“I know you told me,” Hawks said mildly. “But I’m responsible for him. I have to make sure.” He began to turn back to the young man, then looked again at Weston. “He was young. Healthy. Exceptionally stable and resilient, you told me. He looked it.” Hawks added slowly, “He was brilliant.”

“I said he was stable,” Weston explained earnestly. “I didn’t say he was inhumanly stable. I told you he was an exceptional specimen of a human being. You’re the one who sent him to a place no human being should go.”

Hawks nodded. “You’re right, of course. It’s my fault.”

“Well, now,” Weston said quickly, “he was a volunteer. He knew it was dangerous. He knew he could expect to die.”

But Hawks was ignoring Weston. He was looking straight out over his desk again.

“Rogan?” he said softly. “Rogan?”

He waited, watching Rogan’s lips move almost soundlessly. He sighed at last and asked Weston, “Can you do anything for him?”

“Cure him,” Weston said confidently. “Electroshock treatments. They’ll make him forget what happened to him in that place. He’ll be all right.”

“I didn’t know electroshock amnesia was permanent.”

Weston blinked at Hawks. “He may need repetitive treatment now and then, of course.”

“At intervals for the remainder of his life.”

“That’s not always true.”

“But often.”

“Well, yes…”

“Rogan,” Hawks was whispering. “Rogan, I’m sorry.”

“An dark… an dark It hurt me and it was so cold… so quiet I could hear myself.”

Edward Hawks, D.Sc., walked alone across the main laboratory’s concrete floor, his hands at his sides. He chose a path among the generators and consoles without looking up, and came to a halt at the foot of the matter transmitter’s receiving stage.

The main laboratory occupied tens of thousands of square feet in the basement of Continental Electronics’ Research Division building.