ich she took no trouble to hide, was pulled
into a bun at the back of her neck.

Surprisingly, Hunter thought she was pretty, perhaps because she was
so different from the eternal, baby-faced adolescent who thronged the
city in a million identical duplications.

Hunter knew he had seen her before. He couldn't remember where. She
shifted her position slightly and the light cast a sharp, angular
shadow on her face. Then he knew.

"Dawn!" he cried.

Startled, she turned to face him with a strange look in her eyes.

"I was hoping you wouldn't recognize me, Captain Hunter," she said.

"What are you doing here--dressed like some dowdy just in from a farm
sector?" he asked, his gaze incredulous.

"We're all of us a mixture of different personalities," she replied.
"I work for an entertainment house, yes. But I also have some of the
qualities of your Ann Saymer. Don't take offense, please. Ann and I
are both interested in the maladjusted. She wants a quick cure. I'm
looking for the cause."

"Here?"

"Wherever there are people who face an emotional crisis--the men who
come to Number thirty-four, or a mob of strikers. I want to know why
we react in the way we do, and what makes up the frustration pattern
that crowds us across the borderline into insanity."

"You sound like a psychiatrist," he said.

"I hold a First, Captain Hunter."

"And you work in an entertainment house?"

"Tell me about yourself, Captain. Have you found Ann yet?"

He looked away quickly.

"No," he said, his face hardening.

"And you still haven't had a chance to use your blaster?"

He directed an appraising glance at her. The question might imply a
great deal. Did she somehow know what had happened at Mrs. Ames'? Did
she know he was a fugitive?

A dozen police mercenaries appeared abruptly at the end of the street.
Since the police had never been used to break a strike, Hunter guessed
that this was Consolidated's answer to Werner von Rausch's new weapon.

The mercenaries drew their blasters and ordered the mob to disperse.
The automatons turned to face them. And as they turned they fell
silent--the cloying, choking silence of the tomb. Like marching
puppets, the mob moved toward the police. Clearly Hunter could hear a
shrill voice ordering them to halt.

Hunter felt a sickening inner horror. How could the mob obey when they
heard nothing but the enslaving grid, and responded to neither fear
nor reason? Still they moved forward, in a