When they emerged, it was to transfer past a sentry, where Lang gave a password and okayed his companion, to another elevator which purred them still deeper.

"I—" The newsman cleared his throat, awkwardly. "I repeat what I implied earlier. I'm here mostly as a citizen interested in the public welfare ... which includes my own, of course, and my family's if I ever have one. If you can show me valid reasons for not breaking this story, I won't. I'll even let you hypnocondition me against doing it, voluntarily or otherwise."

"Thanks," said the director. His mouth curved upward, but it was a shaken smile. "That's decent of you, and we'll accept ... I think you'll agree with our policy. What worries me is the rest of the world. If you could find out as much as you did—"

Radek's heart jumped between his ribs. "Then you do have immortality!"

"Yes. But I'm not immortal. None of our personnel are, except—Here we are."

There was a hidden susurrus of machinery as they stepped out into a small bare entryroom. Another guard sat there, beside a desk. Past him was a small door of immense solidity, the door of a vault.

"You'll have to leave everything metallic here," said Lang. "A steel object could jump so fiercely as to injure you. Your watch would be ruined. Even coins could get uncomfortably hot ... eddy currents, you know. We're about to go through the strongest magnetic field ever generated."

Silently, dry-mouthed, Radek piled his things on the desk. Lang operated a combination lock on the door. "There are nervous effects too," he said. "The field is actually strong enough to influence the electric discharges of your synapses. Be prepared for a few nasty seconds. Follow me and walk fast."

The door opened on a low, narrow corridor several meters long. Radek felt his heart bump crazily, his vision blurred, there was panic screaming in his brain and a sweating tingle in his skin. Stumbling through nightmare, he made it to the end.

The horror faded. They were in another room, with storage facilities and what resembled a spaceship's airlock in the opposite wall. Lang grinned shakily. "No fun, is it?"

"What's it for?" gasped Radek.

"To keep charged particles out of here. And the whole set of chambers is 500 meters underground, sheathed in ten meters of lead 

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