brain. A microscopic examination. Here!" he said,
pushing the microscope case towards her with both hands.

She dropped her head onto her forearms and sobbed. "Leave me alone,
can't you! I'm tired and sick and fed up with this awful planet. Let
them die. I don't care! Your theory is false, useless. Admit that!
And let me wash the filth from my hands...." Sobbing drowned out her
words.

Brion stood over her and drew a shuddering breath. Was he wrong? He
didn't dare think about that. He had to go on. Looking down at the
thinness of her bent back, with the tiny projections of her spine
showing through the thin cloth, he felt an immense pity--a pity he
couldn't surrender to. This thin, helpless, frightened woman was
his only resource. She had to work. He had to _make_ her work.

Ihjel had done it--used projective empathy to impress his emotions
upon Brion. Now Brion must do it with Lea. He had had some sessions
in the art, but not nearly enough to make him proficient.
Nevertheless he had to try.

Strength was what Lea needed. Aloud he said simply, "You can do it.
You have the will and the strength to finish." And silently his mind
cried out the order to obey, to share his power now that hers was
drained and finished.

Only when she lifted her face and he saw the dried tears did he
realize that he had succeeded. "You will go on?" he asked quietly.

Lea merely nodded and rose to her feet. She shuffled like a
sleepwalker jerked along by invisible strings. Her strength wasn't
her own, and the situation reminded him unhappily of that last event
of the Twenties when he had experienced the same kind of draining
activity. She wiped her hands roughly on her clothes and opened
the microscope case.

"The slides are all broken," she said.

"This will do," Brion told her, crashing his heel through the glass
partition. Shards tinkled and crashed to the floor. He took some of
the bigger pieces and broke them to rough squares that would fit
under the clips on the stage. Lea accepted them without a word.
Putting a drop of the magter's blood on the slide, she bent over the
eyepiece.

Her hands shook when she tried to adjust the focusing. Using low
power, she examined the specimen, squinting through the angled tube.
Once she turned the sub-stage mirror a bit to catch the light
streaming in the window. Brion stood behind her, fists clenched,
forceably controlling his anxiety. "What do you see?" he finally
blurted out.

"Phagocy