They took the patients’ elevator rather than the bounce tube out of deference to Cavendish’s age, then rode a slide-away for a long distance past laboratories, therapy rooms, solaria, and ward after ward. They were stopped once by a guard who phoned ahead, then let them through; they were at last ushered into a physio-data display room used for watching critically ill patients. “This is Dr. Tanner,” Berquist announced. “Doctor, this is Mr. Caxton and Mr. Frisby.” He did not, of course, introduce Cavendish.

Tanner looked worried. “Gentlemen, I am doing this against my better judgment because the Director insists. I must warn you of one thing. Don’t do or say anything that might excite my patient. He is in an extremely neurotic condition and falls very easily into a state of pathological withdrawal—a trance, if you choose to call it that.”

“Epilepsy?” asked Ben.

“A layman might easily mistake it for that. It is more like catalepsy. But don’t quote me; there is no clinical precedent for this case.”

“Are you a specialist, Doctor? Psychiatry, maybe?”

Tanner glanced at Berquist. “Yes,” he admitted.

“Where did you do your advanced work?”

Berquist said, “Look, Ben, let’s see the patient and get it over with. You can quiz Dr. Tanner afterwards.”

“Okay.”

Tanner glanced over his dials and graphs, then flipped a switch and stared into a Peeping Tom. He left the desk, unlocked a door and led them into an adjoining bedroom, putting a finger to his lips as he did so. The other four followed him in. Caxton felt as if he were being taken to “view the remains” and suppressed a nervous need to laugh.

The room was quite gloomy. “We keep it semi-darkened because his eyes are not accustomed to our light levels,” Tanner explained in a hushed voice. He turned to a hydraulic bed which filled the center of the room. “Mike, I’ve brought some friends to see you.”

Caxton pressed closer. Floating therein, half concealed by the way his body sank into the plastic skin covering the liquid in the tank and farther concealed by a sheet up to his armpits, was a young man. He looked back at them but said nothing; his smooth, round face was expressionless.

So far as Ben could tell this was the man who had been on stereo the night before. He had a sudden sick feeling that little Jill, with the best of intentions, had tossed him a live grenade—a slander suit that might very well bankrupt him. “You are Valentine Michael Smith?”

“Yes.”

“The Man from Mars?”

“Yes.”

“You were on stereo last night?”

The man in the tank bed did not answer. Tanner said, “I don’t think he knows the word. Let me try. Mike, you remember what you did with Mr. Douglas last night?”

The face looked petulant. “Bright lights. Hurt.”

“Yes, the lights hurt your eyes. Mr. Douglas had you say hello to people.”

The patient smiled slightly. “Long ride in chair.”

“Okay,” agreed Caxton. “I catch on. Mike, are they treating you all right here?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t have to stay here, you know. Can you walk?”

Tanner said hastily, “Now see here, Mr. Caxton—” Berquist put a hand on his arm and he shut up.

“I can walk . . . a little. Tired.”

“I’ll see that you have a wheel chair. Mike, if you don’t want to stay here, I’ll help you get out of bed and take you anywhere you want to go.”

Tanner shook off Berquist’s hand and said, “I can’t have you interfering with my patient!”

“He’s a free man, isn’t he?” Caxton persisted. “Or is he a prisoner here?”

Berquist answered, “Of course he is a free man! Keep quiet, Doctor. Let the fool dig his own grave.”

“Thanks, Gil. Thanks all to pieces. So he is free to leave if he wants to. You heard what he said, Mike. You don’t have to stay here. You can go anywhere you like. I’ll help you.”

The patient glanced fearfully at Tanner. “No! No, no, no!”

“Okay, okay.”

Tanner snapped, “Mr. Berquist, this has gone quite far enough! My patient will be upset the rest of the day.”

“All right, Doctor. Ben, let’s get the show on the road. You’ve had enough, surely.”

“Uh . . . just one more question.” Caxton thought hard, trying to think what he could squeeze out of it. Apparently Jill had been wrong—yet she had not been wrong!—or so it had seemed last night. But something did not quite fit although he could not tell what it was.

“One more question,” Berquist begrudged.