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should fall."
    Martin hates turning down patients; he also hates being treated like a man who can be bought. Not that he's unassailable--to his intense personal shame, he's been bought before. It's a theme in his life. He knows what the consequences can be.
    Crest sighs. "This is torture for you, isn't it, Doctor?"
    "How?"
    "Having a high natural come in here and run off about chances of failing.
    I mean, you're not a high natural, are you?"
    "No."
    "Untherapied? Just a natural?"
    "No."
    "Therapied, and for some time, right?"
    "Right."
    "So you must be... I mean, it must be like having a rich man come in and worry about losing his money, and you haven't got any."
    Martin squints at Crest and says, "You're offering four times my highest
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    that there's too much emphasis on high natural ratings. It isn't that big a deal. It's another human measurement, a quantification some folks are willing to use to separate us from each other." "I'm not a have-not, Dr. Burke. I'm used to having." "I wouldn't put so much store in having this particular thing, this high-natural rating, if I were you. You'd be surprised at the power and influence of some who don't." "Sure," Crest says, agitated. "Like you. Nobody rates you but your medical board. Doctors have always protected their own." Martin clamps his teeth together tightly beore answering. "IF we used the criteria your fellow businessmen seem to find attractive, we'd lose most of our best, our most sensitive doctors." "There's that word again," Crest says, sniffing and drawing in his jaw. "Sensitive. I'm not an artist, I'm not a therapist, I'm a decision maker. I have to make a dozen important decisions a day, every day. I have to be keen, like a knife edge. Not sensitive." "The sharper the edge, the more liable it is to be blunted if it's misused," Martin observes. "I have my standards," Crest says. "I'm sorry if nobody else is strong enough to accept them." "Mr. Crest, I have my standards as well. If this is going to have any positive outcome, we should start all over again. You've interrupted my day without an appointment, you've impugned my professional ethics by flinging money at me... Crest sits very still. The light around his face is not natural, not the lighting of the room. He might be made of wax. "I know you don't like me, and that's fine, I'm used to that, but I have my own sense of honor, Dr. Burke. I've gotten myself into something. I know what's right and what isn't and I've violated that code. It began as greed. Greed for life, I suppose, for fighting off the real devils, for keeping all I've made. But it's beyond that now." Crest stares at him. Martin cannot penetrate the vagueness of the man's face. He has never seen anything like it. "If you can come back later today, I can run my own evaluation, with my own equipment." "Now," Crest says. "I need it now." Martin is willing to believe that Crest is close to a thymic imbalance, maybe even a pathic collapse, but the situation is fraught with legal difficulties. "I can't treat you on an emergency basis, Mr. Crest." "These men and women I'm involved with . . . they kill people who talk to outsiders." That does it, Martin thinks. "I can recommend a clinic not two blocks from here, but sir, with your resources, you can--" "I can't use my own medicals or therapists. They're not secure. I agreed to
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    have them feed my stats and vitals into.., the center. They would know. I'm close to the edge, Doctor. Two bal,#rea' thosa,a'." Martin swallows. "I can't treat patients close to severe collapse. That requires an initial evaluation by a federally licensed primary therapist." Crest smiles again, or perhaps he is not smiling at all. He leans forward and places his arms on Martin's desk. "I could tell you, and then tell them. They would have to kill you. Or discredit you." "I don't react well to threats," Martin says. "I can't be forced to do something illegal, whatever the money or the threats. I think you