cross some writhing human body and leaving it flat in its
tracks, sprawling like an empty coat dyed red. And then the swirling,
howling darkness closing in again....

"Interesting eh?" A voice broke through his cataleptic trance and the
other answered: "Beautiful; almost a classical case. Great plasticity of
imagination." "Yes; that's exactly what sets me wondering; the fellow
should have cracked up by all the rules of the game." "How do we know
that he hasn't? Maybe he was psycho and they didn't notice; they had
some godawful asses for psychiatrists in war medicine. It's quite a
possibility; well, his image production is ebbing now; I don't expect
anything new of significance, what do you think?" "Now; we've got what
we wanted anyway. Let's take him out of it; but go easy on the
rheostats."

The projector stopped. The masterful, the ghostly fingers which had been
playing on the keyboard of his mind very slowly receded from a furious
fortissimo to a pianissimo. At first only the flutterings of the
diaphragm eased, then the violent palpitations of a foreign pulse
slipped off the heart; the liberated lungs expanded; tremors were
running through the body as through the ice of a frozen river at spring;
and then at last the mind escaped from its captivity.

* * * * *

Gradually as in a cinema after the show the lights reappeared. Blinking,
Lee stared at the man who stood over him taking his pulse; it was Bondy.
Mellish stood at the foot of the table with his back to Lee; he seemed
to watch some apparatus which made noises like a teletype machine.
Swinging his legs off the table Lee said:

"I'm okay; you needn't hold my hand."

But then he noticed that he wasn't. His head spun, his whole body was
wet with perspiration, he felt very weak and limp. He swayed and buried
his face in his hands trying to gain his balance, trying to shake off
the trance. "Excuse me," he said. "I'm a bit dizzy."

As he opened his eyes again the two medics were standing right in front
of him and smiling down on him with their bland, professional smiles.
Lee felt the upsurge of intense dislike. He had seen those smiles
before, often--too often: they seemed to be standard equipment with the
medical profession whenever a fellow was about to be dispatched to the
"table", or worse, to the psychopathic ward. Instinct told him that
there was something in the air and also that his best bet would be a
brave show of normal