation," Citizen Boyne said calmly. "Is not the difference intelligible to a Son of the Wolf?" True culture demanded that that remark be accepted as a friendly joke, probably based on a truth--how else could an unpalatable truth be put in words? Otherwise the unthinkable might happen. They might quarrel. They might even come to blows! The appropriate mild smile formed on Tropile's lips, but harshly he wiped it off. They were going to _kill_ him. He would _not_ smile for them! And the effort was enormous. "I'm _not_ a Son of the Wolf!" he howled, desperate, knowing he was protesting to the man of all men in Wheeling who didn't care, and who could do least about it if he did. "What's this crazy talk about Wolves? I don't know what a Son of the Wolf is and I don't think you or anybody does. All I know is that I was acting _sensibly_. And everybody began howling! You're supposed to know a Son of the Wolf by his unculture, his ignorance, his violence. But you chopped down three people and I only picked up a piece of bread! And _I'm_ supposed to be the dangerous one!" "Wolves never know they're Wolves," sighed Citizen Boyne. "Fish probably think they're birds and you evidently think you're a Citizen. Would a Citizen speak as you are speaking?" "But they're going to kill us!" "Then why aren't you composing your death poem?" * * * * * Glenn Tropile took a deep breath. Something was biting him. It was bad enough that he was about to die, bad enough that he had done nothing worth dying for. But what was gnawing at him now had nothing to do with dying. The percentages were going the wrong way. This pale Citizen was getting an edge on him.