* * * * *

And opened again! He was staring at the ceiling, but the men and women
standing around him got in his way.

Their lips were moving, their faces unperturbed.

"That was a nasty thing for him to do."

"They all do it, once or twice, until they learn."

"Third time for him, isn't it?"

"Yes, I believe so. First time he tried hanging himself. Second time he
was beating his head against the wall when we came and stopped him.
Bloody mess that one was."

"Nothing to compare with this, of course."

"Well, naturally."

Oliver Symmes felt sick with fear of frustration.

"Nice technique you showed, Doctor. He'd been dead at least an hour when
we started, hadn't he?"

"Almost two," someone else said. "An amazing job."

"Thank you. But it wasn't too difficult. Just a little patching here and
there."

He felt his legs being shifted for him.

"Be careful there, Nurse. Handle him gently. _Fragilitas Ossium_, you
know. Old bones break very easily."

"Sorry, Doctor."

"Not that we couldn't fix them up immediately if they did."

"Naturally, Doctor."

"I wish they'd try something different for a change."

"The woman in the next room lost an eye last year, trying to reach the
prefrontals. Good as new now, of course."

He wanted to vomit at the uselessness of it all.

"By the way, what's he in for? Do you know?"

"No, I'd have to look it up."

"Probably newness."

"Or taxes."

"Or maybe even slander."

"Is that on the prescribed antisocial list now?"

"Oh, yes. It was passed just before the destructive criticism law."

"Think he'll try this messy business again?"

"They all do."

"They do, don't they? Don't they ever learn it's no use?"

"Eventually. Some are just harder to convince than others."

The pain was gone. He closed his eyes and slipped off into darkness
again and into ...

* * * * *

Shadows. In slow and ponderous fashion they float across the sea of his
mind, like wandering bits of sargasso weed on the brackish water of a
dying ocean. Each one dreamed a thousand times too many, each separate
strand of memory-weed now nothing but a stereotyped shred of what might
have once been a part of life and of living.

With the quietness of deserted ships they drift in procession past his
sphere of consciousness. Wait! There's one that seems familiar. He stops
the mental parade for a moment, not hearing the voice of his companion,