Hunter stood for an instant with his legs spread wide, looking down at
Young. Then he dropped to his knees and rolled the grievously wounded
man over on his back. The hand grasping the scalpel slowly pulled the
blade from the abdominal wound. Blood pulsed out upon the white tile.
Young was still barely alive.

Hunter walked toward the transmitter, where Ann stood, saying nothing,
her eyes wide and staring. A tremendous conflict was raging within
him. Running away was no solution, but what if he could destroy the
system itself? Break the mold and start anew.

He had the instrument that would do it, the hundreds of obedient
slaves Young had already turned loose on the streets. With Ann's
transmitter he could transform the disciplined strike of human
automatons into a civic disaster. Terror and violence uprooting the
foundations of the city.

But a moment's madness could not overthrow the enduring rationality of
Hunter's adjustment index. To loose that horror was to set himself in
judgment upon the dreams and hopes, the perversion and the sublimity,
of his fellow men. To play at God--a delusion no different from Eric
Young's.

Savagely Hunter lifted a chair and started to swing it at the
transmitter. Instantly, Ann Saymer turned to face him, the blaster
clasped tightly in her hand.

"No, Max."

"But, Ann, those people outside are in desperate danger--"

"I've gone this far. I _won't_ turn back." In her voice was the
familiar drive, the ambition he knew so well. But now it seemed
different, a twisted distortion of something he had once admired.

"We don't need Eric Young," she said. "He's bungled everything. You
and I, Max--" She caressed the transmitter affectionately. "With this,
we'll possess unlimited power."

"You mean, Ann--" He choked on the words. "You came here of your own
free will? You deliberately planned Mrs. Ames' murder?"

"She was dangerous, Max. She guessed too much. We knew that when we
monitored the call you made from the spaceport. But in the beginning
we weren't going to make you responsible. We thought the strangers in
the house--your attempt to expose the other woman who called herself
Mrs. Ames--would be enough to get you committed to a clinic. I didn't
want you to be hurt, Max."

"Why, Ann?" His voice was dead, emotionless. "Because you loved me? Or
because you wanted me to be your ace in the hole, if you failed to
manage Eric Young the way you thought you could?"

"That doesn't ma