Had he been as skilled in psychologies as he was in mathematics he might possibly have recognized his own pattern for what it was-religious enthusiasm, the desire to be a part of a greater whole and to surrender one's own little worries to the keeping of an over-being. He had been told, no doubt, in his early instruction, that revolutionary political movements and crusading religions were the same type-form process, differing only in verbal tags and creeds, but he had never experienced either one before. In consequence, he failed to recognize what had happened to him. Religious frenzy? What nonsense-he believed himself to be an extremely hard-headed agnostic.

She opened her eyes, saw him and smiled, without moving. "Good morning," she said.

"Good morning, good morning," he agreed. "I neglected to ask your name yesterday."

"My name is Marion," she answered. "What is yours?"

"I am Monroe-Alpha Clifford."

"'Monroe-Alpha,'" she mused. "That's a good line, Clifford. I suppose you-" She got no further with her remark; her expression was suddenly surprised; she made two gasping quick intakes of breath, buried her face in her hands, and sneezed convulsively.

Monroe-Alpha sat up abruptly, at once alert and no longer happy. She? Impossible!

But he faced the first test of his new-found resolution firmly. It was going to be damned unpleasant, he realized, but he had to do it. The Whole is greater than the parts.

He even derived unadmitted melancholy satisfaction from the realization that he could do his duty, no matter how painful. "You sneezed," he said accusingly.

"It was nothing," she said hastily. "Dust-dust and the sunshine."

"Your voice is thick. Your nose is stopped up. Tell me the truth. You're a 'natural'-aren't you?"

"You don't understand," she protested. "I'm a-oh, dear!" She sneezed twice in rapid succession, then left her head bowed.

Monroe-Alpha bit his lip. "I hate this as much as you do," he said, "but I'm bound to assume that you are a control natural until you prove the contrary."

"Why?"

"I tried to explain to you yesterday. I've got to take you in to the Provisional Committee-what I was talking about is already an established fact."

She did not answer him. She just looked. It made him still more uncomfortable. "Come now," he said. "No need to be tragic about it. You won't have to enter the stasis. A simple, painless operation that leaves you unchanged-no disturbance of your endocrine balance at all. Besides, there may be no need for it. Let me see your tattoo."

Still she did not answer. He drew his gun and levelled it at her. "Don't trifle with me. I mean it." He lowered his sights and pinged the floor just in front of her. She flinched back from the burnt wood and the little puff of smoke. "If you force me, I'll burn you. I'm not joking. Let me see your tattoo."

When still she made no move, he got up, went to her, grabbed her roughly by the arm, dragging her to her feet. "Let's see your tattoo."

She hesitated, then shrugged her shoulders. "All right ... but you'll be sorry." She lifted her left arm. As he lowered his head to read the figures tattooed near the arm pit she brought her hand down sharply near the wrist joint of his right hand. At the same instant her right fist made a painful surprise in the pit of his stomach.

He dropped his gun.

He dived after the gun before it had clattered to a stop and was up after her. But she was already gone. The cabin door stood open, framing a picture of sugar pines and redwoods, but no human figure. A bluejay cursed and made a flicker of blue; nothing else moved.

Monroe-Alpha leaped to the door and looked both ways, covering the same arc with his weapon, but the Giant Forest had swallowed her. She was somewhere close at hand, of course; her flight had disturbed the jay. But where? Behind which of fifty trees? Had there been snow on the ground he would have known, but the snow had vanished, except for bedraggled hollows, and the pine needles carpet of an evergreen forest left no tracks perceptible to his untrained eye-nor was it cluttered with undergrowth to impede and disclose her flight.

He cast around uncertainly like a puzzled hound. He caught a movement from the corner of his eye, turned, saw a flash of white, and fired instantly.

He had hit-that was sure. His target had fallen behind a baby pine which blocked his view, thrashed once, and was quiet. He went toward the little tree with reluctant steps, intending to finish her off mercifully, if, by chance, his first bolt had merely mutilated her.

It was not she, but a mule deer fawn. His charge had burnt away half the rump and penetrated far up into the vitals. The movement he had seen and heard could have been no more than dying reflex. Its eyes were wide open, deer soft, and seemed to him to be filled with gentle reproach. He turned away at once, feeling a little sick. It was the first non-human animal he had ever killed.

He spent only a few minutes more searching for her. His sense of duty he quieted by telling himself that she stood no chance of getting away here in a mountain forest anyhow, infected, as he knew her to be, with a respiratory ailment. She would have to give up and turn herself in.

Monroe-Alpha did not return to the cabin. He had left nothing there, and he assumed that the little glow-heater which had kept them warm through the night was equipped with automatic cut-off. If not, no matter-it did not occur to him to weigh his personal convenience against the waste involved. He went at once to the parking lot underground where he found his runabout, climbed in, and started its impeller. There was an immediate automatic response from the Park's traffic signal system, evidenced by glowing letters on the runabout's annunciator: NO CRUISING OVER GIANT FOREST-ANGLE THREE THOUSAND AND SCRAMBLE. He obeyed without realizing it; his mind was not on the conning of the little car.

His mind was not on anything in particular. The lethargy, the bitter melancholy, which had enervated him before the beginning of the Readjustment, descended on him with renewed force. For what good? To what purpose was this blind senseless struggle to stay alive, to breed, to fight? He drove the little capsule as fast as its impeller would shove it straight for the face of Mount Whitney, with an unreasoned half-conscious intention of making an ending there and then.

But the runabout was not built to crash. With the increase in speed the co-pilot extended the range of its feelers; the klystrons informed the tracker; solenoids chattered briefly and the car angled over the peak.

"When we die, do we die all over?"

AS HE turned his back on the lifting runabout into which he had shanghaied Monroe-Alpha, Hamilton dismissed his friend from his mind-much to do and damned little time. Hurry!

He was surprised and not pleased to find that the door giving down into the building from the roof responded at once to the code used by the Clinic staff-a combination Mordan had given him. Nor were there guards beyond that door. Why, the place might as well be wide open! He burst into Mordan's office with the fact on his mind. "This place is as unprotected as a church," he snapped. "What's the idea?" He looked around. In addition to Mordan the room contained Bainbridge Martha, his chief of technical staff, and Longcourt Phyllis. His surprise at her presence was reinforced by annoyance at seeing she was armed.

"Good evening, Felix," Mordan answered mildly. "Why should it be protected?"

"Good grief! Aren't you going to resist attack?"

"But," Mordan pointed out, "there is no reason to expect attack. This is not a strategic point. No doubt they plan to take the Clinic over later but the fighting will be elsewhere."