Pollard still shook his head. "Men of Carroll's stability do not go insane when faced with personal danger or even certain death. How about his notes?"

"Nothing in them that seems out of line," said Majors. "Just the same 'no effect' or 'no improvement' conclusions."

"See here," said Pollard. "Do you have to use these improved detectors on the natural radiation?"

"Of course," said Majors. "We don't know what the Lawson Radiation is, and therefore we have no way of simulating it in our lab. What has us stumped is that the detectors go on detecting Lawson Effects while they're sitting on a fission-pile with no increase in noise-level or signal." Majors smiled unhappily.

"That is, they do until the nuclear bombardment transmutes one of the detector-elements into another one that is ineffective. So far nothing we can pour into any of them will result in an indication."

Dr. Pollard shook his head. "This has been of some help," he said. "But the big job of gaining his confidence and bringing him back is still ahead of me. I think this will be all for now. May I count on your co-operation again?"

"Any time," said Majors. "We need Carroll—which is quite aside from the fact that we all like him and it hurts to see him as he is now."

The conference broke up, and Dr. Pollard left the Lawson Laboratory and headed slowly toward the hospital where James Carroll was still sleeping.

He was praying for a miracle. A mere human, he felt ignorant, helpless, blind against the sheer disinterest that emanated from Carroll's blacked-out intelligence. Not so much for the problem of the Lawson Radiation would Pollard like to bring James Carroll back to himself as for the benefit of the man—and mankind—for Carroll had been a definite asset.

And then Pollard stopped thinking on the subject, for he found himself rolling around in a tight circle in the problem. Did he want Carroll or did he want to find out what Carroll had learned that drove him crazy?

To bring him back to full usefulness—that was admitting that his interest was as much for the benefit of science as for the man. Science in Carroll's case meant years and years of intense study of that one particular field.

He was rationalizing, he knew, and he went further by admitting that bringing 

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