up, and
he shot Adam Lowiewski through the forehead.

For an instant, the Pole remained on his feet. Then his knees buckled,
and he fell forward against the table, sliding to the floor.

* * * * *

MacLeod went around the table, behind Kato Sugihara and Farida Khouroglu
and Heym ben-Hillel, and stood looking down at the man he had killed. He
dropped the automatic within a few inches of the dead renegade's
outstretched hand, then turned to face the others.

"I regret," he addressed them, his voice and face blank of expression,
"to announce that our distinguished colleague, Dr. Adam Lowiewski, has
committed suicide by shooting, after a nervous collapse resulting from
overwork."

Sir Neville Lawton looked critically at the motionless figure on the
floor.

"I'm afraid we'll have trouble making that stick, Dunc," he said. "You
shot him at about five yards; there isn't a powder mark on him."

"Oh, sorry; I forgot." MacLeod's voice was mockingly contrite. "It was
Dr. Lowiewski's expressed wish that his remains be cremated as soon
after death as possible, and that funeral services be held over his
ashes. The big electric furnace in the metallurgical lab will do, I
think."

"But ... but there'll be all sorts of formalities--" the Englishman
protested.

"Now you forget. Our contract," MacLeod reminded him. "We stand upon our
contractual immunity: we certainly won't allow any stupid bureaucratic
interference with our deceased colleague's wishes. We have a regular
M.D. on our payroll, in case anybody has to have a death certificate to
keep him happy, but beyond that--" He shrugged.

"It burns me up, though!" Suzanne Maillard cried. "After the spaceship
is built, and the Moon is annexed to the Western Union, there will be
publicity, and people will eulogize this species of an Iscariot!"

Heym ben-Hillel, who had been staring at MacLeod in shocked unbelief,
roused himself.

"Well, why not? Isn't the creator of the Lowiewski function
transformations and the rules of inverse probabilities worthy of
eulogy?" He turned to MacLeod. "I couldn't have done what you did, but
maybe it was for the best. The traitor is dead; the mathematician will
live forever."

"You miss the whole point," MacLeod said. "Both of you. It wasn't a
question of revenge, like gangsters bumping off a double-crosser. And it
wasn't a question of whitewashing Lowiewski for posterity. We are the
MacLeod Research Team. We o