n
pace he veered into an opening beside the escalator.

At the first turn he saw that the aisle merely circled the stairway,
coming out into the depot again on the other side. It was a trap. He
glanced quickly around him.

At the rear of the space was a row of lockers for traveler use. He
slipped a coin into a pay slot, opened the zipper on his bag and pulled
out a flat briefcase. It took him only a few seconds to push the case
into the compartment, lock it and slide the key along the floor beneath
the locker.

There was nothing to do after that--except wait.

The men pursuing him came hurtling around the turn in the aisle. He
kicked his knapsack to one side, spreading his feet wide with an
instinctive motion.

Until that instant he had intended to fight. Now he swiftly reassessed
the odds. There were five of them, he saw. He should be able to
incapacitate two or three and break out. But the fact that they had been
expecting him meant that others would very probably be waiting outside.
His best course now was to sham ignorance. He relaxed.

He offered no resistance as they reached him.

They were not gentle men. A tall ruffian, copper-brown face damp with
perspiration and body oil, grabbed him by the jacket and slammed him
back against the lockers. As he shifted his weight to keep his footing
someone drove a fist into his face. He started to raise his hands; and a
hard flat object crashed against the side of his skull.

The starch went out of his legs.

"Do you make anything out of it?" the psychoanalyst Milton Bergstrom,
asked.

John Zarwell shook his head. "Did I talk while I was under?"

"Oh, yes. You were supposed to. That way I follow pretty well what
you're reenacting."

"How does it tie in with what I told you before?"

Bergstrom's neat-boned, fair-skinned face betrayed no emotion other than
an introspective stillness of his normally alert gaze. "I see no
connection," he decided, his words once again precise and meticulous.
"We don't have enough to go on. Do you feel able to try another
comanalysis this afternoon yet?"

"I don't see why not." Zarwell opened the collar of his shirt. The day
was hot, and the room had no air conditioning, still a rare luxury on
St. Martin's. The office window was open, but it let in no freshness,
only the mildly rank odor that pervaded all the planet's habitable area.

"Good." Bergstrom rose. "The serum is quite harmless, John." He
maintained a professional div