muttered. "Funny. I _liked_ your subsidiary
personality."

Jay's mouth contracted in a mirthless grin.

"You would," he said, and swung quickly round.

"Come on. If I'm going to work on that serum project I'd better inspect
the volunteers and line up the blood donors and look over old
whatshisname's papers."

But beyond the window the snowy ridges of the mountain, inscrutable,
caught and held his eye; a riddle and a puzzle--

"Ridiculous," he said, and went to his work.

* * * * *

Four months later, Jay Allison and Randall Forth stood together,
watching the last of the disappearing planes, carrying the volunteers
back toward Carthon and their mountains.

"I should have flown back to Carthon with them," Jay said moodily. Forth
watched the tall man stare at the mountain; wondered what lay behind the
contained gestures and the brooding.

He said, "You've done enough, Jay. You've worked like the devil.
Thurmond--the Legate--sent down to say you'd get an official
commendation and a promotion for your part. That's not even mentioning
what you did in the trailmen's city." He put a hand on his colleague's
shoulder, but Jay shook it off impatiently.

All through the work of isolating and testing the blood fraction, Jay
had worked tirelessly and unsparingly; scarcely sleeping, but brooding;
silent, prone to fly into sudden savage rages, but painstaking. He had
overseen the trailmen with an almost fatherly solicitude--but from a
distance. He had left no stone unturned for their comfort--but refused
to see them in person except when it was unavoidable.

Forth thought, we played a dangerous game. Jay Allison had made his own
adjustment to life, and we disturbed that balance. Have we wrecked the
man? He's expendable, but damn it, what a loss! He asked, "Well, why
_didn't_ you fly back to Carthon with them? Kendricks went along, you
know. He expected you to go until the last minute."

Jay did not answer. He had avoided Kendricks, the only witness to his
duality. In all his nightmare brooding, the avoidance of anyone who had
known him as Jason became a mania. Once, meeting Rafe Scott on the lower
floor of the HQ, he had turned frantically and plunged like a madman
through halls and corridors, to avoid coming face to face with the man,
finally running up four flights of stairs and taking shelter in his
rooms, with the pounding heart and bursting veins of a hunted criminal.
At last he said,