"Ah! But it didn't stop at the osmium," said the hooded man. "It went on and on and on. Plus four plus four plus four plus four plus four—until there were so many plus fours in there that the place looked like an old-fashioned golf course."

"My legs hurt," said de Hooch. The man was no longer wearing a hood, but de Hooch couldn't tell if it was Willows or himself.

"We will all go together when we go," said the man.

De Hooch turned his head away and looked at the ceiling.

And he realized that it was the ceiling of the antechamber.

"My legs hurt," he repeated. And he could hear the hoarse whisper inside the helmet. He realized that he was lying flat on his back. He had been jarred around quite a bit in the suit.

He wondered if he could sit up. He managed to get both arms behind him and push himself into a sitting position. He wiggled his feet. The servos responded. He hurt all over, but a little experiment told him that he was only bruised. Nothing was broken. He hadn't been hit as hard as Ferguson and Metty had been.

"Willows?" he said. "Willows?"

There was no answer from the earphones.

He looked at the chronometer dial inside his helmet. Oh two forty-nine. He had been unconscious less than ten minutes.

The same glance brought his eyes to two other dials. The internal radiation of the suit was a little high, but nothing to worry about. But the dial registering the external radiation was plenty high. Without the protection of the suit, he wouldn't have lived through those ten minutes.

Where was Willows?

And then he knew, and he pushed any thought of further help from that quarter out of his mind. What had to be done would have to be done by Peter de Hooch alone. He climbed to his feet.

His head hurt, and he swayed with nausea and pain. Only the massive weight of the suit's shoes kept him upright. Then it passed, and he blinked his eyes and shook his head to clear it. He found he was holding his breath, and he let it out.

The trouble had been so simple, and yet he hadn't seen it. Oh, yes, he had! He must have, subconsciously. Otherwise, how would he have guessed that the stuff in the sampling chamber was Osmium 187? Ferguson and Metty had 

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