ugh the
test this far. They were men concerned only with themselves, incapable
of the love that Jorden could feel for a son.

He reached out and took one of her hands in his own. She could feel the
emotion within him, the tightening and trembling of his big,
hard-muscled arm.

Ashby was watching. Over the private communication system that linked
them he murmured, "Cry, Bonnie! Make it real. Make him hate himself and
everything he's done since he decided to become a colonist--if you can!
This is where we've got to find out whether he can crack or not--and
why."

"You can't break him," said Bonnie. "He's the strongest man I've ever
known. If you find his breaking point it will be when you destroy him
utterly. You've got to quit before you reach that point!"

"All that we've done will be useless if we quit now, Bonnie. Just a few
more hours and then it will all be over--"

As if his words had touched a hidden trigger, she did begin to cry with
a deep but almost inaudible sound and a heavy movement of her shoulders.
Mark Jorden put his arm about her as if to force away her grief.

"I _know_, Bonnie," said Ashby softly. "I can see in your face what's
happened to you. It's going to be all right. Everything doesn't end for
you when the test is over."

"Oh, shut up!" said Bonnie in a sudden rage that made her tears come
faster. "If I ever work on another of your damned experiments it will be
when I've lost my senses entirely! You don't know what this does to
people. I didn't know either--because I didn't care. But now I know--"

"You know that no harm results after we've erased and corrected all
inadequate reactions at the end of the test. You're letting your
feelings cover up your full awareness of what we're doing."

"Yes, and I suppose that when it's over I had better submit to a little
erasing myself. Then Bonnie can go back to work as a little iced steel
probe for some more of your guinea pigs!"

"Bonnie--!"

She made no answer to Ashby, but lay her head on Jorden's shoulder while
her sobbing subsided. How did it happen? she asked herself. It wasn't
anything she had wanted. It had just happened. It had happened that
first day when he came in from the field at the beginning of the
experiment with all of the planted background that made him think he was
meeting Bonnie for the thousandth time instead of the first.

She was supposed to be an actress and receive his husbandly kiss with
all the skilled mimicry tha