Verbeena was waiting outside the Imaging Chamber when Al returned. "How is Sam?" she asked, quietly. There were several technitions in the control room, bustling with activity under the multicolored light emitted by Ziggy's circuitry. No one would be suspicious of her meeting Al when he returned, but she still was cautious.
         "Not himself," Al answered. He motioned to Gushie to join his and Verbeena's conference.
         "You need me, Admiral?" Gushie's chronic halitosis made Al and Verbeena pull away from him. He closed his mouth and smiled shyly, "Sorry."
         "I have some new information that affects both your jobs. Gushie you have to run some new scenarios. Verbeena, your work is cut out for you." He paused and took a breath. The others knew he was the bearer of bad news, or at least complications.
         "Tommy's father is physically and sexually abusive. Gushie, pull any background information you can find on Charles Whitfield." They would try to compare anything they found out about the man to others they had on file to see if he fit the profile of a killer.
         Gushie's eyes widened, "I'll have Ziggy run with the new data and do a search." He scurried back to the main control rooms. He knew when his job was to let Al and Verbeena concentrate on their jobs.
         Without instruction, Verbeena led Al to her office. They needed to talk in more detail away from anyone who could be within ear shot.
         "Okay, Admiral. Now tell me the truth. How is Sam? How does he know about Tommy's father?" Al's new information added to his description of Sam's state made her fear he had been in an abusive incident.
         "Like I said, Sam is not himself. He Leaped into an abusive situation, but kept things from going too far." Al chewed on his cigar, which was unlit out of respect for his colleague. Most of the staff were tolerant of his smoke, but Verbeena had asked him to not light up around here when they had met. Never able to deny a beautiful woman anything, he had complied.
         "How far is too far?" Verbeena stood by the side of her desk and Al sat in the chair closest to her.
         "I honestly don't know." He shared with her what little Sam had told him. "He said nothing happened, but I've never seen him like this before."
         Verbeena's silence was Al's cue to continue. "I think there's something he's keeping from me. I know Sam pretty well and it seems to me he's hiding something." Sam was hardly a deceptive person and a chronically bad liar, though he had had opportunity to improve thos skills during the Leaps.
         "What leads you to believe that?"
         "I don't think he's gotten out of bed since he Leaped in. He seems depressed and what's more disturbing is it seems like his only motivation for helping Tommy is so he can get out."
         "That doesn't sound like Sam, " she agreed, rubbing her chin with her thumb and index finger. She had always known Sam to think of others first and himself later, even before it was his destiny to do nothing else. "Does he have any anger toward Tommy's father for what he's done to Tommy?"
         Al shook his head, "No, there's no anger at all. In fact, there's not much of any emotion, except maybe despair. It's like he's given up this fight before fighting at all. He told me--and this is what he said--that he was 'really, really afraid' of this guy. He said he couldn't stop him and when I told him he could, he disagreed. He even disagreed when I said he could outsmart the guy. He's not an egomaniac, but for him to say this average, or below average Joe is even in the ballpark of his intelligence? Please.. they don't make a scale that will measure Sam's IQ!"
         "It's like this Whitfield has some kind of power over Sam," Verbeena commented. "Are you sure nothing more happened when Sam Leaped in?"
         "Sure? No, but according to Sam, it did not."
         Verbeena sighed. "Well, there's always the possibility that Tommy's and Sam's minds have merged somehow and he's feeling what Tommy has felt." It was not uncommon for Sam to pick up residual feelings from the Leapee.
         "Right, I've considered that, but still, it seems different than that. I mean, Sam seems like Sam--and I know that contradicts what I just said earlier--but he seems like a depressed version of Sam, not like Sam mixed up with some eight year old kid."
         "Well, before you came back, I was working on a theory that, of course, doesn't take into consideration your revelations."
         "I'm listening." He leaned forward, holding the cigar.
         "Sam is in his hometown and he's leaped inot a child who is eight years old. In February of 1962, Sam himself was eight years old. "
         "Oh, that reminds me," Al interupted. "That's another thing--February. I started to tell Sam where he was and he told me he was in Elk Ridge, February 19, 1962. But, it's the 27th. He was so close, but it's nagging at me that there's an importance to his being wrong."
         Verbeena smiled with self-satisfaction. "I think I'm onto something here. My theory is that Sam is picking up on his own feelings at the time, February 1962. In an odd way, he's very close to his own past, at least spatially."
         "So, maybe something from eight-year-old Sam's life is affecting him now?" Al concluded. It made sense, as much sense as any of this did.
         "And, specifically, something about February 19, 1962. It must be important to him somehow."
         "So, now that we have the idea, what do we do with it? Al wondered aloud. "I need to think about it for a while." He got up and left her in her office.
         Al went to his chambers, trying to decide how to approach Sam about his own past. But what good would it do to ask Sam? He could not remember his last Leap, much less 1962. Instead of pacing, Al changed his clothes. Perhaps something about wearing the same clothes until they disentigrated while he was a POW made him change his clothes often.
         Even though he had a house in a nearby town, the Admiral had accepted that the Project was basically his home. The house was kept out of practicality. One day Sam would Leap home and he would not have to spend so much time at the Project. Maybe.
         Al glanced around his sparsley furnished room. He had a few pictures that meant something to him, seeing one of himself and his younger sister Trudie as children gave him an idea. If he could not expect Sam to remember his past, he could find out for himself. He would go straight to the source.
         "Gushie!" Al called, entering the control room.
         "Yes, Admiral?" The little man in a labcoat answered, looking up from the control panel.
         "First of all, answer questions; don't ask them."
         "Okay, Sir." Gushie said slowly. He knew the admiral must be planning something unorthidox. While Gushie knew most of what was going on during a Leap--he was the man in charge of data, afterall--there had been times when Al had chosen to keep things from him.
         "When I go into the Imaging Chamber, I want you to center me on Sam."
         "Of course, I will, Sir." There was nothing strange so far.
         "Sam, the eight year old."
         'Wh--yes, Sir," remembering his order, he resisted the urge to ask questions.
         "Will Sam be able to see and hear me?"
         "It will depend on how closely his brain waves at age eight resemble his brain waves as an adult. Give me a moment and I'll have Ziggy run an estimate." He turned to the controls.
         A few moments later, Ziggy had the results. "There's an 84% probability that eight-year-old Sam will be able to see you," Gushie reported.
         "I'll have to risk that."