The doors of the jet-bus slid back as the bus rolled to a halt.

'Here we are,' Sal Heim said, and got quickly to his feet. 'And here we go.' Along with the party volunteers he moved towards the nearest exit. Jim Briskin, after a moment, followed.

At the entrance gate the pretty, dark-haired, unclad attendant on duty smiled a white-tooth smile at them and said, 'Your tickets, please.'

'We're all new here,' Sal Heim said to her, getting out his wallet. 'We'll pay in cash.'

'Are there any girls you wish to visit in particular ?' the attendant asked, as she rang the money up on her register.

Jim Briskin said, 'A girl named Sparky Rivers.'

'ALL OF YOU ?' The attendant blinked, then shrugged her bare shoulders urbanely. 'All right, gentlemen. De gustibus non disputandum est. Gate three. Watch your step and don't jostle, please. She's in room 395.' She pointed toward gate three and the group moved in that direction.

Ahead, beyond gate three, Jim Briskin saw rows of gilded, shining doors; over some lights glowed and he understood that those were empty at the moment of customers. And, on each door, he saw the curious animated pic of the girl within; the pics called, enticed, whined at them as they approached each in turn, searching for room 395.

'Hi there!'

'Hello, big fellow.'

'Could you hurry ? I'm waiting ..."

'Well, how are you ?'

Sal Heim said, 'It's down this way. But you don't need her, Jim; I can take you to their office.'

Can I trust you ? Jim Briskin asked himself silently. 'All right,' he said. And hoped it was a wise choice.

'This elevator,' Sal said. Press the button marked C.' He entered the elevator; the rest of the group followed, crowding in after him, as many as could make it. More than half the group remained outside in the corridor. 'You follow us,' Sal instructed them. 'As soon as you can.'

Jim touched the C button and the elevator door shut soundlessly. 'I'm depressed,' he said to Sal. 'I

don't know why.'

'It's this place,' Sal said. 'It isn't your style at all, Jim. Now, if you were a necktie or a flatware or a poriferous vobile salesman, you'd like it. You'd be up here every day, health permitting.'

'I don't believe so,' Jim said. 'No matter what line of work I was in.' It went against everything ethical - and esthetic - in his makeup.

The elevator door slid back.

'Here we are,' Sal said. 'This is George Walt's private office.' He spoke matter of factly. 'Hello,

George Walt,' he said, and stepped out of the elevator.

The two mutants sat at their big cherrywood desk in their specially constructed wide couch. One of the bodies sagged like a limp sack and one eye had become fused-over and empty, lolling as it focused on nothing.

In a shrill voice the head said, 'He's dying. I think he's even dead; you know he's dead.' The active eye fixed malignantly on Tito Cravelli, who stood with his laser rifle, on the far side of the office. In despair, one of the living hands poked at the dangling, inert arm of his companion body. 'Say something!' the head screeched. With immense difficulty the living body struggled to its feet; now its silent companion flopped against it and in horror it pushed the burdening lifeless sack away.

A faint spasm of life stirred the dangling sack; it was not quite dead. And, on the face of the uninjured brother, wild hope appeared. At once it tottered grotesquely toward the door.

'Run!' the head bleated, and clumsily groped for escape. 'You can make it!' it urged its still-living companion. The four-legged, scrambling joint creature bowled over the surprised volunteers at the door; together they all went down in a floundering heap, the mutant among them, squealing in panic as the injured body buried the other beneath it, struggling to rise.

Jim Briskin, as George Walt lurched upright, dived at them. He caught hold of an arm and hung on.

The arm came off.

He held onto it as George Walt stumbled up to their four feet and out the office door, into the corridor beyond.

Staring down at it, he said, 'The thing's artificial.' He handed it to Sal Heim.

'So it is,' Sal agreed, stonily. Tossing the arm aside he hastily ran after George Walt; Jim accompanied him and together they followed the mutants along the thick-carpeted corridor. The three-armed organism moved badly, crashing into itself as its twin bodies swung first wide apart and then stunningly together. It sprawled, then, and Sal Heim seized the right hand body around the waist.

The entire body came loose, arm and legs and trunk. But without the head. The other body - and single head - managed, incredibly, to get up and continue on.

George Walt was not a mutant at all. It - he - was an ordinarily-constituted individual. Jim

Briskin and Sal watched him go, his two legs pumping vigorously, arms swinging.

After a long time Jim said, 'Let's - get out of here.'

'Right.' Nodding in agreement, Sal turned to the party volunteers who had trickled out into the corridor behind them. Tito Cravelli emerged from the office, rifle in hand; he saw the severed one-armed trunk which had been half of the two mutants, glanced up swiftly with perceptive understanding as the remaining portion disappeared from view past a corner of the corridor.

'We'll never catch them now,' Tito said.

'Him,' Sal Heim corrected bitingly. 'I wonder which one of them was synthetic, George or Walt.

And why did he do it ? I don't understand.'

Tito said, 'A long time ago one must have died.'

They both stared at him.

'Sure,' Tito said calmly. 'What happened here today must have happened before. They were mutants, all right, joined from birth, and then the one body perished and the surviving one quickly had this synthetic section built. It couldn't have gone on alone without the symbiotic arrangement because the brain - ' He broke off. 'You saw what it did to the surviving one just now; he suffered terribly. Imagine how it must have been the first time, when ...'

'But he survived it,' Sal pointed out.

'Good for him,' Tito said, without irony. 'I'm frankly glad he did; he deserved to.' Kneeling down, he inspected the trunk. 'It looks to me as if this is George. I hope he can get it restored. In time.'

He rose, then. 'Let's get upstairs and back to the field; I want to get out of here.' He shivered.

'Then I want a glass of warm, non-fat milk. A big one.' The three of them, with the party volunteers struggling behind, made their way silently back to the elevator. No one stopped them.

The corridor, mercifully, was empty. Without even a pic to leer and cajole at them.

When they arrived back in Chicago, Patricia Heim met them and at once said, 'Thank God.' She put her arms around her husband, and he hugged her tight. 'What happened ? It seemed to take so long, and yet it actually wasn't long at all; you've only been gone an hour.'

'I'll tell you later,' Sal said shortly. 'Right now I just want to take it easy.'

'Maybe I'll cease advocating shutting the Golden Door satellite down,' Jim said suddenly.

'What ?' Sal said, astonished.

'I may have been too hard. Too puritanical. I'd prefer not to take away his livelihood; it seems to me he's earned it.' He felt numb right now, unable really to think about it. But what had shocked him the most, changed him, had not been the sight of George Walt coming apart into two entities, one artificial, one genuine. It had been Lurton Sands' disclosure about the mass of maimed bibs.

He had been thinking about this, trying to see a way out. Obviously, if the maimed bibs were to be awakened at all they would have to be last in sequence. And by then perhaps replacement organs would be available in supply from the UN's organ bank. But there was another possibility, and he had come onto it only just now. George Walt's corporate existence proved the workability of wholly mechanical organs. And in this Jim Briskin saw hope for Lurton Sands' victims.