porting events to his keen
scientific brain. In a second or less, the keen scientific brain had
come up with an answer, and Dr. O'Connor spoke in his very keenest
scientific voice.

"I should have warned you," he said, without an audible trace of
regret. "The answer is childishly simple, Mr. Malone. You left
Washington at noon."

"Just a little before noon," Malone said. Remembering the burning sun,
he added: "High noon. Very high."

"Just so," O'Connor said. "And not only the heat was intense; the
humidity, I assume, was also high."

"Very," Malone said, thinking back. He shivered again.

"In Washington," O'Connor said, "it was noon. Here it is nine o'clock,
and hardly as warm. The atmosphere is quite arid, and about twenty
degrees below that obtaining in Washington."

Malone thought about it, trying to ignore the chills. "Oh," he said at
last. "And all the time I thought it was you."

"What?" O'Connor leaned forward.

"Nothing," Malone said hastily. "Nothing at all."

"My suggestion," O'Connor said, putting his fingertips together again,
"is that you take off your clothes, which are undoubtedly damp, and--"

Naturally, Malone had not brought any clothes to Yucca Flats to change
into. And when he tried to picture himself in a spare suit of Dr.
O'Connor's, the picture just wouldn't come. Besides, the idea of doing
a modified striptease in, or near, the O'Connor office was thoroughly
unattractive.

"Well," he said slowly, "thanks a lot, Doctor, but no thanks. I really
have a better idea."

"Better?" O'Connor said.

"Well, I--" Malone took a deep breath and shut his eyes.

He heard Dr. O'Connor say: "Well, Mr. Malone, goodbye. And good luck."

Then the office in Yucca Flats was gone, and Malone was standing in
the bedroom of his own apartment, on the fringes of Washington, D.C.

4

He walked over to the wall control and shut off the air-conditioning
in a hurry. He threw open a window and breathed great gulps of the
hot, humid air from the streets. In a small corner at the back of his
mind, he wondered why he was grateful for the air he had suffered
under only a few minutes before. But that, he reflected, was life. And
a very silly kind of life, too, he told himself without rancor.

In a few minutes he left the window, somewhat restored, and headed for
the shower. When it was running nicely and he was under it, he started
to sing. But his voice didn't sound as much like the voice of Lauritz
Melchi