... until the years began to show and she watched her hair begin to thin and her skin begin to dry. The youth treatments were new then and only minimally effective. Yet all the while the man she loved remained in his prime, appearing to be not a day older than when they had met. This she could not accept. And so slowly her love began to thin, began to dry, began to crumble into resentment. And from there it was not far to desperate hatred.

So Dalt left Jean—for her sake, for the sake of her sanity. And never returned.

("I think I'll have her sit right here next to you.")

Don't bother.

("I think I should bother. You've avoided a close male-female relationship ever since you left Jean. I don't think that's—"

I really don't care what you think. Just don't play matchmaker!

("Nevertheless ...")

The girl paused by Dalt's shoulder. Her voice was liquid. "Saving that seat for anyone?"

Dalt sighed resignedly. "No." He watched her as she settled herself across from him. She certainly did justice to the clingsuit: slim enough to keep the suit from bulging in the wrong places, full enough to fill it out and make it live up to its name. He idly wondered how Jean would have looked in one and then quickly cut off that train of thought.

"My name's Ellen Lettre."

"Steven Dalt," he replied with a mechanical nod.

A pause, then: "Where're you from, Steve?"

"Derby." Another pause, this one slightly more awkward than the first.

("Have mercy on the girl! She's just trying to make friendly conversation. Just because she looks like Jean is no reason to treat her as if she's got Nolevatol Rot!")

You're right, he thought, then spoke. "I was doing some microbial research at the university there."

She smiled and that was nice to see. "Really? That means you were connected with the bioscience department. I took Dr. Chamler's course there last year."

"Ah! The Chemistry of Schizophrenia. A classic course. Are you in psychochem?"

She nodded. "Coming back from a little field trip right now, as a matter of fact. But I don't remember seeing you around the bioscience department."

"I sort of kept pretty much to myself—very involved in the work." And this was true. Dalt and Pard had developed a joint interest in the myriad microbial life-forms being found on the explorable planets of the human sector of the galaxy. Some of the metabolic pathways and enzyme systems were incredible and the "laws" of biological science were constantly being revamped. Alien microbiology had become a huge field requiring years to make a beginning and decades to make a dent. Dalt and Pard had made notable contributions and published a number of respected papers.

"Dalt ... Dalt," the girl was saying. "Yes, I believe I did hear your name mentioned around the department a few times. Funny, I'd have thought you'd be older than you are."

So would his fellow members of the bioscience department if he hadn't quit when he did. Men who had looked his age when he first came to the university were now becoming large in the waist and gray in the hair and it was time to move. Already two colleagues had asked him where he was taking his youth treatments. Fortunately, IMC Central had offered him an important research fellowship in antimicrobial therapy and he had accepted eagerly.

"You on a sabbatical from Derby?" she was asking.

"No, I quit. I'm on my way to Tolive now."

"Oh, then you're going to be working for the Interstellar Medical Corps."

"How did you know?"

"Tolive is the main research-and-development headquarters for IMC. Any scientist is assumed to be working for the group if he's headed for Tolive."

"I don't consider myself a scientist, really. Just a vagabond student of sorts, going from place to place and picking up what I can." So far, Dalt and his partner had served as an engineer on a peristellar freighter, a prospector on Tandem, a chispen fisher on Gelc, and so on, in a leisurely but determined search for knowledge and experience that spanned the human sector of the galaxy.

"Well, I'm certain you'll pick up a lot with IMC."

"You've worked for them?"

"I'm head of a psychiatric unit. My spesh is really behavior mod, but I'm trying to develop an overview of the entire field; that's why I took Chamler's course."

Dalt nodded. "Tell me something, Ellen—"

"El—"

"Okay, then: El. What's IMC like to work for? I must confess that I'm taking this job blindly; the offer came and I accepted with only minimal research."

"I wouldn't work anywhere else," she stated flatly, and Dalt believed her. "IMC has gathered some of the finest minds in the human galaxy together for one purpose: knowledge."

"Knowledge for knowledge's sake has never had that much appeal for me; and frankly, that's not quite the image I'd been given about IMC. It has a rather mercenary reputation in academic circles."

"The practical scientist and the practicing physician have limited regard for the opinions of most academicians. And I'm no exception. The IMC was started with private funds—loans, not grants—by a group of rather adventurous physicians who—"

"It was a sort of emergency squad, wasn't it?"

"At first, yes. There was always a plague of some sort somewhere and the group hopped from place to place on a fee-for-service basis. Mostly, they could render only supportive care; the pathogens and toxins encountered on the distressed planets had already been found resistant to current therapeutic measures and there was not much the group could do on such short notice, other than lend a helping hand. They came up with some innovations which they patented, but it became clear that much basic research was needed. So they set up a permanent base on Tolive and started digging"

"With quite a bit of success, I believe. IMC is reputedly wealthy—extremely so."

"Nobody's starving, I can say that. IMC pays well in hopes of attracting the best minds. It offers an incredible array of research resources and gives the individual a good share of the profits from his marketable discoveries. As a matter of fact, we've just leased to Teblinko Pharmaceuticals rights for production of the antitoxin for the famous Nolevatol Rot."

Dalt was impressed. The Nolevatol Rot was the scourge of the interstellar traveler. Superficially, it resembled a mild case of tinea and was self-limiting; however, the fungus produced a neurotoxin with invariably fatal central-nervous-system effects. It was highly contagious and curable only by early discovery and immediate excision of the affected area of skin ... until now.

"That product alone would finance the entire operation of IMC, I imagine."

El shook her head. "Not a chance. I can see you have no idea of the scope of the group. For every trail that pays off, a thousand are followed to a dead end. And they all cost money. One of our most costly fiascoes was Nathan Sebitow."

"Yes, I'd heard he'd quit."

"He was asked to quit. He may be the galaxy's greatest biophysicist but he's dangerous—complete disregard of safety precautions for both himself and his fellow workers. IMC gave him countless warnings but he ignored them all. He was working with some fairly dangerous radiation and so finally his funds were cut off."

"Well, it didn't take him long to find a new home, I imagine."

"No, Kamedon offered him everything he needed to continue his work within days after he supposedly 'quit' IMC."

"Kamedon ... that's the model planet the Restructurists are pouring so much money into."

She nodded. "And Nathan Sebitow is quite a feather in its cap. He should come up with something very exciting—I just hope he doesn't kill anybody with that hard radiation he's fooling around with." She paused, then, "But getting back to the question of knowledge for knowledge's sake: I find the concept unappealing, too. IMC, however, works on the assumption that all knowledge—at least scientific knowledge—will eventually work its way into some scheme of practical value. Existence consists of intra- and extracorporeal phenomena; the more we know about those two groups, the more effective our efforts will be when we wish to remedy certain interactions between them which prove to be detrimental to a given human."