try to think of a way out of my predicament, with my I.Q. boosted up to a thousand or so. It made me think of my college days, when I had stayed up all night on benzedrine, writing term papers. I remembered Bronson's description of one of the volunteers who had gone insane, and shuddered. Well, I had nothing to lose.

"It is what its name implies," Bronson had said. "To be used only in extreme emergency. Only when you have nothing to lose."

I had put the ampule away in the medicine locker and deliberately forgotten about it. Now I got it out again and held it up to the light as Bronson had done. Milky, white. I strapped myself to the acceleration couch, filled a syringe, and swabbed my arm. I looked at the letter I had started and probably would never finish. I rammed the needle in.

The hallucinations began within five minutes. This was normal, Bronson had said. I waited, gripping the armrests of the couch, hoping I would not begin believing in what I saw.

First there was the meter face directly in front of me. It was blue-green. I had never really seen before what color it was. It was like a round, bright flame. I stared at it, becoming hypnotized. Finally I couldn't stand it any more, I reached over and switched off the panel lights. Then the meter face became the blackest darkness I had ever seen, it was no longer a flat disk, but the entrance to a long, black tunnel, endless and narrow. I wanted to enter the tunnel and—Quickly I shifted my gaze. A gas tube rectifier caught my attention. This was like the meter face, only worse. A cloud of intense blue, flickering, shimmering—As I stared at it the cloud seemed to be expanding, growing, forever flickering and shimmering until it became vast, it filled the universe, pulsating with energy, it was a kind of blue I had never seen before.... I had never seen color before. There was a red plastic safety guard over one of the toggle switches. Suddenly it seemed alive, rather the red was alive, the color was no longer part of the object, it was an entity in itself, blazing like flame, liberated from matter, it was a living drop of blood, afire.

I closed my eyes, trying to escape from color, but that was much worse. The colors inside my head blazed out even brighter, more savage.

I turned my head, trying to find something in the cabin to look at that was not bright blue or green or red. With horror I focused on the spacesuit locker. I had left the locker open, the suit hanging on its wire stretcher. I saw immediately that the spacesuit was alive. It stood there motionless, returning my stare, I could not look away from it. I could not move, with fear. Slowly, very slowly, the spacesuit raised an arm and pointed at me. I stared at its single, oval eye, recalling childhood nightmares. Then the suit came out of its locker and began to advance toward me, still pointing its gauntlet at my face. It seemed to take hours to walk across the cabin toward me. I held my breath, waiting. I thought I would scream if it did not reach me, it was taking too long.

Then it did reach me and, bending low above me, wrapped its metallic arms around my body. I turned my face from its mechanical, fiery breath. It began to crush me, I could not breathe, I felt my ribs begin to bend, slowly splinter. My face was pressed against its metallic chest, it was a thin gray wall....

Then there was nothing but the wall itself, dark, thin as a membrane, but impenetrably strong. I was pressing toward it, forcing my way, flattened against it, being crushed slowly between this thin, gray membrane and the tremendous weight of darkness at my back. I knew that if the membrane did not give, if I did not break through at last, I would suffocate and die. In fact I was already dead, the idea came to me with a weight of horror, I twisted, lashing out in total panic. Then the thin gray wall split and gave way, and I was free.

I was still strapped to my crash couch, regarding the instrument panel with absolute calm. Bronson had been