Blackness, sweet blackness, and the sense of floating among the stars. Nothingness. It was exquisite now ... even the touch of agony that still seeped through was exquisite.

How much of this, I don't know.

I heard a voice again, and at first I thought my precious blackness was leaving me. I struggled to keep it. I grasped out, clutching with my mind.

"_Don't give up ... we are coming...._"

It was _her_ voice. The low, seductive voice of my dreams. But I didn't want to hear it now; this was the last thing I wanted to hear. This voice had brought me here, and I never wanted to hear it again.

"_No matter what they say ... no matter what they offer you or tell you ... don't give up._"

I fought it off. I drove it away by sheer mind-power. Either that or it stopped of itself. I didn't know and didn't care; all I wanted was peace and blackness again if I could find it.

And then, after a while, I was awake, truly awake, and I knew this because I ached and burned all over. I could scarcely move. I lay on the tablelike thing and stared at the gleaming metal ceiling, not really seeing it.

"How do you feel?" said somebody.

I turned my head. The somebody was sitting beside me. He was a man of about fifty, thick-set and gray-haired with skin that looked like fine porcelain. His eyes were blue and they seemed able, intelligent. He was not exactly smiling, but his expression was pleasant. Poised--that was the word. Here was a man who would quietly control things wherever he would go.

I said, "Lousy. And you?"

Ghost of a smile. "Sorry you had to go through it. We pick the Deacons because they're sadistically inclined. That makes for efficiency in the long run. Some people suffer, of course, but it's for the common good."

I didn't say anything. If I had, it would have been insulting, unreasonable, blasphemous, obscene and treasonable. So I didn't say anything. I just kept staring at him.

He continued to smile. "I'm N-J-K-F one seven seven three four nine, Chief of the Office of Psychological Adjustment. I'm usually simply Chief. I want you to consider me your friend--within the limits of State good, that is."

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