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all right. But her voice from faraway, foggy but real: Darling.
    In succession I formed the thoughts: I'm well. I'm lonesome. I love you.
    And her answers: I'm well, but tired. I love you too. I want to see you.
    Three minutes went very fast.
     
    What had I accomplished?
    Nothing, perhaps. Nothing that could have been put on a progress report. I .didn't know why Elsie was tired; I didn't know what she had had for dinner, or what the weather was in Zanzibar. I didn't even have a phrase or a gesture or a look to treasure; nothing that had been that clear. Esping is a form of communication, certainly, but of emotions rather than concepts. One speaks with sighs instead of syllables, and I don't know any answer to give to those who say you can get the same effect staring into the bubbles in your beer. For a moment I had been with Elsie in my mind. I couldn't touch her; I couldn't hear her, taste her, smell her or see her; but she was there. Was that worth slightly more than six cents a second, tax included?
    It was worth anything in the world, for a man in my circumstances.
    I paid the girl at the desk dreamily, and drifted out. I was halfway across the street before I heard her calling after me.
    "Hey, Lieutenant! You forgot your hat." I took it from her, blinking. She said: "I hope things work out for you and your wife."
    I thanked her and caught a bus back along the palm-lined boulevards.
    All the depression was gone. All right, I hadn't touched Elsie—but I had been with her. How many times, after all, in our short married life together had I waked in the night and known, only known, that she was asleep beside me? I didn't have to wake her, or talk to her, or turn on the light and look at her; I knew she was there.
    I got off the bus at Lincoln Road, still dreaming. It was dark, or nearly so, before I came to and realized that I had walked far past my hotel and I was hungry.
    I looked around for a place to eat, but I was in an area of solid brass. COMSOLANT was only a block away, and the two nearest restaurants bore the discreet legend: Flag Officers Only .
    I turned around and walked back toward my own area.
    I wondered why it was so dark, and then realized that Miami Beach, like Project Mako, was blacked out. But it seemed blacker than a blackout could account for, and not in any understandable way. The lights were there, hidden behind their canvas shields from the possible enemy eyes at sea; not very many of them and not very bright, but they were there. The narrow slits in the shields over the street lamps cast enough light on the pavement for me to see where my feet were going. The cars that moved along the boulevards had their marker lights, dim and downward cast, but clear. And yet I was finding it hard to get my bearings.
    Something was sawing at my mind.
    It was the hormone shots, I thought, with a feeling of relief; I was still a little sensitive, perhaps, from the esping. What I needed was a good meal and to sit down for a while; it would make me as good as new.
    But where was a restaurant?
    Someone slid a burning pine splinter into the base of my neck. It hurt very much.
    I must have yelled, because figures came running toward me. I couldn't see them very clearly, and not only because of the darkness; and I couldn't quite hear what they said, because something was whining and droning in my ears, or in my mind.
    There was another stab at the base of my head, and one in my shoulders, like white-hot knives. I felt myself falling; something smacked across my face, and I knew it. was the pavement. But that pain was numbed and nothing, compared to the fire stabbing into my neck and shoulders.
    Someone was tugging at my arm and roaring. I heard a police whistle and wondered why; and then I didn't wonder anything for a while. The world was black and silent; even the pain was gone.

VII
     
     
    "—STILL ALIVE, for God's sake! Suppose we ought to let him sleep it off?"
    I pushed someone's slapping hands away from me and