said. "At least if Dr.
O'Connor's theories are right. I just wish I knew what the limit was."

Silence fell again. Malone sighed. Dorothea sighed. Boyd sighed,
looked around at the others and muttered, "Damn thing's catching." He
got up and walked over to the dresser and picked up the bottle of
bourbon.

"You, too?" Malone murmured, but Boyd didn't hear him.

"I don't care if it is early in the morning," he said, resolutely. "I
need a drink. I need something to take the fog out of my head,
anyhow." He poured himself a shot, held the bottle aloft, and said,
"Dorothea? Malone?"

The girl shook her head.

Malone was tempted but he put Satan behind him with decision. "No," he
said firmly. "The way I feel now, one drink would probably immobilize
me."

Dorothea chuckled. "You sound just like Mike," she said.

"Mike doesn't drink in the morning either?" Malone said.

"Of course he doesn't," Boyd said. "Mike is a nice kid. A swell kid."

"You keep quiet," Dorothea shot at him. She turned back to Malone.
"Mike never drinks at all," she said. "He says it immobilizes
him--just what you said."

Somewhere in the black galactic depths of Malone's mind, a very small
hot star gulped, took a deep breath and became a supernova.

The light was tremendous! It shed beams over everything, beams of a
positively supernal brilliance. And in the all-pervasive brightness of
that single inner light, bits of data began to fall into place with
all the precision of aerial bombs, each falling neatly and exactly
into its own little predetermined bomb crater.

It was beautiful. It was magnificent. Malone felt all choked up.

None of the Silent Spooks drank. He remembered Kettleman telling him
that. And the Queen never touched the stuff either.

"What's wrong?" Boyd said.

"Malone, you look green."

"I feel green," Malone said. "I feel like newly sprung grass. I feel
as if I had just hatched out of something. I feel wonderful."

"It's the strain," Boyd said. "That's what it is, strain. You've
cracked at last."

Malone ignored him. "Tell me," he said to Dorothea with elaborate
casualness, "when your brother says that, what does he mean?"

"What?" she said. "Oh, I don't know. I--" She stopped and her eyes
widened. "You don't think that--"

"I don't know," Malone said. "But we can sure as hell find out."

Dorothea blinked. "What can you do?" she said. "I mean, to find out.
You can't force them to drink or anything, can you?"

"N