he had no idea what he was going to do. But he needed to do it; he knew that much. Barton blurred his mind and began. Working, he lost track of time.

A sound behind him brought him out of it. A harsh accusing sound. Barton turned and saw Limila, saw- tooth lips squared in an almost-human grimace of horror, blank Demu lack of features throwing the horror back to him. She shook her head, the baid earless skull shin- ing in the" overhead light. "No more. Barton," she panted. "No MORE!" She wheeled and disappeared through her bedroom door, slamming it and throwing the bolt against him. As though there were any need for that, he thought sadly.

But what had caused her reaction? Barton looked at his canvas and gasped in shock. What he had painted, what he had doodled while his mind looked the other way, was Limila. Limila the undented, as he had first seen her. Several views. Two full-faced, one with closed curved-lip smile and one showing the tiny perfect teeth.

A profile highlighting the delicate lean nose and over- the-ears front hairline. A pair of complementing three- quarter studies. Two full-length figures. And each sketch,

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though lacking in fine detail, was lovingly exact in con- tour. No wonder Limila could not bear to see them.

Barton turned his ears on. It was about time he did that; the noises from Limila's room were not nicer He took a run at her/door, jumped and landed with both heels alongside the door knob. The lock broke; Barton sprawled inside, to see Limila turning and twisting as she hung with her neck in an impromptu noose.

He never knew how he clawed her down from her ad- lib gibbet, though several shredded fingernails took long enough to heaL He gave mouth-to-mouth breathing to the sawtooth lips he had not been able to bring himself to kiss since the Demu had cut their sweet curves into harsh notches. He said her name over and over. And when he saw that she was conscious and could hear him, he said to her, "Don't ever do that again. I need you; do you understand me?" She nodded, weakly.

"Limila," he said, "I don't know yet what we can do about how things are. But 111 work on it. You hear me?"

"You can do nothing. I am as I am." Her eyes were closed. Barton shook her, gently, until she opened them.

**And the Demu had me in a cage for eight years,"

he said. "I thought my way out of that one, or we wouldn't be here, would we?" She looked at him blankly.

"Give me a little time, wont you? To try to find a way out of the cage we are in."

The mangled lips twisted m what might have been a smile. Barton blotted it from sight by kissing her smooth forehead. He held her for a moment longer and then said, "Forgive me. For hiding from you, for not paying attention because it hurt to see you. I won't do that any more. You understand?" Her head nodded against his lips. He got up slowly, turned away, stopped at the shat- tered door. "I'll do something."

Barton slept without pills; his dreams were not of hor- ror. And he woke knowing what he had to do next, to stay out of a cage.

At one o'clock he met Dr. Arleta Fox. All of ten

seconds early, in fact; under the circumstances Barton felt he could afford to give a little. He put the pilfered book back in place under cover of clumsily dropping his jacket when he hung it up; Barton knew he had to clown it a little and he figured he could get away with that much. Dr. Fox was tolerant.

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"Don't be nervous, Mr. Barton," she said. "You needn't be. Your intelligence tests show no significant changes from the earlier data in your file- A slight drop of no importance. These tests are so sensitive that what you had for lunch could shift the results by five points, and that's approximately the degree of change we have here."

Dr. Fox smiled. By now, Barton's subconscious knew she wasat really going to bite him; he didn't flinch. "So now," she said brightly, "are we ready for the personality- evaluation series?"

I don't know about you, lady, thought Barton, but / sure*s bell am. Because now he knew how to beat their system, for a while, at least. All be needed was a little cooperation.

"Sure, I'm ready," he said. "One thing, though. I'm a little nervous today. Could I have a closed room and no interruptions until I'm finished?" He tried to smile dis- armingly. It didn't feel much like it, from the inside.

Dr. Fox bought it, at least. "Oh, certainly," she said, and escorted him to a small, comfortable room. With ashtrays and everything.

Ever since Barton had willed himself dead enough to fall through the floor of the Demu cage-all the way home on the ship and ever since-he had, with one ex- ception, stayed clear of self-hypnosis and the hallucina- tions that had saved him from Demu domination and mutilation. Because be wasn't a captive mind any longer, and a free one can't afford to goof off if it wants to stay free. So Barton had tried to stick with the real world all the way.

But policy must change with circumstances. When Bar- ton sat down to fill out the 1,300-plus questions of the personality-evaluation tests, he shoved his mind into full-hallucinating gear. What he tried to bring into being was the thirty-two-year-old Barton and aH his attitudes, before he had been zapped and abducted by the Demu.

He knew it was a pretty thin trick but it was the best he had. And it began to work. So be it.

Barton had no idea how long it was taking him to an- swer all the questions on Dr. Fox's fancy test; he stayed with it until he was finished. Then he snapped out of his earlier-Barton hallucination and paid very close atten- tion to reality. He punched the buzzer; when Dr. Fox answered he told her he had 'finished and was ready to

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leave. The time turned out to be late evening; he'd skipped dinner and hadn't even noticed.

"Why don't we have a drink and a bite to eat in the lounge before you go, Mr. Barton?" she asked. Why don't we break open my skull and get it over with, Dr. Fox? But the hell with it; he had to go along, a lit- tle.

The lounge wasn't bad; the lighting and music were within his tolerance and Dr. Fox wasn't pushing him about anything. Barton ordered the strongest drink he figured he could get away with under psychological ob- servation. He got a bonus; food service was so slow he had time for a second one. Partway into it he realized he couldn't afford to get smashed, either. But physically and mentally he was floating free, ready to move.

He wasn't surprised when one of the lumpier and more muscular of the young lab techs brought a sheaf of pa- pers to Dr. Fox, whispering in her ear somewhat more than was really courteous. She began to leaf through the stack, skimming.

Barton figured they had him cold, but he wasnt going to make it easy. There was a pot of coffee on the table over a heater; he poured some for Dr. Fox.

Foe, one thing, if he needed to throw the rest of it at Muscles' face it would be quicker if he already bad the thing in his hand. So he held onto it for a moment, wait- ing to see what Dr. Fox would say.

She said it "Mr. Barton, 1. can hardly believe these results." Barton wasn't too surprised but there wasn't much he could say- The technician left them. Barton re- turned the coffee pot to its place.

"Your test results," Dr. Fox continued, "are almost precisely the same as the way you tested eight years ago." She smiled, frowned, scowled and looked blank.

It was like a major earthquake on a small scale, thought Barton.

"Our computer read-out," Dr. Fox went on, "allows only one conclusion. It indicates that your capture and imprisonment have inflicted a so-called 'freeze trauma'

upon you. You appear to be frozen into your earlier emotional attitudes, without much reference to any hap- penings since the trauma began."

Well, if you'll believe that, Barton thought, you'll be- lieve anything. But what he said was, "It doesn't feel that way to me, but I guess I can't argue with you ex-

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perts, and the computer and all." Oddly, he found that he enjoyed skating on thin ice.

"The tests were really very tiring. Dr. Fox," he said.

*The food is good but my appetite isn't up to it. I hate to be a poor guest, but if I don't go home and get some sleep about now, I'll probably cork off right here and have to be carted home." Dr. Fox was understanding and obliging; soon Barton was delivered to his quar- ters. Liniila was still awake. Just sitting, looking at the walls.

"I was soon going to bed," she said. "I will now."

"All right," said Barton, "but not in there. In here."

At first Limila expected more than Barton was able to give. He could not make love to her mutilated self, nor did he try. But he could hold her and cherish her; they could give each other warmth. After a while, Limila ap- peared to understand how it was with them, how it had to be. She cried, but it did not hurt Barton as much as he expected. After a little longer it didn't hurt at all, be- cause it was a different kind of crying. Whatever it was, he succumbed to sleep before he figured it out.

He woke up alone. Well, Limila would be over at the ship, helping with the translating. Tarletoa and Kreugel had become wary of having only one translator. Frail and shaky as Siewen was becoming, no one knew how far he could be trusted.

Barton fixed himself breakfast. More real food was coming in lately, to replace the TV-dinner junk that had first been shipped to the site. He broke three eggs into the frying pan, thought a moment and added another.

The bread was standard glop-type but not too bad when toasted. There was real coffee.