was getting shaky. The psych-men had no choice but to reassign me."

"You mean you approved the reassignment?" Bahr said incredulously.

"No. I mean, I didn't like it, but . . ."

"Who bribed you, Major? What was the loophole in your security system at Wildwood?"

"There wasn't any loophole."

Bahr threw up his hands. "We're getting nowhere. You admit your security system broke down. There must have been loopholes. You won't tell us what they were. We'll just have to stimulate your memory." He pulled the syringe tray toward him.

"You can't use that," Alexander protested. "I have not been charged with any major crime or espionage. I have no legal counsel here. And only qualified therapists in DEPCO can use drugs, after a case has been properly reviewed."

"He's right," McEwen said wearily from the side of the room. "He's on sound legal ground.'

Bahr turned to the older man. "This is an emergency, and you know it. The man is obviously lying."

"We can't help that."

"Mac, Project Frisco itself may hang on the information he has. This is the first real break we've had . . ."

"The law is the law, Julian," McEwen said, "Project Frisco or no Project Frisco. You can't deep-probe this man."

Alexander felt like yelling with relief. Bahr's eyes glittered, and for a moment his heavy, impassive face started to twist with rage. Then he shrugged.

"Okay," he said. "You're the boss. We'll just hold him, and try to clear it through Washington. We'd better check the teletype and see if anything new has turned up."

Together Bahr and McEwen started for the door. Bahr looked back, nodded to his assistants. "See that the major is taken care of," he said.

When Bahr was gone they took off the pressure bandages, the per-plates and salivators, the respirator and the restraining jacket. A man began winding up the long spool of polygraph tape. For Alexander the relief was almost shock-like; some inner tension that had been holding him together began to give way, and he sagged weakly when he tried to stand up. One of Bahr's serious-faced young men wheeled in a mobile stretcher and they lifted him onto it gently, in spite of his protests that he would be all right in a moment. "Cigarette, Major?"

He nodded, inhaled gratefully. Like many people of ability and imagination who had battled feelings of guilt and insecurity all their lives, and had gained enough insight to recognize them for what they were, Harvey Alexander feared more than anything else the psychologically abhorrent process of having his brain picked by strangers. Now, having escaped it, he was almost dizzy with elation and departing fear, hardly noticing the skillful hands that were attending him, until he felt an itching in his nose, and went to scratch it.

His wrists were bound.

He strained and thrashed, and found his ankles strapped too. A huge light was being lowered from the ceiling. Above him, like serious, pale, eager-faced gargoyles, were Bahr's young men.

He shook his head desperately, pleadingly as the amphetamine and curare needles were flashed before his eyes, and he was suddenly violently sick, bound and helpless.

There was a sudden sharp pain in his thigh, and hopelessly, he screamed.