. Then
all the mist was gone and the crack was back, a little larger than
before.

* * *

Connor leaned forward and set the cab for top speed as they rounded into
the straight-away of another uptown street. Occasionally they caught
glimpses of frightened faces, clumped in lobby entrances, and once two
bodies came flying out of a window far ahead. "They're killing our
people everywhere," moaned the nurse.

As they approached the crushed forms, Connor slowed down a little.
"They're dressed too well--what's left of them. They're paraNormals!"

A minute later they were at the large apartment block where Crane lived.
They entered the building through a lobby jammed with more silent
people. All were Suspendeds.

At first Crane did not want to let the trio in but when he recognized
Newbridge's nurse he unlocked the heavily-bolted door. He was a
massively-built man with dark eyes set deeply beneath a jutting brow and
the eyes did not blink as Miss Richards told him what had happened.
"We'll miss him," he said, then turned abruptly on Connor. "Have you any
skills?"

"Robotics," he answered.

The great head nodded as Connor told of his experience at work and on
Max. "Good, we're going to need people like you for rebuilding." He
pulled a radio sender and receiver from a cabinet and held an earphone
close to his temple, continuing to nod. Then he put it down again. "I
know what you're going to say--illegal, won't work and all that. Well, a
few of us have been waiting for the chance to build our own
communication web and now we can do it."

"I just want to know why you keep mentioning _our_ rebuilding. They're
more likely to destroy all of us in their present mood."

"_Us?_" He took them to the window and pointed toward the harbor where
thousands of black specks were tumbling into the water. "They're
destroying themselves! Some jumping from buildings but most pouring
toward the sea, a kind of oceanic urge to escape completely from
themselves, to bury themselves in something infinitely bigger than their
separate hollow beings. Before they were more like contented robots. Now
they're more like suicidal lemmings because they can't exist without
this common brain to which they've given so little and from which
they've taken so much."

Connor squared his shoulders. "We'll have our work cut out for us. Dr.
Newbridge saw it all coming, you did too."

"Not quite," Crane sighed. "We assumed that at the time