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that, Captain Fairbanks?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Why did you do that to the wall?”
    “I thought you were kidding.” The inmate’s eyes were intense and pale blue and set in an innocent pudgy face that belonged at a junior college tea dance. “I do it,” he replied, “in the interest of science and nucleonics; because I’m convinced we can walk through walls! Not just me; I mean anyone. Cops. People. People in Nashville.
    It’s the spaces! The empty spaces between the atoms in my body-or yours:
    you don’t mind my getting personal? No. If it gets you uptight, let me know.”
    “Go ahead.”
    “You got a headache?”
    Kane had winced as though in reaction to a sudden, stabbing pain, lowering his head and pinching the bridge of his nose. His eyes were closed. “No,” he said softly.
    “Terrific. Look, it’s all in the size of the empty spaces between the atoms in that wall: when you look at it relative to the size of the atoms themselves-well, the size of the spaces is immense! It’s like the distance, frankly speaking, between the earth and the planet Mars, and—”
    “Come to the point, please, Captain Fairbanks,” said Kane in a voice that reflected strain, yet was not unkind.
    “What’s the hurry?” asked Fairbanks. “The atoms won’t leave. Hell, they’re not going anyplace.”
    “Yes.”
    “Colonel, atoms can be smashed; they cannot fly!”
    Kane reacted to something like pain again.
    “Do you have to go toy-toy?” asked Fairbanks. “Number two?”
    Kane shook his head.
    “Listen, don’t be ashamed; we’re only human.”
    Kane lowered his arm from the inmate’s shoulder. “Tell me why you strike the wall.”
    “You’re dogged. I like that: dogged but fair. Now listen. The spaces-the same immense and empty spaces between the atoms in that wall exist between the atoms in your body as well! So walking through the wall is merely a matter of gearing the holes between the atoms in my body to the holes between the atoms in that wall! That naughty stubborn fucking—”
     
    Fairbanks ended his statement with another great swing of his hammer. Plaster flew out in all directions. He looked sullen; he stared at the hole he had just produced. “Nothing,” he muttered.
    Then he looked at Kane. “I keep experimenting, see. I concentrate hard. I try to exert the full force of my mind on the atoms in my body so they’ll mix and rearrange; so they’ll fit just exactly those spaces in the wall. And then I try the experimental method -I try to walk through the wall. Like now. I just took a running dash, and I failed-horribly!”
    He swung once more at the wall and another hole gaped forth. “Stuck-up cunts,” he muttered.
    “Why did you do that?” asked Kane.
    “I am punishing the atoms! I am making of them an example! An object lesson! A thing! So when the others see what’s coming -when they see I’m not kidding around-why, they’ll fall into line! They’ll let me pass through!” Fairbanks accompanied the end of his statement with another vicious swing. “Independent snots!” he said, glaring at the wall. “Shape up or ship out!”
    “May I?” asked Kane, gently lifting the hammer from the inmate’s grasp.
    “Sure!” growled Fairbanks. “Swing! Enjoy! Maybe they’ll listen to a stranger!”
    “I had something else in mind.”
    The inmate looked outraged and grabbed for the hammer. First he gave a tug then a vigorous pull; but the hammer did not move from Kane’s grip. He looked down at the hammer, and then up at Kane, his eyes a little fuddled. “Your grip is very strong,” he said at last.
    “I think,” said Kane, “that your problem may lie in the properties of the hammer: some nuclear imbalance impinging on the ions.”
    “Interesting theory,” said Fairbanks.
    “Would you mind if I kept the hammer for study?”
    Suddenly Fairbanks began to scream. He struggled furiously to regain the hammer. Krebs and Christian appeared and restrained him. He was