ened the
door, he could almost hear Burris' sigh of relief. Then he banged it
shut behind him and, feeling that he might as well continue with his
spacebound existence, walked all the way to the elevator, and rode it
downstairs to the FBI laboratories.

The labs, highly efficient and divided into dozens of departments,
covered several floors. Malone passed through the Fingerprint section,
filled with technicians doing strange things to great charts and
slides, and frowning over tiny pieces of material and photographs.
Then came Forgery Detection, involving many more technicians, many
more slides and charts and tiny pieces of things and photographs, and
even a witness or two sitting on the white bench at one side and
looking lost and somehow civilian. Identification Classified was next,
a great barn of a room filled with index files. The real indexes were
in the sub-basement; here, on microfilm, were only the basic division.
A man was standing in front of one of the files, frowning at it.
Malone went on by without stopping.

Cosmetic Surgery Classification came next. Here there were more indexes,
and there were also charts and slides. There was an FBI agent sitting on a
bench looking bored while two female technicians--classified as O&U for
Old and Ugly in Malone's mind--fluttered around him, deciding what
disguises were possible, and which of those was indicated for the
particular job on hand. Malone waved to the agent, whom he knew very
slightly, and went on. He felt vaguely regretful that the FBI couldn't
hire prettier girls for the Cosmetic Surgery Division, but the trouble was
that pretty girls fell for the agents--and vice versa--and this led to an
unfortunate tendency toward only handsome and virile-looking disguises.
The O&U Division was unfortunate, he decided, but a necessity.

Chemical Analysis (III) was next. The Chemical Analysis section was
scattered over several floors, with the first stages up above.
Division III, Malone remembered, was devoted to non-poisonous
substances--like clay or sand found in boots or trouser cuffs, cigar
ashes and such. They were placed on the same floor as Fingerprints to
allow free and frequent passage between the sections on the problems
of plastic prints--made in putty or like substances--and visible
prints, made when the hand is covered with a visible substance like
blood, ketchup or glue.

Malone found what he was looking for at the very end of the floor. It
was the Com