had known about the
danger, but he hadn't guessed that he didn't have to face it alone.
Something else was evident: her control was limited--perhaps she could
step in at a critical moment, but the greater part was up to him.

He moved quickly. He opened the delivery chute and put in the small bag
that held his clothing, then punched a code that dispatched it to the
transportation terminal. In return, he received a small plastic strip
with the same code on it. The bag could be traced, but not without
trouble, and he should be able to pick it up before then. At this stage
he didn't want to be encumbered.

He took a last look around and stepped into the hall. He leaped back
again.

A heavy caliber slug crashed into the door.

* * * * *

That had been meant to kill. He was lucky it hadn't.

Who was it? Not the police. By law they were restricted to tangle guns,
though they sometimes forgot. In this case, their memory should be
good--they'd have difficulty explaining away the holes in his body. Not
that they'd have to, really; if they wanted, they could toss him into an
alley and claim they had found his body later.

Still, there was no particular reason why they should want to kill him
outright when they could do it by degrees scientifically and with full
legal protection. They didn't call it killing. There was another term:
converting.

The converting process was not new; the principles had existed for
centuries. The newness lay in the proper combination of old discoveries.
Electric shock was one ingredient, a prolonged drastic application of it
during the recreation of a situation that the victim had a weakness for.
In the case of an adulterer, say, the scene was hypnotically arranged
with the cooperation of a special robot that wouldn't be
short-circuited. At the proper moment, electric shock was applied,
repeatedly. Rigorous and somewhat rough on the criminal's wife, but the
adulterer would be saddled all his life with an unconditional reflex.

That was only one ingredient. There were others, among them a
pseudo-religious brotherhood, membership in which was compulsory.
C. C.--Confirmed Converters. _They_ kept tab on one another with
apocalyptic fervor. Transgressions were rare. Death came sooner.

Jadiver stood there thinking. It wasn't the police, because they had
converting with which to threaten him. It wasn't Cobber, either. He
could have killed Jadiver earlier and hadn't.