“Ticket to Paris,” he said. “Keep the change. Which way to the capsules? Jet, man! Jet!”

“Paris?” came the reply. “There is no Paris.”

Reich stared through the cloudy plastic and saw… looking, looming, silent… The Man With No Face. He spun around twice, heart pounding, skull pounding, located the door and ran out. He ran blindly onto the skyway, shied feebly from an oncoming car, and was struck down into enveloping darkness—

ABOLISH.

DESTROY.

DELETE.

DISBAND.

(MINERALOGY, PETROLOGY, GEOLOGY, PHYSIOGRAPHY)

DISPERSE.

(METEOROLOGY, HYDROLOGY, SEISMOLOGY)

ERASE.

(X²ØY³ d:Space/d:Time)

EFFACE.

THE SUBJECT WILL BE—

“—will be what?”

THE SUBJECT WILL BE—

“—will be what? What? WHAT?”

A hand was placed over his mouth. Reich opened his eyes. He was in a small tiled room, an emergency police station. He was lying on a white table. Around him were grouped the guards, three uniformed police, unidentified strangers. All were writing carefully in report books, murmuring, shifting confusedly.

The stranger removed his hand from Reich’s mouth and bent over him. “lt’s all right,” he said gently.

“Easy. I’m a doctor…”

“A peeper?”

“What?”

“Are you a peeper? I need a peeper. I need somebody inside my head to prove I’m right. My God! I’ve got to know I’m right. I don’t care about the price. I—”

“What’s he want?” a policeman asked.

“I don’t know. He said a peeper.” The doctor turned back to Reich. “What d’you mean by that? Just tell us. What’s a peeper?”

“An Esper! A mind reader. A—”

The doctor smiled. “He’s joking. Show of high spirits. Many patients do that. They simulate sang froid after accidents. We call it Gallows Humor…”

“Listen,” Reich said desperately. “Let me up. I want to say something…”

They helped him up.

To the police, he said: “My name is Ben Reich. Ben Reich of Monarch. You know me. I want to confess. I want to confess to Lincoln Powell, the police prefect. Take me to Powell.”

“Who’s Powell?”

“And what y’want to confess?”

“The D’Courtney murder. I murdered Craye D’Courtney last month. In Maria Beaumont’s house… Tell Powell. I killed D’Courtney.”

The police looked at each other in surprise. One of them drifted to a corner and picked up an old-fashioned hand phone: “Captain? Got a character here. Calls himself Ben Reich of Monarch. Wants to confess to some prefect named Powell. Claims he killed a party named Craye D’Courtney last month.” After a pause, the policeman called to Reich: “How do you spell that?”

“D’Courtney! Capital D apostrophe Capital C-O-U-R-T-N-E-Y.”

The policeman spelled it out and waited. After another pause, he grunted and hung up. “A nut,” be said and stowed his notebook in a pocket.

“Listen—” Reich began.

“Is he all right?” the policeman asked the doctor without looking at Reich.

“Just shaken a little. He’s all right.”

“Listen!” Reich shouted.

The policeman yanked him to his feet and propelled him toward the door of the station. “All right, buddy. Out!”

“You’ve got to listen to me! I—”

“You listen to me, buddy. There ain’t no Lincoln Powell in the service. There ain’t no D’Courtney killing in the books. And we ain’t takin’ no slok from your kind. Now… Out!” And he hurled Reich into the street.