and now it would do even more.

A voice cried out behind him. A familiar voice. So familiar that it made Roby shudder. Roby heard small boy feet crash the underbrush. Small feet on a small body. A small voice pleading!

Roby grasped the ship controls. Escape. Complete and unsuspected. Simple. Wonderful. Grill would never know.

The sphere door slammed. Motion.

The star, Roby inside, rose on the summer sky.

Mr. Grill stepped out of the seal in the garden wall. He looked around for Roby. Sunlight struck him warmly in the face as he hurried down the path.

There! There was Roby. In the clearing ahead of him. Little Roby Morrison staring at the sky, making fists, crying out to nobody. At least Grill could see nobody about.

"Hello, Roby," called Grill.

The boy jerked at the sound. He—wavered—in color, density, and quality. Grill blinked, decided it was only the sun.

"I'm not Roby!" cried the child. "Roby escaped! He left me to take his place, to fool you so you wouldn't hunt for him! He fooled me, too!" screamed the child, nastily, sobbing. "No, no, don't look at me! Don't think that I'm Roby, you'll make it worse! You came expecting to find him, and you found me and made me into Roby! You're moulding me and I'll never, never, never change, now! Oh, God!"

"Come now, Roby—"

"Roby'll never come back. I'll always be him. I was a rubber ball, a woman, a Sandman. But, believe me, I'm only malleable atoms, that's all. Let me go!"

Grill backed up slowly. His smile was sick.

"I'm a referent, I'm not a label!" cried the child.

"Yes, yes, I understand. Now, now, Roby, Roby, you just wait right there, right there now, while I, while I, while I call the Psycho-Ward."

Moments later, a corps of assistants ran through the garden.

"God damn you all!" screamed the child, kicking. "Damn you!"

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