verplayed their
innocence right from the start.

The side door from quarantine opened. Two guards entered, preceding and
following the first victim warily. Martha sized Ren Gravenard up closely
while her face assumed the careful, welcoming smile that often brought
attempts at dating.

Ren Gravenard was no different in appearance than a million like him. He
was average in everything including his type of character.

"You are Ren Gravenard?" she asked.

He nodded without speaking.

Martha pressed the button that told Doctor Nale the first one had
arrived, got his O.K. signal, and motioned Gravenard and the guards
toward the inner door with a sweep of long yellow pencil in perfectly
manicured fingers.

As the three passed into the private office she made a slow dash after
the spaceman's name preparatory to writing his destination when he came
out. It would be "obs" or "O.K."

Then she glanced at her wrist watch. Its hands pointed to six after
nine. Two hours and fifty-four minutes later Ren Gravenard had still not
come out. And in her two years as receptionist for Dr. Nale Hargrave,
Martha Ryan had never known him to spend more than twenty minutes with
any subject....

Her manicured nail pressed the buzzer three times to signal she was
going to lunch. Giving Dr. Nale a full minute to make any request,
without receiving any, she opened the door to the corridor and left.

* * * * *

When she returned an hour later she was surprised to see the door to Dr.
Hargrave's inner office open and Dr. John Bemis, the chief of the psych
staff, at the desk.

"Come in, Miss Ryan," Dr. Bemis said, accenting his invitation with a
wave of his hand.

He waited until she had come in and closed the door behind her before
continuing.

"There's something's happened," he said gravely. "I don't know just
what, and maybe I don't exactly WANT to know."

Dr. Bemis spread his hands in an all inclusive gesture.

"The universe is a big place," he said. "I suppose we should have
expected that sooner or later we'd run into something a little outside
normal experience."

He shook his head slowly, looking up at the ceiling as though trying to
pierce it and see beyond. When he continued, his voice was sharp and
businesslike.

"Tell me exactly what you saw, thought, and felt this morning. Every
detail, however unimportant you might think it."

"There's really very little to tell," Martha said, surprised a