ety prone. No accidents involving personal injury ever happen
when he is around. Not even minor ones."

* * * * *

Goil looked hostilely skeptical at me. "I seem to recall some accident
reports you sent in. You signed them yourself, I believe, as safety
officer."

"That's right," I said feeling foolish. "But they were falsified
reports. And I've requisitioned medical supplies too, that were never
needed."

"Now why would you want to do a thing like that?" asked Goil in a tone
cold with obvious disbelief, and the tenor of humoring a madman.

"To keep reports and consumption statistics where they belong," I
answered.

"I'm more than just an employee of the Company. I'm also a research
psychologist. And I'm studying Willy. I'll admit that through
influence and other ways I got Willy and me a job out here isolated
with a relatively small group doing rather dangerous work, normally.
That was planned. It's easier to study him this way. I can prove this,
of course."

"How do you know for certain Willy is a safety prone?"

"Through non-accident statistics where he has worked."

* * * * *

Goil removed a small pen knife from his pocket, opened the blade, and
drew it across the back of his hand. The cut bled. He said, "Look. I'm
injured."

I shook my head. "You are injured, but it's not the same thing. It was
not an accident."

Goil stood up. "I've heard enough of your gibberish. Willy is a thief
and you are a pathological liar. What you have just told me is pure
fantasy, a yarn concocted to try to protect you and Willy. I have
little doubt but what you really believe it yourself. Mr. Weston, you
are a sick man."

"I told you it would sound incredible.

"Willy only steals or alters the normal sequence of events so that
accidents involving human injury won't happen. Sometimes his behavior
patterns are simple, sometimes complex. But always--always the
synergism, syndrome, or whatever you want to call it, is the same. I
have a file of tape recordings I can let you hear, and incident
histories--"

"Which may very well be considered part of _your_ syndrome," said
Goil. "Mr. Weston, you are either the system's boldest liar, or you
are sick. You can't really expect me to believe all that garbage, now
can you?"

"With that unimaginative type mind you seem to have, Mr. Goil, no, I
don't expect you to believe. But it was worth a try. Willy is up to
someth