an early infection at the tip of his middle toe. He was, if I've
got to produce a time-table, about three-eights of an inch ahead of me.
He had no worries. He was one of their kind of thinkers.

"How'd you connect?" I asked him.

"I didn't," he said, scratching his infected toe vigorously. "They
connected with me."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I was sleeping tight and not even dreaming. Someone rapped on my
apartment door and I growled myself out of bed and sort of felt my way.
It was three in the morning. Guy stood there looking apologetic. 'Got a
message for you,' he tells me. 'Can't it wait until morning?' I snarl
back. 'No,' he says. 'It's important!' So I invite him in. He doesn't
waste any time at all; his first act is to point at an iron floor lamp
in the corner and ask me how much I'd paid for it. I tell him. Then this
bird drops twice the amount on the coffee table, strides over to the
corner, picks up the lamp, and ties the iron pipe into a fancy-looking
bowknot. He didn't even grunt. 'Mr. Mullaney,' he asks me, 'How would
you like to be that strong?' I didn't have to think it over. I told him
right then and there. Then we spent from three ayem to five thirty going
through a fast question and answer routine, sort of like a complicated
word-association test. At six o'clock I've packed and I'm on my way here
with my case of Mekstrom's Disease."

"Just like that?" I asked Mr. Mullaney.

"Just like that," he repeated.

"So now what happens?"

"Oh, about tomorrow I'll go in for treatment," he said. "Seems as how
they've got to start treatment before the infection creeps to the first
joint or I'll lose the joint." He contemplated me a bit; he was a
perceptive and I knew it. "You've got another day or more. That's
because your ring finger is longer than my toe."

"What's the treatment like?" I asked him.

"That I don't know. I've tried to dig the treatment, but it's too far
away from here. This is just a sort of preliminary ward; I gather that
they know when to start and so on." He veiled his eyes for a moment. He
was undoubtedly thinking of my fate. "Chess?" he asked, changing the
subject abruptly.

"Why not?" I grinned.

My mind wasn't in it. He beat me three out of four. I bedded down about
eleven, and to my surprise I slept well. They must have been shoving
something into me to make me sleep; I know me very well and I'm sure
that I couldn't have closed an eye if they hadn't been slipping me the
old closeout po