"Oh, you shouldn't bother with me," said Izzy, standing now, looking at her worshipfully.

"Nonsense," said the Countess. "After all, you're our best friend. Somebody has to look after your ulcers! Sit down. Besides, I have a question for you. Have you ever heard the initials 'F. F. B. O.'?"

"Why?" said Izzy guardedly, perched nervously on the chair edge.

Heller said, "She thinks we should go on and clean this whole mess up. If we don't watch it, we'll be reforming the entire planet."

"Well, we should clean it up," said the Countess. "Somebody was paying that double and giving him orders. And all he knew was the letter designation 'F. F. B. O.'"

"I'd leave it alone," said Izzy. "Maybe it's a secret underground organization like the Elks. KKK stands for the Ku Klux Klan. They burn blacks and Jews. It isn't very healthy to get mixed up with things like that. Almost as bad as Indians."

"You don't know, then," said the Countess Krak. "Well, never mind, I'll find out. Here's your coffee coming."

I writhed. There she was, pushing, pushing, pushing! If she followed that trail it would take her to Madi­son and then to ME!

My headache felt worse. I laid down again. I had to be in some kind of shape this evening. I must not arouse the suspicions of Adora and Candy that I had a plan and meant to run.

A buzzing sound. The two-way-response radio. I dug it out wearily.

"Sorry I'm so late reporting in. What I'm about to tell you happened around noon."

"More catastrophe," I said.

"Well, kind of," said Raht. "It's got me worried."

"For Gods' sakes, quit garbling! Give me your report!"

"Well, I got your order, grabbed the two guards from the office and the Zanco straitjacket and a gas bomb, stopped by the air terminal for tickets and then went to Bellevue Hospital.

"When we asked for Crobe, Reception said he must be in, because some marshals from the court had taken a patient named Wister up to see him a while ago and had left, and Crobe was undoubtedly busy in his consulting rooms.

"We went up. We walked into Crobe's suite. A buck-toothed kid was lying on the table and he had a shock machine half connected to him. He was out cold and a syringe was sticking in a vein. Looked like he had been drugged and was being got ready for a shock but somebody interrupted it.

"No Crobe. But the door to the inner office was partly open. We thought maybe Crobe was in there. But we never found out."

"WHAT?"

"Yes. All of a sudden we went out like a light. All three of us. Felt like blueflash."

"You're dreaming! How the Hells could Voltarian blueflash get in Bellevue Hospital?"

"Well, I don't know," Raht said. "But when we came to, the kid was gone, and I'll be blessed if Crobe wasn't lying there where the kid had been. And Crobe had the Zanco straitjacket on him."

Horror surged into my throat as the realization struck me. If this had happened shortly after noon, Heller and Krak would have had ample time to get back to their condo where I had seen them. THEY HAD GONE FROM THAT COURT TO THE HOSPITAL! But this was not the source of the horror.

"Raht," I said anxiously, "did you have anything in your pockets from me? That gave my name or address?"

"I only had my own wallet and, of course, my identoplate."

"Nothing with my name or phone number?"

"No. Why should I? Anyway, this was all very pecul­iar. I thought I had better tell you because it might have been a Code break. That was a Voltarian straitjacket: had the Zanco label on it."

Then I had another agonizing thought. "Did the New York office guards have anything in their pockets that would lead to me?"

"Well, they had their identoplates. And Crobe's and their airline tickets through to Afyon, Turkey. But that doesn't account for the note we found on Crobe when we woke up. It said, 'Take this murderer home and see that he stays locked up.' It was written in Voltarian and in a very neat Voltarian, too. Are you sure that isn't a Code break of some sort?"

I was running out of adrenaline to sustain my shock. Wearily, I said, "So where is Crobe?"

"On his way to Turkey, of course. But I don't see how that bucktoothed kid got off the table, drugged like he was, and exploded a blueflash and..."

"Raht! Stop babbling!"

"But when we left with Crobe in a bag, the Bellevue desk wanted to know why we were taking Wister out in a straitjacket, because their record now showed he had passed the court-ordered mental examination and had been pronounced totally sane. This whole thing has been crazy."

I interrupted him. My head ached too much to listen to him further. "You fouled up as usual! If I wanted Bellevue blown up because of a Code break, I'd blow it up myself. There's no depending on you!"

"Blow up Bellevue?" Rate said, "Oh, please don't do that. They might remember us at the desk! I don't think..."

He was hopeless. I broke the connection.

I sat there sweating. Maybe Crobe had talked while Heller and Krak had him. Crobe knew why I had sent him to New York-to do in Heller.

My palms were wringing wet. I heard something in the areaway and almost jumped out of my skin.

Krak and Heller might turn up anywhere! At any moment!

But it was only the girls coming home from work.

Oh, by the Gods of space, it was a good thing I had a plan and could run. For, adding to my anxiety, they came in chattering about how nice it would be when they had all the homos reformed.

It was all I could do to sit there and not speed out the door screaming that very instant.

Life is often too much for one.

I rose in an exhausted stupor the following day. It had been very difficult the night before. It had taken four bhongs of marijuana to get any performance going at all. My throat was parched. I was having trouble see­ing. The threat of homo demonstrations was coming through like a nightmare.

I drank a quart of grapefruit juice almost without stopping. I ate a package of Oreo cookies. I still felt terrible. I needed something to start me going.

By the simple action of staring through the bandages at my viewers, I got it. Raw terror!

Crobe's had gone blank, for he was way out of range. But Krak's and Heller's were very live.

They were sitting at breakfast amidst the greenery of the roof terrace, the April sun sparkling on the snowy linen and tableware.

Heller was neatly dressed in a three-piece gray flannel suit, impeccably groomed, obviously ready for the day. The Countess Krak was in a flowy sort of morning gown. The whiteness of it hurt my eyes. She was delicately eating orange ice from a crystal and silver cup, but her attention was on the papers.

She looked up and, in a somewhat explosive voice, said, "Well, I never! Not one single line about the dismissal of the criminal charges or the suits. Not a word about the double's confession. Just some idiocy about a nationwide cat hunt."

Heller looked sideways. The cat was on the terrace lapping cream. "Mister Calico," said Heller, "you better lie low. They're on your tail at last."

"Jettero," said the Countess, "you are not taking this seriously."

"How can you take newspapers seriously?" said Heller.

"I do take it seriously. This is black propaganda by deletion. They haven't said a thing to cancel the impressions they created earlier. They're character assassins, that's what they are. And there's no remedy in these fake courts. When I think what they have said about you, my blood seethes! And now that we've handled it all, they don't recant. Jettero, this is a very managed press."

"It's just the way they are," said Heller. "I'm too busy to get involved in a 'Clean News for Clean People' campaign."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm on it," said the Countess Krak. "There's the doorbell."