So who do you work for? I repeated.

I'm a maintenance man on the shuttler, said the shorter one. My friend is a pilot.

He received a dirty look for this.

Okay, I said. I'll buy that, because I've never seen you around here before. Think carefully over your answer to the next one: who do you really work for?

I asked this knowing that they did not have the advantages that I had had. I work for myself because I am self-employed, an independent contractor. My name is Albert Schweitzer right now, so that's what it is, period.

I always become the person I must. Had they asked me who I had been before, they might have gotten a different answer. It's a matter of conditioning and mental attitudes.

Who pulls the strings? I asked.

No replies.

All right, I said. I guess I'll have to ask you in a different fashion.

Heads turned toward me.

You were willing to violate my physiology for the sake of a few answers, I said. Okay. I guess I'll return the favor upon your anatomy. I'll get an answer or three, I promise. Only I'll be a little more basic about it. I'll simply torture you until you talk.

You wouldn't do that, said the taller man. You have a low violence index.

I chuckled.

Let's see, I said.

How do you go about ceasing to exist while continuing your existence? I found it quite easy. But then, I was in on the project from the first, was trusted, had been given an option ...

After I tore up my cards, I returned to work as usual. There, I sought and located the necessary input point. That was my last day on the job.

It was Thule, way up where it's cold, a weather station ...

An old guy who liked rum ran the place. I can still remember the day when I took my ship, the Proteus, into his harbor and complained of rough seas.