e just two sides of the same coin. Both were infected with
the same disease, whatever it was. And the transies usually ended up as
schizos anyway. It just took them longer."

Gears shifted. The floor slanted. Jack was shoved hard against the rear
boards by the weight of the other men. He didn't answer until the
pressure had eased and his ribs were free to work for more than mere
survival.

He said, "You're way off, schizo. My hitting the road has nothing to do
with those split-heads. Nothing, you understand? There's nothing foggy
or dreamy about me. I wouldn't be here with you guys if I hadn't been so
interested in a wasp catching a caterpillar that I never saw the Bohas
sneaking up on me."

While Jack described the little tragedy, the other allowed an
understanding smile to bend his lips. He seemed engrossed, however, and
when Jack had finished, he said:

"That was probably an ammophila wasp. _Sphex urnaria_ Klug. Lovely, but
vicious, little she-demon. Injects the poison from her sting into the
caterpillar's central nerve cord. That not only paralyzes but preserves
it. The victim is always stowed away with another one in an underground
burrow. The wasp attaches one of her eggs to the body of a worm. When
the egg hatches, the grub eats both of the worms. They're alive, but
they're completely helpless to resist while their guts are gnawed away.
Beautiful idea, isn't it?

"It's a habit common to many of those little devils: _Sceliphron
cementarium_, _Eumenes coarcta_, _Eumenes fraterna_, _Bembix spinolae_,
_Pelopoeus_ ..."

Jack's interest wandered. His informant was evidently one of those
transies who spent long hours in the libraries. They were ready at the
slightest chance to offer their encyclopaedic but often useless
knowledge. Jack himself had abandoned his childhood bookwormishness. For
the last three years his days and evenings had worn themselves out on
the streets, passed in a parade of faces, flickered by in plate-glass
windows of restaurants and department stores and business offices, while
he hoped, hoped....

"Did you say you spied on the camp?" Jack interrupted the sonorous,
almost chanting flow of Greek and Latin.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. For two weeks. I saw plenty of transies trucked in, but
I never saw any taken out. Maybe they left in the rocket."

"Rocket?"

The youth was looking straight before him. His face was hard as bone,
but his voice trembled.

"Yes. A big one. It landed and discharged a