Al Duggan."

"Any experience?"

"Montana—mining. Had some engineering. Worked in Ozarka on tunnels."

The lank man nodded, expressionless.

"You'll hog for a while. Later we'll see.... Any relation to the Duggan we lost a couple of years back?"

"We're cousins."

"Tough he couldn't see his way clear to try again." Short's lips thinned. "He may snap out of it yet.... We could use a few more like him."

"I—I'll talk with him," promised Duggan.

He fought back the words that wanted to pour out. Whether it was a strange sense of loyalty to his wife, or a stubborn sort of pride, he could not bring himself to speak ill of her.

"A super mech is not so bad, Duggan." Short flexed a skinny arm. "I've worn this one since a rock slide crushed my back."

"Yes, sir," Duggan agreed.

Short scribbled on a form, handed it to Duggan.

"Take this down to Ted Rusche, he's the short, dark fellow bossing the rock hogs. He'll see you're issued your tools."

Duggan nodded and turned away.

In the super mech hostel, on the 79th Level, Duggan shared a compartment of six sleeping and mentrol plates. All of the others were rockhounds, and three of them worked in his own clean-up gang. His immediate pusher, Ted Rusche, was a legless, dark and hairy man, much like his working super mech. Waide and Myham, the first tall and once-handsome, and the latter, bony and scarred, were both paralytics.

Duggan's share of the attendants' salary amounted to another fifty dollars monthly. He was not growing too wealthy!

"And how do you like it after three weeks, Al?" Rusche demanded from where he balanced on the cushioned sleeping plate.

Duggan stretched cramped limbs and turned his sightless face toward Rusche's voice.

"Seems good to be working again, Ted," he said.

"This's your last day with us, Al. Orders from Short. He's transferring you. Office work I guess, or maybe he's making you a foreman."

Rusche's voice was curious.

"He musta found out something about you, Al. S'funny but you look awful familiar to me too. And you know more about tunnels than you let on. How about leveling with a guy?"

"Not now." Duggan was thinking of the other listening men. "After we've cleaned-up and eaten. See you in the park outside the hostel."

"Right."

Duggan's thoughts were muddled. Fingerprints probably; at every super mech hostel all guests were printed and taped, and possibly through his similar name. Short must have been suspicious from the first. And if he had come to the hostel to see Duggan's mentrol-hooded face, while Duggan worked, his identification must have been sure.

Short knew that he was Merle Duggan, and before too long Janith, and all his friends—if he had any left now—would know he had been in hiding here.

He hurried to eat and get ready for another period under the mentrol's hooded probes.

Less than half an hour later he strode out of the hostel, his super mech gleaming and clean and his jacket and shorts newly pressed. He met Rusche in the park and they headed for the lift to the upper level.

En route to the 10th Level he explained.

"I thought you looked like somebody I should know." Rusche scrubbed at his pseudo beard's coarseness. "Accident left you sort of psychoed, huh? So you was scared of the levels? Had to try coming back with a false name?"

Duggan gulped. It made a believable sort of yarn. He hadn't taken time to concoct a story.... Why not?

"Something like that. I guess I was badly shook, Ted."

"So now you go back to being engineer at a thousand or so, and I'm still a rock hog." Rusche shrugged. "Less headaches anyhow."

They stepped off the lift at the 10th Level and took the high speed strip toward the business section. Duggan had it in his mind to see Janith and tell her she had failed—that he was his own man again. She would be at the office. He would tell her off, and leave. And then he'd show Rusche some of the