The old man studied me, squinting at me with those burning eyes, and said, "He isn't normal. He behaves as though he's doped."

One of the other young officials, the one who had asked me if I was Malone back at the mine, said diffidently, "Excuse me. General?"

The General was the old man. He turned in the chair and said, "What is it?"

"Malone was at the mine four years, sir. I'm told that very often has a permanent effect on a man, makes him more . . . placid. Almost like a vegtetable sometimes."

The other young official said, "I've heard that too, sir. It's almost like giving a man a lobotomy."

The General turned back and studied me some more, and now I could see distaste in his expression and I felt ashamed of myself again. The good opinion of others meant much more to me now that I no longer deserved it than it ever had in the past.

The General said, "If that's what he's like, how do we know hell be any use to us?"

118

Phail said, eagerly, "All we have to do is try, General. It can't cost us anything to try."

The General turned to glower at him once more, saying, "You've mishandled this affair from the beginning, Phail. It isn't over yet. Taking this man out from under my nose, hiding him down here, refusing to answer when I called—"

"Our radio was out," Phail said quickly. "We didn't realize it ourselves."

"A frail lie," the General said.

Phail said, "And we didn't come down here to hide from you, sir, that's the truth. Ice had found out about Malone, when the UC tracer went out. They were looking for him. I knew they'd look at Prudence, and at our installations to the east, because that's where the site is, so I thought if I took him down here, we'd be—"

"All right," said the General. "That's enough."

"Yes, sir."

"At least this time," the General said, grudging the point, "you weren't trigger-happy."

"I've learned from my mistakes, General," Phail assured him. It was odd for me to be watching how his arrogance turned itself into servility when he talked to the old man.

"I'm not sure there's time left for you to learn," the General said, with a heavy kind of thoughtfulness. "Time will tell." He turned back to look at me, distaste on his face again, and said, "As to you, you say you'll help us if you can."

"Yes, sir."

"If afterwards we agree to give you an injection of anti-zone."

"Yes, sir."

He nodded briskly. "Agreed."

I smiled. I was ashamed of the smile as I felt it spread across my face, but I couldn't help it. I smiled.

The General made a face, and looked away from me. "Triss," he said. "You take over. Work with him."

Triss was the one who had called me Malone at the mine. He nodded and said, "Yes, sir."

"Elman," said the General, "you take charge of the ship. We'll put in at Cannemuss."

Elman, the third of the young officials, said, "Yes, sir."

119

The General said, "Phail, you will go to your rooms and stay there, until I decided what to do about you."

Phail bowed his head. "Yes, sir," he said.

"Go now."

"Yes, sir."

On his way out, Phail gave me a look that no one else could have seen. In the look, he promised me death.

XXX

I was alone with Triss, who said to me, "You might as well sit down at the desk."

I went over and sat, where the General had just been. I said, "Should I get out the paper and pencils?"

Triss seemed surprised. He said, "Well, I suppose so, yes. You know where they are?"

"Yes." I opened the drawer, and showed him.

Triss seemed younger than the other two, Phail and Elman, and looked at me always as though he were trying to understand me or connect himself with me, as though he wanted to feel things as I felt them in order to comprehend me. I could remember having seen the same thing in his eyes that time at the mine, when he had looked at me and found my brother in my face and called me Malone.

Now, as Triss went to the safe and opened it, I found a vague and impersonal curiosity fretting in the corners of my mind. Under what circumstances had Triss and the others known Gar? Why had Malik and Rose tried to kill me the the first time, if now I was being kept alive by their employers in order somehow to be of help? But the effort needed to obtain such knowledge was more than I could produce. I sat quietly at the desk, waiting to see what would be desired of me, and Triss came over to me carrying in his hands the package that Phail had been about to show me just before everyone else had arrived.

Triss said, "Before we get down to it, I want to say something. Will you listen to me?"

I was surprised at the question; it implied choice. But Triss seemed to require an answer, so I nodded and said, "Yes."

120

"I hope you'll change your mind about the antizone," he said. "It's a terrible thing to do to yourself. I know you've been through a great deal, but the future can be very much better for you, particularly if you solve this." He held up the brown paper package. Then he lowered it again and said, earnestly, "I'm sure the General would let you reconsider, change the agreement. Will you at least think about it?"

I could have explained it to him. I could have said, While 1 live I have a responsibility and a purpose, and they require of me strengths 1 no longer possess. It is not permitted me to stop with the job undone, but 1 cannot go on. Antizone rescues me from this dilemma. I embrace antizone with the the last of my will.

But the explanation itself was too much for me. I merely

nodded and said, "Yes. I will." _s

"Good," he said. He then placed the package on the desk and carefully unwrapped it.

Inside there was a notebook with a yellow cover. There were no words on the cover. Triss pushed the brown paper to one side, placed the notebook directly in front of me, and said, "This was your brother's. He kept personal notations of various kinds in here, some just written out and others in code. It was his own private code."

I said, touching the yellow cover with my fingertips, "This belonged to Gar?"

"Yes."

I wanted to ask how this notebook had come to be here, but I was afraid; to ask anything, to think about anything, was only to open it all again, drive me once more into the struggle. Beneath my fingertips the yellow cover seemed warm, as though Gar himself had just put it down and gone away. I took my hand back and put it in my lap.

Triss said, "Toward the back there is a passage in code, headed by the word 'strike.' We know that on his last trip beyond the rim your brother made an important mineral find. The details of that strike, and the location of the site, are given in that code section. So far, no one has been able to break the code; it apparently had some specific personal equivalents for your brother that no cryptographer could possibly know or guess at. But you are his brother; it is just possible you will be able to give us the equivalents. I know some-

121

thing about cryptography, and will be able to help you to an extent. When we get to Cannemuss tomorrow our crypto experts will be down from Ni, and they'll be able to help even more.

I said, "I don't know anything about codes." "But you knew your brother, that's the important thing." He flipped the notebook open. It lay on the desk in front of me, and he stood leaning forward and flipping the pages. "It's toward the back," he said.