"Yup." He grinned wolfishly. "Not bad for a psychologist. What a peephole you opened up! Graven images, huh?"
"Shut up, Anderson," said Paresi tiredly. "I told you I'm not going to let you needle me."
"Aw now, it's all in fun," said the Captain. He plumped down and threw a heavy arm across Anderson's shoulders. "Le's be friends. Le's sing a song."
Paresi shoved him away. "Leave me alone. Leave me alone."
Anderson turned away from him and regarded the statuette gravely. He extended the bottle toward it, muttered a greeting, and drank. "I wonder...."
The words hung there until Paresi twisted up out of his forlorn reverie to bat them down. "Damn it—what do you wonder?"
"Oh," said the Captain jovially, "I was just wondering what you'll be."
"What are you talking about?"
Anderson waved the bottle at the figurine, which called it to his attention again, and so again he drank. "Johnny turned into what he thinks he is. A little guy with a big victory. Hoskins, there, he's going to be a slide-rule, jus' you wait and see. Ol' Ives, that's easy. He's goin' to be a beer barrel, with beer in it. Always did have a head on him, Ives did." He stopped to laugh immoderately at Paresi's darkening face. "Me, I have no secrets no more. I'm going to be a coat of arms—a useless philosophy rampant on a field of stars." He put the open mouth of the bottle against his forehead and pressed it violently, lowered it and touched the angry red ring it left between his eyes. "Mark of the beast," he confided. "Caste mark. Zero, that's me and my whole damn family. The die is cast, the caste has died." He grunted appreciatively and turned again to Paresi. "But what's old Nicky going to be?"
"Don't call me Nicky," said the doctor testily.