sping as the two cloven halves of the strip clanged
back together again.

He stared at the people around him on the strip and they stared back at
him, mildly, unperturbed, and returned to their evening papers as the
strip passed through the first local station on the other side of the
"bridge."

Harry Scott sprang to his feet, moving swiftly across the slower strips
for the exit channels. He noted the station stop vaguely, but his only
thought now was speed, desperate speed, fear-driven speed to put into
action the plan that had suddenly burst in his mind.

He knew that he had reached his limit. He had come to a point beyond
which he couldn't fight alone.

Somehow, Webber had burrowed into his brain, laid his mind open to
attacks of nightmare and madness that he could never hope to fight.
Facing this alone, he would lose his mind. His only hope was to go for
help to the ones he feared only slightly less, the ones who had minds
capable of fighting back for him.

He crossed under the moveable sidewalks and boarded the one going back
into the heart of the city. Somewhere there, he hoped, he would find the
help he needed. Somewhere back in that city were men he had discovered
who were men and something more.

* * * * *

Frank Manelli carefully took the blood pressure of the sleeping figure
on the bed; then turned to the other man. "He'll be dead soon," he
snapped. "Another few minutes now is all it'll take. Just a few more."

"Absurd. There's nothing in these stimuli that can kill him." George
Webber sat tense, his eyes fixed on the pale fluctuating screen near the
head of the bed.

"His own mind can kill him! He's on the run now; you've broken him loose
from his nice safe paranoia. His mind is retreating, running back to
some other delusions. It's escaping to the safety his fantasy people can
afford him, these not-men he thinks about."

"Yes, yes," agreed Dr. Webber, his eyes eager. "Oh, he's on the run
now."

"But what will he do when he finds there aren't any 'not-men' to save
him? What will he do then?"

Webber looked up, frowning and grim. "Then we'll know what he found
behind the dark door that he opened, that's what."

"No, you're wrong! He'll die. He'll find nothing and the shock will
kill him. My God, Webber, you can't tamper with a man's mind like this
and hope to save his life! You're obsessed; you've always been obsessed
by this impossible search for something in o