He stepped onto the elevated safety walk and headed along it toward one of the several plazas built all around the towering structure of Forever Center. And now, as he always did, and for no particular reason that he could figure out, he threw back his head and stared up at the mile-high wall of the mighty building. There were times, on stormy mornings, when the view was cut off by the clouds that swirled about its top, but on a clear morning such as this the great slab of masonry went up and up until its topmost stories were lost in the blue haze of the sky. A man grew dizzy

looking at it and the mind reeled at the thought of what the hand of man had raised.

He stumbled and only caught himself in the nick of time. He'd have to stop this crazy staring upward at the building, he told himself, or, at least, wait to do it until he reached the plaza. The safety walk was only two feet high, but a man could take a nasty tumble if he didn't watch himself. It was not impossible that he might break his neck. He wondered, for the hundredth time, why someone didn't think to protect the walks with railings.

He reached the plaza and let himself down off the safety walk into the jam-packed crowd that struggled toward the building. He hugged the briefcase tight against him and tried, with one hand, to protect the bulge that was his sack of lunch. Although, he knew, there was little chance of protecting it. Almost every day it was crushed by the pack of bodies that filled the plaza and the lobby of the building.

Perhaps, he thought, he should go without the usual milk today. He could get a cup of water when he ate his lunch and it would do as well. He licked his lips, which suddenly were dry. Maybe, he told himself, there was some other way he might save the extra money. For he did like that daily glass of milk and looked forward to it with a great deal of pleasure.

There was no question about it, however. He'd have to find a way to make up for the cost of energizing the buffer on the car. It was an expense he had not counted on and it upset his budget. And if Tom should find that some of the padding would have to be replaced, that would mean more money down the drain.