"

"'Smatter, Nick?" The Captain picked up the statuette and peered at it.

"Put it down, put it down," said the doctor in a choked voice.
"It's--Johnny...."

"Oh it is, it is," breathed the Captain. He put down the statuette
gingerly on the table, hesitated, then turned its face away from them.
With abrupt animation he swung to Paresi. "Hey! You didn't say it looked
like Johnny. You said it _was_ Johnny!"

"Did I?"

"Yup." He grinned wolfishly. "Not bad for a psychologist. What a
peephole you opened up! Graven images, huh?"

"Shut up, Anderson," said Paresi tiredly. "I told you I'm not going to
let you needle me."

"Aw now, it's all in fun," said the Captain. He plumped down and threw a
heavy arm across Anderson's shoulders. "Le's be friends. Le's sing a
song."

Paresi shoved him away. "Leave me alone. Leave me alone."

Anderson turned away from him and regarded the statuette gravely. He
extended the bottle toward it, muttered a greeting, and drank. "I
wonder...."

The words hung there until Paresi twisted up out of his forlorn reverie
to bat them down. "Damn it--_what_ do you wonder?"

"Oh," said the Captain jovially, "I was just wondering what you'll be."

"What are you talking about?"

Anderson waved the bottle at the figurine, which called it to his
attention again, and so again he drank. "Johnny turned into what he
thinks he is. A little guy with a big victory. Hoskins, there, he's
going to be a slide-rule, jus' you wait and see. Ol' Ives, that's easy.
He's goin' to be a beer barrel, with beer in it. Always did have a head
on him, Ives did." He stopped to laugh immoderately at Paresi's
darkening face. "Me, I have no secrets no more. I'm going to be a coat
of arms--a useless philosophy rampant on a field of stars." He put the
open mouth of the bottle against his forehead and pressed it violently,
lowered it and touched the angry red ring it left between his eyes.
"Mark of the beast," he confided. "Caste mark. Zero, that's me and my
whole damn family. The die is cast, the caste has died." He grunted
appreciatively and turned again to Paresi. "But what's old Nicky going
to be?"

"Don't call me Nicky," said the doctor testily.

"I know," said the Captain, narrowing his eyes and laying one finger
alongside his nose. "A reference book, tha's what you'll be. A treatise
on the ... the post-nasal hysterectomy, or how to unbutton a man's
prejudices and take down his pride.... I swiped all that from
some