Wishing you all you would wish for yourself, Jim.

Forster examined the signature. That was the way Bentley made the capital J—it looked almost like a T, with just a faint hook on the bottom of the down-stroke. Then the way it joined the—

"Hey, Doc—are you going to tie up the tank all day? I've got work to do."

Forster recognized the voice on the intercom as Tom Summerford's. Summerford was one of the crop of recent graduates to join the Center—brash, noisy, irresponsible like the rest of them. He knew Forster hated being called "Doc," so he never lost an opportunity to use the word. True, he was gifted and well-trained, but he was a ringleader in playing the practical jokes on Forster which might have been funny in college, but which only wasted a research team's time in these critical days.

Practical joke.

Anger flooded over him.

Yes, this was all a macabre game cooked up by Summerford, with the help of some of his pals. Probably they were all out there now, snickering among themselves, waiting to see his face when he came out of the decompression chamber ... waiting to gloat....

"Hey Doc! You still with us?"

"I'll be out very shortly," Forster said grimly. "Just wait right there."

He spun the air inlet controls; impatiently, he watched as the altimeter needle began its anti-clockwise movement.

He'd call a staff meeting right away, find the culprits and suspend them from duty. Preston would have to back him up. If Summerford proved to be the ringleader, he would insist on his dismissal, Forster decided. And he would see to it that the young punk had trouble getting another post.

The fantastic waste of time involved in such an elaborate forgery ... Forster trembled with indignation. And using the name of a dead man, above all a scientist who had died in the interests of research, leaving behind him a mystery which still troubled the Atomic Energy Commission, because nobody had ever been able to explain that sudden dive in a plane which was apparently functioning perfectly, and flown by a veteran crew....

He glanced down at the roll.

Was it his imagination, or had the purplish ink begun to fade? He ran a length of it through his fingers, and then he saw that in places there 

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