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tightly. There wasn’t the slightest radiation or movement in him that I could perceive. Bill reached out gently, but BB gave no response. I had never been present when anything remotely like this had happened to anyone nonphysical, except those in the stunned-out ring right after physical death—and I hadn’t ever watched the start of the condition in that case. I began to vibrate. Bill opened gently. (You’d better go back now. We’ll take care of him.) I vibrated more. (Will he be all right?) (It’s a big rote he’s absorbing. The fact that he’s never been human makes it … different. He’ll be fine.) I began to think that I never should have taken BB on the tour, when Bill cut in. (Bob, I was the one who gave him the rote that put him down. He’s in the equivalent of what we used to call shock. Head back now, your energy is weakening. We will take good care of BB. He will recover.) I turned reluctantly, did a half-roll, and dove down, following the ident of my physical body. I was relaxed and sure because there was no better help for BB than Bill and his friends, except perhaps the INSPECS—and the line between the two was very, very thin. I picked up the second and reentered the physical without incident. Everything was calm and normal, except that I forgot to check the clock. I kept thinking about the thin line in the weeks and months that followed.