hool here on Marak. Five
years of school and one R&R field assignment under his belt, and he had
been drafted into the I-A for brilliant detection of militancy on
Hammel. And two years later--_kaput_!

Abruptly, Stetson hurled the service record at the gray metal wall
across from him; then he got up, brought the record back to his desk,
smoothing the pages. There were tears in his eyes. He flipped a switch
on his desk, dictated the notification to Central Secretarial, ordered
it sent out priority. Then he went groundside and got drunk on Hochar
Brandy, Orne's favorite drink.

* * * * *

The next morning there was a reply from Chargon: "Lewis Orne's mother
too ill to travel. Sisters being notified. Please ask Mrs. Ipscott
Bullone of Marak, wife of the High Commissioner, to take over for
family." It was signed: "Madrena Orne Standish, sister."

With some misgivings, Stetson called the residence of Ipscott Bullone,
leader of the majority party in the Marak Assembly. Mrs. Bullone took
the call with blank screen. There was a sound of running water in the
background. Stetson stared at the grayness swimming in his desk visor.
He always disliked a blank screen. A baritone husk of a voice slid:
"This is Polly Bullone."

Stetson introduced himself, relayed the Chargon message.

"Victoria's boy dying? Here? Oh, the poor thing! And Madrena's back on
Chargon ... the election. Oh, yes, of course. I'll get right over to the
hospital!"

Stetson signed off, broke the contact.

_The High Commissioner's wife yet!_ he thought. Then, because he had to
do it, he walled off his sorrow, got to work.

At the medical center, the oval creche containing Orne hung from ceiling
hooks in a private room. There were humming sounds in the dim, watery
greenness of the room, rhythmic chuggings, sighings. Occasionally, a
door opened almost soundlessly, and a white-clad figure would check the
graph tapes on the creche's meters.

Orne was lingering. He became the major conversation piece at the
internes' coffee breaks: "That agent who was hurt on Heleb, he's still
with us. Man, they must build those guys different from the rest of
us!... Yeah! Understand he's got only about an eighth of his insides ...
liver, kidneys, stomach--all gone.... Lay you odds he doesn't last out
the month.... Look what old sure-thing McTavish wants to bet on!"

On the morning of his eighty-eighth day in the creche, the day nurse
came int