l,
honest-to-goodness hamburger."

4. Harry Collins--2000

Harry didn't ask any questions. He just kept his mouth shut and
waited. Maybe Dr. Manschoff suspected and maybe he didn't. Anyway,
there was no trouble. Harry figured there wouldn't be, as long as he
stayed in line and went through the proper motions. It was all a
matter of pretending to conform, pretending to agree, pretending to
believe.

So he watched his step--_except in the dreams, and then he was always
falling into the yawning abyss_.

He kept his nose clean--_but in the dreams he smelled the blood and
brimstone of the pit_.

He managed to retain a cheerful smile at all times--_though, in the
dreams, he screamed_.

Eventually, he even met Myrna. She was the pretty little brunette whom
Ritchie had mentioned, and she did her best to console him--_only in
dreams, when he embraced her, he was embracing a writhing coil of
slimy smoke_.

It may have been that Harry Collins went a little mad, just having to
pretend that he was sane. But he learned the way, and he managed. He
saved the madness (_or was it the reality?_) for the dreams.

Meanwhile he waited and said nothing.

He said nothing when, after three months or so, Myrna was suddenly
"transferred" without warning.

He said nothing when, once a week or so, he went in to visit with Dr.
Manschoff.

He said nothing when Manschoff volunteered the information that
Ritchie had been "transferred" too, or suggested that it would be best
to stay on for "further therapy."

And he said nothing when still a third nurse came his way; a woman who
was callid, complaisant, and nauseatingly nymphomaniac.

The important thing was to stay alive. Stay alive and try to learn.

* * * * *

It took him almost an additional year to find out what he wanted to
find out. More than eight months passed before he found a way of
sneaking out of his room at night, and a way of getting into that
Third Unit through a delivery door which was occasionally left open
through negligence.

Even then, all he learned was that the female patients did have their
living quarters here, along with the members of the staff
and--presumably--Dr. Leffingwell. Many of the women _were_ patients
rather than nurses, as claimed, and a good number of them were in
various stages of pregnancy, but this proved nothing.

Several times Harry debated the possibilities of taking some of the
other men in his