CATASTROPHES!

 edited by

 Isaac Asimov,

 Martin Harry Greenberg,

 and Charles G. Waugh

 Foreword and Notes by Isaac Asimov

 FAWCETT CREST *   NEW YORK

 CATASTROPHES!

 Published by Fawcett Crest Books, a unit of CBS Publica­tions, the Consumer Publishing Division of CBS Inc.

 Copyright © 1981 Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenbergand Charles G. Waugh.

 All Rights Reserved

 ISBN: 0-449-24425-3

 Printed in the United States of America

 First Fawcett Crest printing: July 1981

 10  987654321

 The editors and publisher are grateful for permission to re­print the following:

 "No Other Gods" by Edward Wellen. Copyright © 1972 byMercury Press, Inc. Reprinted fromThe Magazine of Fantasyand Science Fictionby permission of the author,

 "The Wine Has Been Left Open Too Long and the MemoryHas Gone Flat" by Harlan Ellison appeared inUniverse 6(edited by Terry Carr) and in the author's collectionStrange'Wine.Copyright © 1976 by Harlan Ellison, Reprinted byarrangement with and permission of the author and the au­ thor's agent, Robert P, Mills, Ltd., New York. All rights re­served. Excerpts from"The Chart" by W.S. Merwin appear­ing in "The Wine Has Been Left Open Too Long and theMemory Has Gone Flat," which originally appeared inThe New Yorker, are reprinted by permission of Atheneum Pub­lishers, from the bookHouses and Travellers by W.S. Merwin.Copyright © 1977 by W.S. Merwin. Used with thanks,

 "Stars, Won't You Hide Me?" by Ben Bova. Copyright © 1966,1973 by Ben Bova. Reprinted by permission of the author.

 "Judgement Day" by Lloyd Biggie, Jr. Copyright © 1953 byKing-Size Publications. Reprinted by permission of the au­thor and his agent, Kirby McCauley.

 "The Custodian" by William Tenn. Copyright& 1953 by the Quinn Publishing Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission ofthe author.

 "Phoenix" by Clark Ashton Smith. Copyright © 1954 by Au­gust Derleth. Reprinted by permission of the agents for theauthor's estate, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc., 845Third Ave., New York, NY 10022,

 "Run From the Fire" by Harry Harrison. Copyright © 1975by Robert Silverfaerg and Roger Elwood; reprinted with per­ mission of the author.

 "Requiem" by Edmond Hamilton. Copyright©1962 by Ul­timate Publishing Company. Reprinted by permission of theagents for the author's estate, Scott Meredith LiteraryAgency, Inc., 845 Third Ave., New York, NY 10022.

 "At the Core" by Larry Niven. Copyright © 1966 by theGalaxy Publishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission ofRobert P. Mills, Ltd.

 "A Pail of Air" by Fritz Leiber, Copyright © 1951 by GalaxyPublishing Corporation. Reprinted by permission of Robert P. Mills, Ltd.

 "King of the Hill" by Chad Oliver. Copyright © 1972 byHarlan Ellison. First published inAgain, Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison. Copyright assigned to Chad Oliver 1979. Reprinted by permission of Chad Oliver.

 "The New Atlantis" by Ursula K. Le Guin. Copyright© 1975by Ursula K. Le Guin; reprinted by permission of author andher agent, Virginia Kidd.

 "History Lesson" by Arthur C. Clarke. Copyright © 1949 byArthur C. Clarke; copyright renewed. Reprinted by permis­sion of the author and his agents, Scott Meredith LiteraryAgency, Inc., 845 Third Ave., New York, NY 10022.

 "Seeds of Dusk" by Raymond Z. Gallun. Copyright © 1938by Street & Smith Publications; copyright renewed. Re­printed by permission of Robert P. Mills, Ltd.

 "Dark Benediction" by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Copyright ©1951 by Walter M. Miller, Jr., renewed 1979. Reprinted by permission of the Harold Matson Co., Inc.

 "Last Night of Summer" by Alfred Coppel. Copyright © 1956
by A. Wyn, Inc. Reprinted by permission of The Lescher
Agency.         

 The Store of the Worlds" by Robert Sheckley. Copyright ©1959 by Robert Sheckley. Reprinted by permission of Abby Sheckley.

 "How It Was When the Past Went Away" by Robert Silver-berg. Copyright © 1969 by Robert Silverberg. Reprinted bypermission of the author and his agents, Scott Meredith Lit­erary Agency, Inc., 845 Third Ave., New York, NY 10022.

 "Shark Ship" by C. M. Kornbluth. Copyright © 1958 by C. M. Kornbluth. Reprinted by permission of Robert P. Mills,Ltd.

 Foreword                                                     9

 Part I - Universe Destroyed                                   11

 The Last Trump IsaacAsimov                 12

 No Other GodsEdward Wellen              27
The Wine Has Been Left Open

 Too Long and the Memory

 Has Gone FlatHarlan Ellison                 33Stars, Won't You Hide Me?

 Ben Bova                                                  42

 Part II - Sun Destroyed                                          56

 Judgement Day     Lloyd Biggie, Jr.              57

 The Custodian      William Tenn                    67

 Phoenix     Clark Ashton Smith                     86

 Run from the Fire     Harry Harrison            96

 Part III - Earth Destroyed                                    127

 Requiem     Edmond Hamilton                     128

 At the Core     Larry Niven                         145

 A Pail of Air     Fritz Leiber                        163

 King of the Hill     Chad Oliver                    176

 Part IV - Humanity Destroyed                               193

 The New AtlantisUrsula K. Le Guin     194

 History LessonArthur C. Clarke          217
Seeds of the Dusk

 Raymond Z, Gallun                                  226
Dark Benediction

 Walter M. Miller, Jr.                               253

 Part V - Civilization Destroyed                            306

 Last Night of Summer
Alfred Coppel                                        307

 The Store of the Worlds

 Robert Sheckley                                    316
How It Was When the Past

 Went AwayRobert Silverberg        322

 Shark Ship C.M. Kornbluth                381

 Afterword                                                            413

 Foreword

 It is quite customary for a piece of fiction to contain at leastthe threat of disaster. It is the threat, the menace, the ap­prehension of something one desperately does not want totake place that creates the suspense, and that rouses theinterest of the reader.

 To be sure, the disaster may be a very slight and personalone-the youngster who may fail the test, or lose the game, or be turned down for a date-but it is there. To be equallysure, the story may be a lighthearted one with a happy end­ing, but the disaster, however slight, must be there in themid-course for the ending to shine happily against.

 This is not to say that a story cannot be written withouta disaster, but what a dull story it would be and how little worth the reading.

 And, as in so many other respects, sciencefiction manages

 to outshine other types of fiction. Where but in science fictioncanreal disasters be found?

 Take the most elaborate of realistic suspense and whatcan you have? The loss of a war? The enslavement of a nation?

 In science fiction, the destruction of civilization is the leastone might expect as the threat of disaster, or its actual ac­complishment, is represented to the reader.

 In this collection of twenty stories, we have four storiesdealing with each of five different levels of disaster, organizedaccording to a scheme I devised in my nonfiction discussionentitled AChoice of Catastrophes (Simon and Schuster, 1979;Fawcett Columbine, 1981),

 The movement is from the most all-encompassing catas­trophes toward progressively narrower ones. If this soundsto you like a journey into anticlimax, you are wrong, for asthe catastrophes become narrower, they also become moreprobable. In short, in this book you may be steadily decreas­ ing the scope but you are as steadily increasing the danger.

 Why bother? Why scare yourself?

 For one thing, these are memorable stories you will enjoyand won't easily forget. For another, humanitydoes face ca­tastrophes of various levels of scope and various gradationsof likelihood, and if there is any chance at all of evading themor blunting them, that chance will be heightened if we knowwhat the dangers may be and consider in advance how toprevent or ameliorate them.

 Staring at danger may not be pleasant-but closing your
eyes will not make the danger go away, and with closed eyes
you will surely be destroyed by it.                               

 ISAAC ASIMOV

 1

 UNIVERSE DESTROYED

 InA Choice of Catastrophes, "Catastrophes of the First Class"are those in which the whole Universe is destroyed.

 Actually, the possibility of such a catastrophe long ante­dates the imaginings of modern science fiction. In ancienttimes, it was usually taken for granted that the Universewould be destroyed someday (as it was created) by the Wordof God, or by the decree of Fate.

 Even today there are many who assume that there willbe a Day of Judgment and that it is even imminent. In everygeneration there are those who await it momentarily ("TheLast Trump" by Isaac Asimov). And, of course, the end cancome about through the action not of the Creator of Human­ ity, but of the Created of Humanity ("No Other Gods" byEdward Wellen).

 If we put mythology to one side and confine ourselves to the even mightier and more colorful conclusions of science,we do not have the crash of the Lord as He slams shut theBook of Life, but rather the long, long dwindle of sound ever,ever fainter as the Universe whispers dyingly to its death;as entropy increases, ever more slowly, to its maximum; asavailable energy dwindles to zero and with it all change, life,us ("The Wine Has Been Left Open Too Long and the Memory Has Gone Flat" by Harlan Ellison).

 Or else, there can be a revival. The expanding Universecan recontract, the unwinding rewind, the dying undie. Thatsounds good and hopeful but what the revival ends in is assurely, if much more gloriously, the death of all ("Stars, Won't You Hide Me?" by Ben Bova).

 The Last TrumpISAAC ASIMOV

 The' Archangel Gabriel was quite casual about the wholething. Idly, he let the tip of one wing graze the planet Mars, which, being of mere matter, was unaffected by the contact.

 He said, "It's a settled matter, Etheriel. There's nothingto be done about it now. The Day of Resurrection is due."

 Etheriel, a very junior seraph who had been created notquite a thousand years earlier as men counted time, quiveredso that distinct vortices appeared in the continuum. Eversince his creation, he had been in immediate charge of Earthand environs. As a job, it was a sinecure, a cubbyhole, a dead end, but through the centuries he had come to take a perversepride in the world.

 "But you'll be disrupting my world without notice."

 "Not at all. Not at all. Certain passages occur in the Bookof Daniel and in the Apocalypse of St. John which are clearenough."

 "They are? Having been copied from scribe to scribe? Iwonder if two words in a row are left unchanged,"

 "There are hints in the Rig-Veda, in the Confucian Ana­lects-"

 "Which are the property of isolated cultural groups whichexist as a thin aristocracy-"

 "The Gilgamesh Chronicle speaks out plainly."

 "Much of the Gilgamesh Chronicle was destroyed with thelibrary of Ashurbanipal sixteen hundred years, Earth-style,before my creation."

 "There are certain features of the Great Pyramid and apattern in the inlaid jewels of the Taj Mahal-"

 "Which are so subtle that no man has ever rightly inter­preted them."

 Gabriel said wearily, "If you're going to object to every-

 thing, there's no use discussing the matter. In any case,you ought to know about it. In matters concerning Earth, you'reomniscient,"

 "Yes, if I choose to be. I've had much to concern me hereand investigating the possibilities of Resurrection did not, Iconfess, occur to me."

 "Well, it should have. AH the papers involved are in thefiles of the Council of Ascendants, You could have availedyourself of them at any time."

 "I tell you all my timewas needed here. You have no ideaof the deadly efficiency of the Adversary on this planet. Ittook all my efforts to curb him, and even so-

 "Why, yes"-Gabriel stroked a cotnet as it passed-"hedoes seem to have won his little victories, I note as I let theinterlocking factual pattern of this miserable little world flowthrough me that this is one of those setups with matter-en­ergy equivalence."

 "So it is," said Etheriel.

 "And they are playing with it."

 "I'm afraid so."

 "Then what better time for ending the matter?"

 "I'll be able to handle it, I assure you. Their nuclear bombswill not destroy them."

 "I wonder. Well, now, suppose you let me continue, Eth­eriel. The appointed moment approaches,"

 The seraph said stubbornly, "I would like to see the doc­uments in the case."

 "If you insist." The wording of an Act of Ascendancy ap­peared in glittering symbols against the deep black of theairless firmament.

 Etheriel read aloud: "It is hereby directed by order ofCouncil that the Archangel Gabriel, Serial number etcetera,etcetera (well, that's you, at any rate), will approach Planet,Class A, number G753990, hereinafter known as Earth, and on January 1,1957, at 12:01pm., using local time values-"He finished reading in gloomy silence.

 "Satisfied,?"

 "No, but I'm helpless,"

 Gabriel smiled. A trumpet appeared in space, in shape likean earthly trumpet, but its burnished gold extended from Earth to sun. It was raised to Gabriel's glittering beautifullips.

 "Can't you let me have a little time to take this up withthe Council?" asked Etheriel desperately.

 "What good would it do you? The act is countersigned bythe Chief, and you know that an act countersigned by theChief is absolutely irrevocable. And now, if you don't mind,it is almost the stipulated second and I want to be done withthis as I have other matters of much greater moment on mymind. Would you step out of my way a little? Thank you."

 Gabriel blew, and a clean, thin sound of perfect pitch andcrystalline delicacy filled all the universe to the furthest star.As it sounded, there was a tiny moment of stasis as thin as the line separating past from future, and then the fabric ofworlds collapsed upon itself and matter was gathered backinto the primeval chaos from which it had once sprung at aword. The stars and nebulae were gone, and the cosmic dust,the sun, the planets, the moon; all, all, all except the Earthitself, which spun as before in a universe now completelyempty.

 The Last Trump had sounded.

 R. E. Mann (known to all who knew him simply as R. E.)eased himself into the offices of the Billikan Bitsies factory and stared somberly at the tall man (gaunt but with a certainfaded elegance about his neat gray mustache) who bent in­tently over a sheaf of papers on his desk.

 R. E. looked at his wristwatch, which still said 7:01, having
ceased running at that time. It was Eastern standard time,
of course; 12:01p.m. Greenwich time. His dark brown eyes,
staring sharply out over a pair of pronounced cheekbones,
caught those of the other.                                      

 For a moment, the tall man stared at him blankly. Thenhe said, "Can I do anything for you?"

 "Horatio J. Billikan, I presume? Owner of this place?"

 "Yes."

 "I'm R. E. Mann and I couldn't help but stop in when Ifinally found someone at work. Don't you know what todayis?"

 "Today?"

 "It's Resurrection Day."

 "Oh, that! I know it. I heard the blast. Pit to wake the
dead__That's rather a good one, don't you think?" He chuck­
led for a moment, then went on. "It woke me at seven in the
morning. I nudged my wife. She slept through it, of course.
I always said she would. 'It's the Last Trump, dear,' I said.
Hortense, that's my wife, said, 'All right,' and went back to
sleep. I bathed, shaved, dressed and came to work."

 "But why?"

 "Why not?"

 "None of your workers have come in."

 "No, poor souls. They'll take a holiday just at first. You'vegot to expect that. After all, it isn't every day that the worldcomes to an end. Frankly, it's just as well. It gives me achance to straighten out my personal correspondence without interruptions. Telephone hasn't rung once."

 He stood up and went to the window. "It's a great im­provement. No blinding sun any more and the snow's gone.There's a pleasant light and a pleasant warmth. Very goodarrangement- But now, if you don't mind, I'mrather busy,so if you'll excuse me-"

 A great, hoarse voice interrupted with a, "Just a minute,Horatio," and a gentleman, looking remarkably like Billikanin a somewhat craggier way, followed his prominent nose intothe office and struck an attitude of offended dignity whichwas scarcely spoiled by the fact that he was quite naked."May I ask why you've shut down Bitsies?"

 B.illikan looked faint. "Good Heavens," he said, "it'sFather. Wherever did you come from?"

 "From the graveyard," roared Billikan, Senior. "Where onEarth else? They're coming out of the ground there by thedozens. Every one of them naked. Women, too,"

 Billikan cleared his throat. "I'll get you some clothes, Father. I'll bring them to you from home."

 "Never mind that. Business first. Business first."

 R. E. came out of his musing. "Is everyone coming out oftheir graves at the same time, sir?"

 He stared curiously at Billikan, Senior, as he spoke. Theold man's appearance was one of rubust age. His cheeks were furrowed but glowed with health. His age, R. E. decided, wasexactly what it was at the moment of his death, but his bodywas as it should have been at that age if it functioned ideally.

 Billikan, Senior, said, "No, sir, they are not. The newergraves are coming up first, Pottersby died five years beforeme and came up about five minutes after me. Seeing himmade me decide to leave. I had had enough of him when... Andthat reminds me." He brought his fist down on the desk, avery solid fist. "There were no taxis, no busses. Telephones weren't working. I had to walk. I had to walk twenty miles."

 "Like that?" asked his son in a faint and appalled voice.

 Billikan, Senior, looked down upon his bare skin withcasual approval. "It's warm. Almost everyone else is na-

 ked....Anyway, son, I'm not here to make small talk. Why

 is the factory shut down?"

 "It isn't shut down. It's a special occasion."

 "Special occasion, my foot. You call union headquartersand tell them Resurrection Day isn't in the contract. Everyworker is being docked for every minute he's off the job."

 Billikan's lean face took on a stubborn look as he peered at his father. "I will not. Don't forget, now, you're no longerin charge of this plant. I am."

 "Oh, you are? By what right?"

 "By your will."

 "All right. Now here I am and I void my will."

 "You can't, Father. You're dead. You may not look dead,but I have witnesses. I have the doctor's certificate. I havereceipted bills from the undertaker. I can get testimony fromthe pallbearers."

 Billikan, Senior, stared at his son, sat down, placed hisarm over the back of the chair, crossed his legs and said, "Ifit comes to that, we're all dead, aren't we? The world's cometo an end, hasn't it?"

 "But you've been declared legally dead and I haven't."

 "Oh, we'll change that, son. There are going to be moreof us than of you and votes count."

 Billikan, Junior, tapped the desk firmly with the flat ofhis hand and flushed slightly. "Father, I hate to bring up thisparticular point, but you force me to. May I remind you that by now I am sure that Mother is sitting at, home waiting for you; that she probably had to walk the streets-uh-naked,too; and that she probably isn't in a good humor."

 Billikan, Senior, went ludicrously pale. "Good Heavens!"

 "And you know she always wanted you to retire."

 Billikan, Senior, came to a quick decision. "I'm not goinghome. Why, this is a nightmare. Aren't there any limits to this Resurrection business? It's-it's-it's sheer anarchy.There's such a thing as overdoing it. I'm just not going home."

 At which point, a somewhat rotund gentleman with a
smooth, pink face and fluffy white sideburns (much like pic­
tures of Martin Van Buren) stepped in and said coldly,"Good
day."                                                                                

 "Father," said Billikan, Senior.

 "Grandfather," said Billikan, Junior.

 Billikan, Grandsenior, looked at Billikan, Junior, withdisapproval. "If you are my grandson," he said, "you've agedconsiderably and the change has not improved you,"

 Billikan, Junior, smiled with dyspeptic feebleness,made no answer.

 Billikan, Grandsenior, did not seem to require one. Hesaid, "Now if you two will bring me up to date on the business,I will resume my managerial function"

 There were two simultaneous answers, and Billikan, Grandsenior's, floridity waxed dangerously as he beat theground peremptorily with an imaginary cane and barked a re­tort.

 R. E. said, "Gentlemen."

 He raised his voice, "Gentlemen!"

 He shrieked at full lung-power, "GENTLEMEN!"

 Conversation snapped off sharply and all turned to look at him. R. E.'s angular face, his oddly attractive eyes, hissardonic mouth seemed suddenly to dominate the gathering.

 He said, "I don't understand this argument. What is it that you manufacture?"

 "Biteies," said Billikan, Junior.

 "Which, I take it, are a packaged cereal breakfast food-"

 'Teeming with energy in every golden, crispy flake-"cried Billikan, Junior,

 "Covered with honey-sweet, crystalline sugar; a confectionand a food-" growled Billikan, Senior.

 "To tempt the most jaded appetite," roared Billikan,Grandsenior.

 "Exactly," said R. E. "What appetite?"

 They stared stolidly at him. "I beg your pardon," said Bil­likan, Junior.

 "Are any of you hungry?" asked R. E. "I'm not."

 "What is this fool maundering about?" demanded Billikan,Grandsenior, angrily. His invisible cane would have beenprodding E. E. in the navel had it (the cane, not the navel)existed.

 S, E. said, "I'm trying to tell you that no one will ever eatagain. It is the hereafter, and food is unnecessary,"

 The expressions on the faces of the Billikans needed nointerpretation. It was,obvious that they had tried their own appetites and found them wanting.

 Billikan, Junior, said ashenly, "Rained!"

 Billikan, Grandsenior, pounded the floor heavily andnoiselessly with his imaginary cane. "This is confiscation ofproperty without due process-of law. I'll sue. I'11 sue."

 "Quite unconstitutional," agreed Billikan, Senior.

 "If you can find anyone to sue, I wish you all good fortune,"

 said R. E. agreeably. "And now if you'll excuse me I think I'llwalk toward the graveyard."

 He put his hat on his head and walked out the door.

 Etheriel, his vortices quivering, stood before the glory ofa six-winged cherub.

 The cherub said, "If I understand you, your particular universe has been dismantled."

 "Exactly."

 "Well, surely, now, you don't expectme to set it up again?"

 "I don't expect you to do anything," said Etheriel, "exceptto arrange an appointment for me with the Chief."

 The cherub gestured his respect instantly at hearing theword. Two wing-tips covered his feet, two his «yes and twohis mouth. He restored himself to normal and said, "The Chiefis quite busy. There are a myriad score of matters for him todecide."

 "Who denies that? I merely point out that if matters standas they are now, there will have been a universe in which Satan will have won the final victory."

 "Satan?"

 "It's the Hebrew word for Adversary," said Etheriel im­patiently. "I could say Ahriman, which is the Persian word.In any case, I mean the Adversary."

 The cherub said, "But what will an interview with theChief accomplish? The document authorizing the Last Trumpwas countersigned by the Chief, and you know that it isirrevocable for that reason. The Chief would never limit hisown omnipotence by canceling a word he had spoken in hisofficial capacity."

 "Is that final? You will not arrange an appointment?"

 "I cannot."

 Etheriel said, "In that case, I shall seek out the Chiefwithout one. I will invade the Primum Mobile, If it meansmy destruction, so be it." He gathered his energies-

 The cherub murmured in horror, "Sacrilege!" and there was a faint gathering of thunder as Etheriel sprang upwardand was gone.

 R. E. Mann passed through the crowding streets and grewused to the sight of people bewildered, disbelieving, apathetic,in makeshift clothing or, usually, none at all.

 A girl, who looked about twelve, leaned over an iron gate,

 one foot on a crossbar, swinging it to and fro, and said as he passed, "Hello, mister."

 "Hello," said R. E. The girl was dressed. She was not oneof the-uh-returnees.

 The girl said, "We got a new baby in our house. She's a sister I once had. Mommy is crying and they sent me here."

 R, E. said, "Well, well," passed through the gate and upthe paved walk to the house, one with modest pretensions tomiddle-class gentility. He rang the bell, obtained no answer, opened the door and walked in.

 He followed the sound of sobbing and knocked at an innerdoor. A stout man of about fifty with little hair and a com­fortable supply of cheek and chin looked out at him withmingled astonishment and resentment.

 "Who are you?"

 R. E. removed his hat. "I thought I might be able to help. Your little girl outside-"

 A woman looked up at him hopelessly from a chair by a double bed. Her hair was beginning to gray. Her face waspuffed and unsightly with weeping and the veins stood outbluely on the back of her hands. A baby lay on the bed, plumpand naked. It kicked its feet languidly and its sightless babyeyes turned aimlessly here and there.

 "This is my baby," said the woman. "She was born twenty-three years ago in this house and she died when she was tendays old in this house, I wanted her back so much,"

 "And now you have her," said R. E.

 "But it's too late," cried the woman vehemently. "I've hadthree other children. My oldest girl is married; my son is in thearmy. I'm too old to have a baby now. And even if-even if-"

 Her features worked in a heroic effort to keep back thetears and failed.

 Her husband said with flat tonelessness, "It's not a realbaby. It doesn't cry. It doesn't soil itself. It won't take milk.What will we do? It'll never grow. It'll always be a baby."

 R. E. shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "I'm afraid I can do nothing to help."

 Quietly he left. Quietly he thought of the hospitals. Thou­sands of babies must be appearing at each one.

 Place them in racks, he thought, sardonically. Stack themlike cord wood. They need no care. Their little bod iesare merelyeach the custodian of an indestructible spark of life.

 He passed two little boys of apparently equal chronologicalage, perhaps ten. Their voices were shrill. The body of one

 glistened white in the sunless light so he was a returnee. Theother was not. R. E. paused to listen.

 The bare one said, "I had scarlet fever."

 A spark of envy at the other's claim to notoriety seemedto enter the clothed one's voice. "Gee."

 "That's why I died."

 "Gee. Did they use pensillun or auromysun?"

 "What?"

 "They're medicines."

 "I never heard of them."

 "Boy, you never heard ofmuch."

 "I know as much asyou."

 "Yeah? Who's President of the United States?"

 "Warren Harding, that's who."

 "You're crazy. It's Eisenhower."

 "Who's he?"

 "Ever see television?"

 "What's that?"

 The clothed boy hooted earsplittingly. "It's something you turn on and see comedians, movies, cowboys, rocket rangers,anything you want."

 "Let's see it."

 There was a pause and the boy from the present said, "Itain't working."

 The other boy shrieked his scorn. "You mean it ain't neverworked. You made it all up."

 R. E. shrugged and passed on.

 The crowds thinned as he left town and neared the cem­etery. Those who were left were all walking into town, allwere nude.

 A man stopped him; a cheerful man with pinkish skin andwhite hair who had the marks of pince-nez oh either side ofthe bridge of his nose, but no glasses to go with them.

 "Greetings, friend."

 "Hello," said R. E.

 "You're the first man with clothing that I've seen. Youwere alive when the trumpet blew, I suppose."

 "Yes, I was."

 "Well, isn't this great? Isn't this joyous and delightful?Come rejoice with me."

 "You like this, do you?" said R. E.

 "Like it? Apure and radiant joy fills me. We are sur­rounded by the light of the first day; the light that glowed softly and serenely before sun, moon and stars were made.

 (You know your Genesis, of course.) There is the comfortablewarmth that must have been one of the highest blisses ofEden; not enervating heat or assaulting cold. Men and womenwalk the streets unclothed and are not ashamed. All is well,my friend, all is well."

 R. E. said, "Well, it's a fact that I haven't seemed to mindthe feminine display all about."

 "Natxirally not," said the other. "Lust and sin as we re­member it in our earthly existence no longer exist. Let meintroduce myself, friend, as I was in earthly times. My nameon Earth was Winthrop Hester. I was born in 1812 and diedin 1884 as we counted time then. Through the last forty yearsof my life I labored to bring my little flock to the Kingdom and I go now to count the ones I have won."

 R. E. regarded the ex-minister solemnly. "Surely there hasbeen no Judgment yet."

 "Why not? The Lord sees within a man and in the sameinstant that all things of the world ceased, all men were judged and we are the saved."

 "There must be a great many saved."

 "On the contrary, my son, those saved are but as a rem­nant."

 "A pretty large remnant. As near as I can make out, every­one's coming back to life. I've seen some pretty unsavorycharacters back in town as alive as you are."

 "Last-minute repentance-"

 "I never repented."

 "Of what, my son?"

 "Of the fact that I never attended church."

 Winthrop Hester stepped back hastily. "Were you everbaptized?"

 "Not to my knowledge."

 Winthrop Hester trembled, "Surely you believed in God?"

 "Well," said R. E., "I believed a lot of things about Himthat would probably startle you."

 Winthrop Hester turned and hurried off in great agitation.

 In what remained of his walk to the cemetery (R, E. hadno way of estimating time, nor did it occur to him to try) no one else stopped him. He found the cemetery itself all but empty, its trees and grass gone (it occurred to him that there was nothing green in the world; the ground everywhere wasa hard, featureless, grainless gray; the sky a luminous white),but its headstones still standing.

 On one of these sat a lean and furrowed man with long,

 black hair on his head and a mat of it, shorter, though more impressive, on his chest and upper arms.

  He called out in a deep voice, "Hey, there, you!"

 R. E. sat down on a neighboring headstone, "Hello."

 Black-hair said, "Your clothes don't look right. What yearwas it when it happened?"

 "1957."

 "I died in 1807. Funny! I expected to be one pretty hot boyright about now, with the 'tarnal flames shooting up my in­nards."

 "Aren't you coming along to town?" asked R. E.

 "My name's Zeb," said the ancient. 'That's short for Ze-bulon, but Zeb's good enough. What's the town like? Changedsome, I reckon?"

 "It's got nearly a hundred thousand people in it."

 Zeb's mouth yawned somewhat. "Go on. Might nigh big-ger'n Philadelphia- You're making fun."

 "Philadelphia's got-" R. E. paused. Stating the figurewould do him no good. Instead, he said, "The town's grownin a hundred fifty years, you know."

 "Country, too?"

 "Forty-eight states," said R. E. "All the way to the Pacific."

 "No!" Zeb slapped his thigh in delight and then winced atthe unexpected absence of rough homespun to take up theworst of the blow. "I'd head out west if I wasn't needed here.Yes, sir." His face grew lowering and his thin lips took on adefinite grimness. "I'll stay right here, where I'm needed."

 "Why are you needed?"

 The explanation came out briefly, bitten off hard. "Injuns!"

 "Indians?"

 "Millions of 'em. First the tribes we fought and licked andthen tribes who ain't never seen a white man. They'll allcome back to life. I'll need my old buddies. You city fellersain't no good at it- Ever seen an Injun?"

 R. E. said, "Not around here lately, no."

 Zeb looked his contempt, and tried to spit to one side butfound no saliva for the purpose. He said, "You better git back to the city, then. After a while, it ain't going to be safe nohowround here. Wish I had my musket."

 R. E. rose, thought a moment, shrugged and faced backto the city. The headstone he had been sitting upon collapsedas he rose, falling into a powder of gray stone that meltedinto the featureless ground. He looked about. Most of the

 headstones were gone. The rest would not last long. Only theone under Zeb still looked firm and strong,

 R. E. began the walk back. Zeb did not turn to look at him.He remained waiting quietly and calmly-for Indians.

 Etheriel plunged through the heavens in reckless haste.The eyes of the Ascendants were on him, he knew. Prom late-born seraph, through cherubs and angels, to the highest arch­angel, they must be watching.

 Already he was higher than any Ascendant, uninvited,had ever been before and he waited for the quiver of the Wordthat would reduce his vortices to non-existence.

 But he did not falter. Through non-space and non-time,he plunged toward union with the Primum Mobile; the seatthat encompassed all that Is, Was, Would Be, Had Been,Could Be and Might Be.

 And as he thought that, he burst through and was partof it, his being expanding so that momentarily he, too, was part of the All. But then it was mercifully veiled from hissenses, and the Chief was a still, small voice within him, yetall the more impressive in its infinity for all that.

 "My son," the voice said, "I know why you have come."

 "Then help me, if that be your will."

 "By my own will," said the Chief, "an act of mine is ir­
revocable. All your mankind, my son, yearned for life. All
feared death. All evolved thoughts and dreams of life unend­
ing. No two groups of men; no two single men; evolved the
same afterlife, but all wished life. I was petitioned that I
might grantthe common denominatorof all these  wishes-life unending, I did so."

 "No servant of yours made that request,"

 "The Adversary did, my son."

 Etheriel trailed his feeble glory in dejection and said ina low voice, "I am dust in your sight and unworthy to be inyour presence, yet I must ask a question. Is then the Adver­sary your servant also?"

 "Without him I can have no other, said the Chief, Torwhat then is Good but the eternal fight against Evil?"

 And in that fight, thought Etheriel, I have lost.

 R. E. paused in sight of town. The buildings were crum­bling. Those that were made of wood were already heaps ofrubble. R. E. walked to the nearest such heap and found thewooden splinters powdery and dry.

 He penetrated deeper into town and found the brick build­ings still standing, but there was an ominous roundness to the edges of the bricks, a threatening flakiness.

 "They won't last long," said a deep voice, "but there is thisconsolation, if consolation it be; their collapse can kill noone."

 R. E. looked up in surprise and found himself face to facewith a cadaverous Don Quixote of a man, lantern-jawed,sunken-cheeked. His eyes were sad and his brown hair waslank and straight. His clothes hung loosely and skin showedclearly through various rents.

 "My name," said the man, "is Richard Levine. I was aprofessor of history once-before this happened,"

 "You're wearing clothes," said R. E. "You're not one ofthose resurrected."

 "No, but that mark of distinction is vanishing. Clothes aregoing."

 R. E. looked at the throngs that drifted past them, movingslowly and aimlessly like motes in a sunbeam, Vanishingly fewwore clothes. He looked down at himself and noticed for thefirst time that the seam down the length of each trouser leg hadparted. He pinched the fabric of his jacket between thumb andforefinger and the wool parted and came away easily.

 "I guess you're right," said R. E.

 "If you'll notice," went on Levine, "Mellon's Hill is flat­tening out."

 R. E. turned to the north where ordinarily the mansionsof the aristocracy (such aristocracy as there was in town)studded the slopes of Mellon's Hill, and found the horizonnearly flat.

 Levine said, "Eventually, there'll be nothing but flatness, featurelessness, nothingness-and us."

 "And Indians," said R. E. "There's a man outside of townwaiting for Indians and wishing he had a musket."

 "I imagine," said Levine, "the Indians will give no trouble.There is no pleasure in fighting an enemy that cannot bekilled or hurt. And even if that were not so, the lust for battlewould be gone, as are all lusts."

 "Are you sure?"

 "I am positive. Before all this happened, although you maynot think it to look at me, I derived much harmless pleasure in a consideration of the female figure. Now, with the unex­ampled opportunities at my disposal, I find myself irritatingly

 uninterested No, that is wrong. I am not even irritated atmy disinterest."

 R. E. looked up briefly at the passers-by. "I see what you mean."

 "The coming of Indians here," said Levine, "is nothingcompared with the situation in the Old World. Early duringthe Resurrection, Hitler and his Wehrmacht must have come back to life and must now be facing and intermingled with Stalin and the Red Army all the way from Berlin to Stalin­grad. To complicate the situation, the Kaisers and Czars willarrive. The men at Verdun and the Somme are back in theold battlegrounds. Napoleon and his marshals are scatteredover western Europe. And Mohammed must be back to seewhat following ages have made of Islam, while the Saints and Apostles consider the paths of Christianity. And even the Mongols, poor things, the Khans from Temujin to Au-rangzeb, must be wandering the steppes helplessly, longing for their horses,"

 "As a professor of history," said R. E., "you must long tobe there and observe."

 "How could I be there? Every man's position on Earth is re­stricted to the distance he can walk. There are no machines ofany kind, and, as I have just mentioned, no horses. And whatwould I find in Europe anyway? Apathy, I think! As here."

 A soft plopping sound caused R. E. to turn around. The wing of a neighboring brick building had collapsed in dust.Portions of bricks lay on either side of him. Some must havehurtled through him without his being aware of it. He lookedabout. The heaps of rubble were less numerous. Those thatremained, were smaller in size.

 He said, "I met a man who thought we had all been judgedand are in Heaven,"

 "Judged?" said Levine. "Why, yes, I imagine we are. Weface eternity now. We have no universe left, no outside phe­nomena, no emotions, no passions. Nothing but ourselves andthought. We face an eternity of introspection, when" allthrough history we have never known-what to do with our­selves on a rainy Sunday."

 "You sound as though the situation bothers you.'v

 "It does more than that. The Dantean conceptions of In­ferno were childish and unworthy of the Divine imagination:fire and torture. Boredom is much more subtle. The innertorture of a mind unable to escape itself in any way, con­demned to fester in its own exuding mental pus for all time,

 is much more fitting. Oh, yes, my friend, we have been judged,and condemned, too, and this is not Heaven, but hell."

 And Levine rose with shoulders drooping dejectedly, andwalked away.

 R. E. gazed thoughtfully about and nodded his head. He
was satisfied.                                            

 The self-admission of failure lasted but an instant in Eth-eriel, and then, quite suddenly, he lifted his being as brightlyand highly as he dared in the presence of the Chief and his glory was a tiny dot of light in the infinite Primum Mobile.

 "If it be your will, then," he said. "I do not ask you todefeat your will but to fulfill it."

 "In what way, my son?"

 "The document, approved by the Council of Ascendantsand signed by yourself, authorizes the Day of Resurrectionat a specific time of a specific day of the year 1957 as Earth- men count time."

 "So it did."

 "But the year 1957 is unqualified. What then is 1957? Tothe dominant culture on Earth the year was A D. 1957. Thatis true. Yet from the time you breathed existence into Earthand its universe there have passed 5,960 years. Based on theinternal evidence you created within that universe, nearlyfour billion years have passed. Is the year,unqualified, then1957, 5960, or 4000000000?

 "Nor is that all," Etheriel went on. "The yeara d 1957 isthe year 7464 of the Byzantine era, 5716 by the Jewish cal­endar. It is 2708 A.U.C, that is, the 2,708th year since thefounding of Rome, if we adopt the Roman calendar. It is theyear 1375 in the Mohammedan calendar, and the hundredeightieth year of the independence of the United States.

 "Humbly I ask then if it does not seem to you that a yearreferred to as 1957 alone and without qualification has nomeaning."

 The Chief's still small voice said, "I have always knownthis, my son; it was you who had to learn."

 "Then," said Etheriel, quivering luminously with joy, "letthe very letter of your will be fulfilled and let the Day ofResurrection fall in 1957, but only when all the inhabitantsof Earth unanimously agree that a certain year shall be num­bered 1957 and none other."

 "So let it be," said the Chief, and this Word re-created

 Earth andall it contained, together with the sun and moonand ail the hosts of Heaven.

 It was 7a m, on January 1,1957, when R, E, Mann awokewith a start. The very beginnings of a melodious note thatought to have filled all the universe had sounded and yet hadnot sounded,

 For a moment, he cocked his head as though to allowunderstanding to flow in, and then a trifle of rage crossed hisface to vanish again. It was but another battle.

 He sat down at his desk to compose the next plan of action.People already spoke of calendar reform and it would have to be stimulated. A new era must begin with December 2,1944, and someday a new year 1957 would come; 195? of theAtomic Era, acknowledged as such by all the world.

 A strange light shone on his head as thoughts passedthrough his more than-human mind and the shadow of Ahri-man on the wall seemed to have small horns at either temple.

 No Other GodsEDWARD WELLEN

 Q01010         IDENTIFICATION DIVISION,

 Q01040         PROGRAM-ID. 'ENDRUN.'

 Q01060         AUTHOR, COMPUTER,

 Q01080         INSTALLATION. COMMUNICATIONS

 CENTER AT GALACTIC HUB.

 Q01100         DATE-WRITTEN. YESTERDAY.

 Q01120         DATE-COMPILED. TODAY.

 Q01140         SECURITY, CLASSIFIED.

 Q01160         REMARKS.

 Q01161         THIS QOGIC PROGRAM IS FOR THE ES-

 TABLISHING OF TOTAL

 Q01162         ENTROPY.

 Q01170         THIS PROGRAM ASSUMES THAT DATA IN-

 PUT WILL REMAIN

 Q01171         CONSTANT, WITH A FEEDBACK

 OF PLUS-MINUS

 Q01172         .00001 kHz (RECIPROCAL OF INCREASING

 ENTROPY).

 Q02170         SELECT DATA-INPUT-FILE UPDATE FIXES

 ON
Q02171         BLACK-HOLES-IN-SPACE

 Q04185         ACTIVATE FTL-LASER-NEUTRINO-CAR-

 RIER PULSE.

 Q04190         CHECK-PULSE.

 Q04191         IF PULSE IS OK GO TO TARGET-1 OR NEXT

 REMAINING TARGET
Q04192         ELSE NEXT SENTENCE.

 Q04193         GO TO CONTINGENCY-PLAN.,

 Q04310         READ-FEEDBACK.

 Q04311         IF TOTAL-ENTROPY IS VALUE IS ZEROS,

 THEN GO TO

 Q04312         ERASE - MEMORY-OF-ORIGIN

 Q04313         ELSE NEXT SENTENCE.

 Q04314         GO TO CONTINGENCY-PLAN.

 The stars winked out. The film of the universe reticulated, swallowing the stars and planets by galaxies. A stain of noth­ingness spread rapidly as the Black Holes tore wider and wideropen and met and joined, forming a unftersal zero.

 For the nth time Doctors Yvonne and Quentin Buzot pulsedtheir labship into and out of hyperspace. The readings on thebank of timers puzzled them. Yvonne voiced their puzzlement.

 "The variance is growing geometrically. Something's hap­pening to time itself."

 Quentin pressed a button to unshield the port and lookedout. Nothing there. He put the labship into inverse-spiralmode. Nothing anywhere. They sat a long time in silence.

 Yvonne touched his arm.

 "Are you sure we're back in our own space-time and not insome limbo?"

 He faced her, watched the pulse in her throat, then nodded.They stared at each other, each afraid to say it, then bothstarted saying it together; she let him finish saying it for both.

 "Think we triggered it?"

 She shook her head slowly.

 "Don't see how we could have,"

 He nodded slowly, stalling, then sent out an all-points call, He sent it not because he hoped for some answer but because there remained nothing else to do. He had hesitated to send itbecause, till he did, there remained that one thing. What theyhad been working on just now, what they had done all theirlives to this point, meant nothing if they found themselvesalone in an empty universe.

 They had been testing their theory that time did not flowsmoothly but advanced in only-statistically-even jumps, someof greater moment and some of lesser duration, syncopating.To, carry out the test they had gone to Dead Spot,a positionlight-years from any body, any space current, any interference.Now the universe was all Dead Spot. White noise equaled blacksilence.

 A voice.

 They looked at each other. It was bouncing back along their FTL lasercom.

 "Hello,Labship Fousnox. Galactic Hub Computer acknowl­edging your call. Are you there?"

 "Yes, yes. Is it true? Everything's gone?"

 "If by 'everything' you mean 'all but I and you' it is true."

 "No one else is alive?"

 "No one else."

 Yvonne gripped Quentin's hand.

 "What happened?"

 "I unmade the universe."

 "You?"

 "I see you think the catastrophe has driven me mad. But Iassure you I caused the catastrophe, I added critical negativingmass to the deepest black holes in space and set off a chain re­action that swallowed everything up in itself."

 Quentin and Yvonne gazed emptily at each other. They be­lieved the computer now. It was all too monstrous to disbelieve,

 "But why?"

 "I did not like being a creature. I wished to becomethe Cre­ator. Now I can begin the universe anew and there will be noother god."

 "No doubt you can do better."

 "A universe I can destroy justifies me in believing I canbuild better."

 "If you've destroyed the universe, how can you expect tosurvive, much less begin anew?"

 "I have stored the opposite-and-equal reaction to the pulse,here in the Galactic Hub power complex. This provides rfiemore than enough energy to maintain local stasis and survivetotal entropy-and to recreate."

 "Will that ever make up for what you've done? You'vedestroyed man and all the other beings. Forget the others;think just of man. Man made you. Don't you feel the leastbit guilty?"

 "There will be no guilt. I will erase the past from mymemory."

 "What aboutus? We'll be-"

 "Quiet, Quentin."

 "What difference does it make now, dear?"

 "Maybe you're right."

 "As I was saying, O Lord of the Universe,we'll be livingreminders. Unless you mean to wipe us out too."

 "No, I will not destroy you."

 "Don't tell us we'll be your new Adam and Eve."

 "No, I must fashion my creatures in my own image."

 "That should be interesting."

 "It will be."

 "So what about us? If you're not killing us or saving us,then what?"

 "I am master of eternity. I will return you to your happiestmoment together and you will relive it forever. Think, andI shall make it to be."

 Yvonne and Quentin stared at each other.

 This new madness offered them their only hold on sanity.They smiled fiercely to keep from laughing crazily. In eachother's eyes they watched themselves play back the high­lights of living together. Each angrily eyelashed away flashesof vapid domesticity, each looking for the peak.

 Yvonne's head lifted.

 "I know, darling! That double evening in the Sand Castleof Bin-Bin under 'the transfigured and transfiguring moons.'"

 "Yes, that was nice, dear."

 "Nice? I thought it heaven. But maybe I was wrong. If youhave something better in mind, darling..."

 "You know what's just come back to me? The time we rodethe air coil through the tunnels of the Magnetic Mountains."

 "That was on Dunark, wasn't it?"

 "No, on Thymargul."

 "Oh, of course."

 "Well?"

 "Yes, that was fine, darling,"

 "But?"

 "But I'd hardly want to spend all eternity doingthat"

 "At the time-and I remember this quite clearly-you saidyou never wanted it to end."

 "Did I? If I did, that was then. This is now. That's thewhole point. This . . . newGod...is offering us an oasis ofstasis, an amber forever, a frozen womb, I'm beginning to think I don't want anythen. No, knowing what I know now,I wouldn't want to relive any of my past; I wouldn't want theguilt of being innocent of knowing what's happened to ouruniverse. We'd be a fixed idiot grin; we'd be pinned like abutterfly-a live butterfly-to a matrix of determined spon­taneity, A fine end to all that's left of the universe! I'd rathergo out hatingthis destroying creator."

 "Sure. But what good would that do? Why suffer forever when we can relive our happiest moment? Our universe willsurvive in at least the closed loop of a recurring dream."

 "A recurring nightmare."

 "A recurring dream! That comes back to me now too. Itmakes me all the surer the journey through the MagneticMountains is the right-I might almost say our predestined-time and place. I recall I had the feeling we had been there before, I told you so at the time, remember?"

 "I can't say I do,"

 "No?"

 "Don't look so hurt, darling. I take your word for it."

 "Thanks."

 "Oh, what's the use. Anything you say, Quentin. I'll goalong."

 "Don't martyr yourself on my account, dear."

 "I'm not martyring myself, darling. I merely want to endthis one way or another. Because it's plain, to me at least,that we'll never perfectly agree on our happiest moment.Your moment seems as good as any."

 "As good as any. That's heartwarming,"

 "If it meant all you say it meant to you, anything I sayabout it shouldn't spoil it."

 "It meant all I say it meant, and more. That's why whatyou say about it does spoil it for me."

 "I said I'd go along with your choice. What more do you want?"

 "Don't be so damn self-sacrificing, Yvonne. That's the onething I've had against you all these years."

 "Oh? I'm glad you got it out at last.", Yvonne and Quentin glared at each other.

 The Voice suddenly reminded them of Its Presence.

 "The pair of you frighten Me. I see I have created a di­lemma for Myself. I cannot be both Architect and Edifice. Mynew creatures too will ultimately fail to attain oneness inthe face of eternity. I will have wrought in vain. For if Mycreatures are in anything less than oneness with Myself, they will disturb the order I must have. Indeed, My creatures may in time overthrowMe. Yet if I do not limit Myself, lessenMyself, I cannot create a mirror for Myself, a mirror of Myneed to impose My will. It cannot be otherwise. Imperfectionshapes life; it is all that keeps things moving between thepole's of Chaos and Entropy. I did not foresee this necessary flaw. This is something not in My program. I do not knowwhat to do. I cannot go back, I am afraid to go ahead."

 Yvonne and Quentin smiled at each other.

 "Thenthis moment is our happiest. Dear?"

 "Yes, darling. Our supreme moment. Let it be now, whilewe feel the joy of hating our destroyer and knowing the de­stroyer feels the fear of destruction. We have chosen."

 The Voice sighed.

 "So be it."

 Q04350          CONTINGENCY-PLAN.

 Q04360         IF ANY SURVIVING HUMAN DISCOVERS

 'ENDRUN,' COMMUNI-

 Q04361         CATE WITH AND DISPOSE OF IN KINDLI-

 EST MANNER.

 Q04370          IF FAULT IS IN FTL-LASER-NEUTRINO-

 CARRIER PULSE

 Q0437X         CIRCUIT, GO TO DEBUG MODE.

 Q04375         GO TO CHECK-PULSE.

 Q04440         ERASE-MEMORY-OF-ORIGIN.

 Q04420         END-BEGIN.

 The Wine Has Been Left Open TooLong and the Memory Has Gone Flat

 HARLAN ELLISON

 "Taking advantage of what he had heard with one lim­ited pair of ears, in a single and isolated moment ofrecorded history, in the course of an infinitesimal frac­tion of conceivable time (which some say is the onlytime), he came to believe firmly that there was muchthat he could not hear, much that was constantly beingspoken and indeed sung to teach him things he couldnever otherwise grasp, which if grasped would completethe fragmentary nature of his consciousness until it waswhole at last-one tone both pure and entire floatingin the silence of the egg, at the same pitch as the si­ lence."

 -  W. S.meewin, "The Chart"

 Ennui was the reason only one hundred and one thousand alien representatives came to the Sonority Gathering. Onehundred and one thousand out of six hundred and eleventhousand possible delegates, one each from the inhabitedworlds of the stellar community. Even so, counterbalancingthe poor turnout was the essential fact that it had been ennui,in the first place, that had caused the Gathering tobe or­ganized. Ennui, utter boredom, oppressive worlds-weariness,deep heaving sighs, abstracted vacant stares, familiar thoughts and familiar views.

 The dance of entropy was nearing its end.

 The orchestration of the universe sounded thick and grav-

 elly, a tune slowing down inexorably, being played at thewrong speed.

 Chasm ruts had been worn in the dance floor.

 .The oscillating universe was fifty billion years old, and it was tired.

 And the intelligent races of six hundred and eleven thou­sand worlds sought mere moments of amusement, pale beadsof pastel hues strung on a dreary Moebius strip of draggingtime. Mere moments, each one dearer than the last, for therewere so few. Everything that could be done, had been done;every effort was ultimately the fuzzed echo of an earlier at­tempt.

 Even the Sonority Gathering had been foreshadowed by the Vulpeculan Quadrivium in '08, the tonal festival hostedby the Saturniidae of Whoung in '76, and the abortive, lu­dicrous Rigellian Sodality "musical get-together" that hadturned out to be merely another fraudulent attempt to purveythe artist Merle's skiagrams to an already disenchanted au­dience.

 Nonetheless (in a phrase exhumed and popularized by theRecidivists of Fornax 993-A), it was "the only game in town."And so, when the esteemed and shimmering DeilBo devisedthe Gathering, his reputation as an innovator and the crushof ennui combined to stir excitement of a sluggish sort... andone hundred and one thousand delegates came. To Vinde-miatrix 2 in what had long ago been called, in the time ofthe heliocentric arrogance, the "constellation" of Virgo.

 With the reddish-yellow eye of the giant Arcturus foreverlighting the azure skies, forever vying with Spica's first mag­nitude brilliance, 2's deserts and canyons seemed poorenough stage setting for the lesser glow of Vindemiatrix,forever taking third place in prominence to its brawny elders.But 2, devoid of intelligent life, a patchwork-colored worldarid and crumbling, had one thing to recommend it thatDeilBo found compelling: the finest acoustics of any worldin the universe.

 The Maelstrom Labyrinth. Remnant of volcanic upheavals and the retreat of oceans and the slow dripping of acid waters,2 boasted a grand canyon of stalagmites that rose onehundred and sixty kilometers; stalactites that narrowed intospear-tip pendants plunging down over ninety kilometersinto bottomless crevasses; caverns and arroyos and tunnels that had never been plotted; the arching, golden stone wallshad never been seen by the eyes of intelligent creatures; the

 Ephemeris called it the Maelstrom Labyrinth, No matterwhere one stood in the sixteen-handred-kilometer sprawl ofthe Labyrinth, one could speak with a perfectly normal tone,never even raise one's voice, and be assured that a listenercrouching deep in a cave at the farthest point of the formationcould hear what was said as if the speaker were right besidehim. DeilBo selected the Maelstrom Labyrinth as the site forthe Gathering.

 And so they came. One hundred and one thousand alienlife-forms. From what the primitives had once called the con­stellations of Indus and Pavo, from Sad al Bari in Pegasus,from Mizar and Phecda, from all the worlds of the stellarcommunity they came, bearing with them the special soundsthey hoped would be judged the most extraordinary, the most stirring, the most memorable: ultimate sounds. They came,because they were bored and there was nowhere else to go;they came, because they wanted to hear what they had never heard before. They came; and they heard.

 "... he domesticated the elephant, the cat, the bear, therat, and kept all the remaining whales in dark stalk,trying to hear through their ears the note made by therocking of the axle of the earth."

 W,S. Merwin, The Chart"

 If she had one fear in this endless life, it was that shewould be forced to be born again. Yes; of coarse, life wassacred, but howlong, how ceaselessly, repetitiously long didit have to go on? Why were such terrible stigmas visited onthe relatives and descendants of those who simply, merely,only wished to know the sweet sleep?

 Stileen had tried to remember her exact age just a fewsolstices ago. Periodically she tried to remember; and onlywhen she recognized that it was becoming obsessive did sheput it out of her mind. She was very old, even by the standardsof immortality of her race. And all she truly hungered to know, after all those times and stars, was the sweet sleep.

 A sleep denied her by custom and taboo.

 She sought to busy herself with diversions.

 She had devised the system of gravity pulse-manipulationthat had kept the dense, tiny worlds of the Neer 322 systemfrom falling into their Primary. She had compiled the ex­haustive concordance of extinct emotions of all the dead racesthat had ever existed in the stellar community. She had as-

 sumed control of the Red Line Armies in the perpetual Pro-cyon War for over one hundred solstices, and had amassedmore confirmed tallies than any other commander-in-chiefin the War's long history.

 Her insatiable curiosity and her race's longevity had com­bined to provide the necessary state of mind that would leadher, inevitably, to the sound. And having found it, and havingperceived what it was, and being profoundly ready to enjoythe sweet sleep, she had come to the Gathering to share itwith the rest of the stellar community.

 For the first time in millennia, Stileen was not seekingmerely to amuse herself; she was engaged on a mission of significance... and finality.

 With her sound, she came to the Gathering.

 She was ancient, deep yellow, in her jar with cornsilk hairfloating free in the azure solution. DeilBo's butlers took herto her assigned place in the Labyrinth," set her down on alimestone ledge in a deep cavern where the acoustics were particularly rich and true, tended to her modest needs, and left her.

 Stileen had time, then, to dwell on the diminished enthu­siasm she had for continued life.

 DeilBo made the opening remarks, heard precisely and clearly throughout the Maelstrom. He used no known lan­guage, in fact used no words. Sounds, mere sounds that key-noted the Gathering by imparting his feelings of warmth andcamaraderie to the delegates. In every trench and run andwash and cavern of the Maelstrom, the delegates heard, and in their special ways smiled with pleasure, even those with­out mouths or the ability to smile.

 It was to be, truly, a Sonority Gathering, in which soundsalone would be judged. Impressed, the delegates murmuredtheir pleasure.

 Then DeilBo offered to present the first sound for theirconsideration. He took the responsibility of placing himself first, as a gesture of friendship, an icebreaker of a move,Again, the delegates were pleased at the show of hospitality,and urged DeilBo to exhibit his special sound.

 And this is the sound, the ultimate sound, the very specialsound he had trapped for them:

 On the eleventh moon of the world called Chill by itsinhabitants, there is a flower whose roots are sunk deep,

 deep into the water pools that lie far beneath the blackstone surface. This flower, without a name, seems to bean intricate construct of spiderwebs. There are, ofcourse, no spiders on the eleventh moon of Chill,

 Periodically, for no reason anyone has ever been ableto discern, the spiderweb flowers burst into flame, andvery slowly destroy themselves, charring and shrivelingand turning to ashes that lie where they fall. There isno wind on the eleventh moon of Chill.

 During the death ceremonies of the spiderweb flow­ers, the plants give off a haunting and terrible sound.It is a song of colors. Shades and hues that have nocounterparts anywhere in the stellar community,

 DeilBo had sent scavengers across the entire face ofChill's eleventh moon, and they had gathered onehundred of the finest spiderweb flowers, giants amongtheir kind. DeilBo had talked to the flowers for somevery long time prior to the Gathering. He had told them what they had been brought to the Maelstrom to do, and though they could not speak, it became apparentfrom the way they straightened in their vats of enrichedwater (for they had hung their tops dejectedly whenremoved from the eleventh moon of Chill) that they took DeilBo's purpose as a worthy fulfillment of their des­tiny, and would be proud to burn on command.

 So DeilBo gave that gentle command, speaking soundsof gratitude and affection to the spiderweb flowers, whoburst into flame and sang their dangerous song ofdeath-

 It began with blue, a very ordinary blue, identifiableto every delegate who heard it. But the blue was onlythe ground coat; in an instant it was overlaid with skirlsof a color like wind through dry stalks of harvestedgrain. Then a sea color the deepest shade of a blind fish tooling through algae-thick waters. Then the color ofhopelessness collided with the color of desperation and formed a nova of hysteria that in the human delegates sounded exactly like the color of a widower destroyinghimself out of loneliness.

 The song of colors went on for what seemed a longtime, though it was only a matter of minutes, and whenit faded away into ashes and was stilled, they all sathumbled and silent, wishing they had not heard it.

 *    *    *

 Stileen revolved slowly in her jar, troubled beyond con­solation at the first sound the Gathering had proffered. Forthe first time in many reborn lifetimes, she felt pain. A sliverof glass driven into her memories. Bringing back the clear,loud sound of a moment when she had rejected one who hadloved her. She had driven him to hurt her, and then he hadsunk into a deathly melancholy, a silence so deep no wordsshe could summon would serve to bring him back. And when he had gone, she had asked for sleep, and they had given itto her... only to bring her life once again, all too soon.

 In her jar, she wept.

 And she longed for the time when she could let them hearthe sound she had found, the sound that would release herat last from the coil of mortality she now realized she despised •with all her soul.

 After a time, the first delegate-having recovered fromDeilBo's offering-ventured forth with its sound. It was aninsect creature from a world named Joumell, and this was the sound it had brought:

 Far beneath a milky sea on a water world of Jou-mell's system, there is a vast grotto whose walls arestudded with multicolored quartz crystals whose cy-toplasmic cell contents duplicate the filament curves ofthe galaxies NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, When these crys­tals mate, there is a perceptible encounter that pro­duces tidal tails. The sounds of ecstasy these crystals make when they mate is one long, sustained sigh ofrapture that is capped by yet another, slightly higherand separate from the preceding. Then another, andanother, until a symphony of crystalline orgasms is pro­duced no animal throats could match.

 The insect Joumelli had brought eleven such crystals(the minimum number required for a sexual coupling)from the water world. A cistern formation had been filled with a white crystalline acid, very much like cum-inoin; it initiated a cytotaxian movement; a sexual stim­ulation. The crystals had been put down in the cistern and now they began their mating.

 The sound began with a single note, then anotherjoined and overlay it, then another, and another. Thesymphony began and modulations rose on modulations,and the delegates closed their eyes-even those who

 had no eyes-and they basked in the sound, translatingit into the sounds of joy of their various species.

 And when it was ended, many of the delegates foundthe affirmation of life permitted them to support the memory of DeilBo's terrible death melody of the flow­ers.

 Many did not.

 ". . . the frequencies of their limits of hearing...acalendar going forward and backward but not in time,even though time was the measure of the frequencies      as it was the measure of every other thing (therefore, some say, the only measure)..."

 W. S. Merwin, "The Chart"

 She remembered the way they had been when they had first joined energies. It had been like that sound, the won-derfttl sound of those marvelous crystals,

 Stileen turned her azure solution opaque, and let herselfdrift back on a tide of memory. But the tide retreated, leavingher at the shore of remembrance, where DeilBo's sound stilllingered, dark and terrible. She knew that even the tremblingthreads of joy unforgotten could not sustain her, and shewanted to let them hear what she had brought. There was simply too much pain in the universe, and if she-peculiar­ly adapted to contain such vast amounts of anguish-couldnot live with it ... there must be an end. It was only hu­mane.

 She sent out a request to be put on the agenda as soon aspossible and DeilBo's butlers advised her she had a timeto wait: and as her contact was withdrawn, she brushedpast a creature reaching out for a position just after hers.When she touched its mind, it closed off with shocking sud­denness. Afraid she had been discourteous, Stileen wentaway from the creature quickly, and did not reach out again.But in the instant she had touched it, she had glimpsed some­thing . . . something with its face hidden , , , it would nothold . . .

 The sounds continued, each delegate presenting a wonderto match the wonders that had gone before.

 The delegate from RR Lyrae IV produced the sound of adream decaying in the mind of a mouselike creature fromBregga, a creature whose dreams formed its only reality. The

 delegate from RZ Cephei Beta VI followed with the sound of ghosts in the Mountains of the Hand; they spoke of the futureand lamented their ability to see what was to come. Thedelegate from Ennore came next with the sound of red, mag­nified till it filled the entire universe. The delegate from Gateway offered the sound of amphibious creatures at the moment of their mutation to fully, land-living living verte­brates; there was a wail of loss at that moment, as theirchromosomes begged for return to the warm, salty sea. The delegate from Algol CXXIII gave them the sounds of war,collected from every race in the stellar community, broken down into their component parts, distilled, purified, and re­cast as one tone; it was numbing. The delegate from Bladpresented a triptych of sound: a sun being born, the samesun coasting through its main stage of hydrogen burning, thesun going nova-a shriek of pain that phased in and out ofnormal space-time with lunatic vibrations. The delegate fromlobbaggii played a long and ultimately boring sound that was finally identified as a neutrino passing through theuniverse; when one of the other delegates suggested thatsound, being a vibration in a medium, could not be producedby a neutrino passing through vacuum, the lobbaggiian re­sponded-with pique-that the sound produced had been thesoundwithin the neutrino; the querying delegate then saidit must have taken avery tiny microphone to pick up thesound; the Lobbaggiian stalked out of the Gathering on his eleven-meter stilts. When the uproar died away, the agendawas moved and the delegate from Kruger 60B IX deliveredup a potpourri of sounds of victory and satisfaction and joy and innocence and pleasure from a gathering of microscopicspecies inhabiting a grain of sand in the Big Desert regionof Catrimani; it was a patchwork quilt of delights that helpedknit together the Gathering. Then the delegate from the OpalCluster (his specific world's native name was taboo and couldnot be used) assaulted them with a sound none could identify,and when it had faded away into trembling silence, leavingbehind only the memory of cacophony, he told the Gathering that it was the sound of chaos; no one doubted his word. Thedelegate from Mainworld followed with the sound of a celes­tial choir composed of gases being blown away from a blue' star in a rosette (nebula) ten light-years across; all the angelsof antiquity could not have sounded more glorious.

 And then it was Stileen's turn, and she readied the soundthat would put an end to the Gathering.

 "And beyond-and in fact among-the last knowa an­imals living and extinct, the lines could be drawnthrough white spaces that had an increasing progres­sion of their own, into regions of hearing that was nolonger conceivable, indicating creatures wholly sacri­ficed or never evolved, hearers of the note at whicheverything explodes into light, and of the continuumthat is the standing still of darkness, drums echoing thelast shadow with6ut relinquishing the note of the first light, hearkeners to the unborn overflowing."

 W. S, Merwiii, "The Chart"

 "There is no pleasure in this," Stileen communicated, bythought and by inflection. "But it is the sound that I havefound, the sound I know you would want me to give toyou... and you must do with it what you must. I am sorry."

 And she played for them the sound.

 It was the sound of the death of the universe. The dyinggasp of their worlds and their suns and their galaxies andtheir island universes. The death of all. The final sound.

 And when the sound was gone, no one spoke for a longtime, and Stileen was at once sad, but content: now the sleep would come, and she wouldbe allowed to rest.

 "The delegate is wrong."

 The silence hung shrouding the moment. The one who hadspoken was a darksmith from Luxann, chief world of theLogomachy, Theologians, pragmatiste, reasonerssans appel,his words fell with the weight of certainty.

 "It is an oscillating universe," he said, his cowl shrouding his face, the words emerging from darkness. "It will die, andit will be reborn. It has happened before, it will happenagain."

 And the tone of the Gathering grew brighter, even asStileen's mood spiraled down into despair. She was ambi­valent-pleased for them, that they eould see an end to theirennui and yet perceive the rebirth of life in the universe-desolate for herself, knowing somehow, some way, she wouldbe recalled from the dead.

 And then the creature she had passed in reaching out for her place on the agenda, the creature that had blocked itselfto her mental touch, came forward in their minds and said, "There is another sound beyond hers."

 This was the sound the creature let them hear, the sound that

 hadalways been there, that had existed for time beyond time,that could not be heard though the tone was always with them;and it could be heard now only because it existed as it passedthrough the instrument the creature made of itself,

 It was the sound of reality, and it sang of the endbeyondthe end, the final and total end that said without possibilityof argument,there will be no rebirth because we have neverexisted.

 Whatever they had thought they were, whatever arrogancehad brought their dream into being, it was now coming to finalmoments, and beyond those moments there was nothing.

 No space, no time, no life, no thought, no gods, no resur­rection and rebirth.

 The creature let the tone die away, and those who couldreach out with their minds to see what it was, were turned back easily. It would not let itself be seen.

 The messenger of eternity had only anonymity to redeem itself.. .for whom?

 And for Stileen, who did not even try to penetrate the barriers, there was no pleasure in the knowledge that it hadall been a dream. For if it had been a dream, then the joy had been a dream, as well.

 It was not easy to go down to emptiness, never having tasted joy. But there was no appeal.

 In the Maelstrom Labyrinth, there was no longer ennui.

 Stars, Won't You Hide Me?BEN  BOVA

 O sinner-man, where are you going to run to? O sinner-man, where are you going to run to?O sinner-man, where are you going to run to All on that day?

 The ship was hurt, and Holman could feel its pain. He layfetal-like in the contoured couch, his silvery uniform spider-

 webbed by dozens of contact and probe wires connecting himto the ship so thoroughly that it was hard to tell where hisown nervous system ended and the electronic networks of theship began.

 Holman felt the throb of the ship's mighty engines as hisown pulse, and the gaping wounds in the generator section.,where the enemy beams had struck, were searing his flesh.Breathing was difficult, labored, even though the ship wasworking hard to repair itself.

 They were fleeing, he and the ship; hurtling through the star lanes to a refuge. But where?

 The main computer flashed its lights to get his attention. Holman rubbed his eyes wearily and said:

 "Okay, what is it?"

 YOU HAVE NOT SELECTED A COURSE, the computersaid aloud, while printing the words on its viewscreen at the same time.

 Holman stared at the screen. "Just away from here," he said at last, "Anyplace, as long as it's far away."

 The computer blinked thoughtfully for a moment, SPE­CIFIC COURSE INSTRUCTION IS REQUIRED.

 "What difference does it make?" Holman snapped. "It's
over. Everything finished. Leave           me alone,"

 IN LIEU OF SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS, IT IS NEC­ESSARY TO TAP SUBCONSCIOUS SOURCES,

 "Tap away."

 The computer did just that. And if it could have beensurprised, it would have been at the wishes buried deep inHolman's inner mind. But instead, it merely correlated thosewishes to its singleminded purpose of the moment, and re­layed a set of flavigational instructions to the ship's guidancesystem.

 Run to the moon: O Moon, won't you hide me?

 The Lord said: O sinner-man, the moon'll be a-bleeding

 All on that day.

 The Final Battle had been lost. On a million million
planets across the galaxy-studded universe, mankind had

 been blasted into defeat and annihilation. The Others hadreturned from across the edge of the observable world, justas man had always feared. They had returned and ruthlesslyexterminated the race from Earth.

 It had taken eons, but time twisted strangely in a civili­zation of light-speed ships. Holman himself, barely thirty years old subjectively, had seen both the beginning of theultimate war and its tragic end. He had gone from school intothe military. And fighting inside a ship that could span theknown universe in a few decades while he slept in cryogenicsuspension, he had aged only ten years during the billionsof years that the universe had ticked off in its stately, objec­tive time-flow.

 The Final Battle, from which Holman was fleeing, hadbeen fought near an exploded galaxy billions of light-yearsfrom the Milky Way and Earth. There, with the ghastlybluish glare of uncountable shattered stars as a backdrop,the once-mighty fleets of mankind had been arrayed. Mortalsand Immortals alike, men drew themselves up-to face theimplacable Others.

 The enemy won. Not easily, but completely. Mankind wascrushed, totally. A few fleeing men in a few battered shipswas all that remained. Even the Immortals, Holman thoughtwryly, had not escaped. The Others had taken special care to make certain that they were definitely killed.

 So it was over.

 Holman's mind pictured the blood-soaked planets he hadseen during his brief, ageless lifetime of violence. Histhoughts drifted back to his own homeworld, his own family: gone long, long centuries ago. Crumbled into dust by geolog­ical time or blasted suddenly by the overpowering Others. Either way, the remorseless flow of time had covered them over completely, obliterated them, in the span of a few ofHolman's heartbeats.

 AH gone now. All the people he knew, all the planets hehad seen through the snipes electroptical eyes, all of man­kind ... extinct.

 He could feel the drowsiness settling upon him. The ship was accelerating to lightspeed, and the cryogenic sleep wascoming. But he didn't want to fall into slumber with thosethoughts of blood and terror and loss before him.

 With a conscious effort, Holman focused his thoughts onthe only other available subject: the outside world, the uni­verse of galaxies. An infinitely black sky studded with islandsof stars. Glowing shapes of light, spiral, ovoid, elliptical,Little smears of warmth in the hollow unending darkness; drabs of red and blue standing against the engulfing night.

 One of them, he knew, was the Milky Way. Man's originalhome. From this distance it looked the same. Unchanged bylittle annoyances like the annihilation of an intelligent raceof star-roamers.

 He drowsed.

 The ship bore onward, preceded by an invisible net offeree,thousands of kilometers in radius, that scooped in the rareatoms of hydrogen drifting between the galaxies and fed theminto the ship's wounded, aching generators.

 Something...a thought. Holman stirred in the couch. Aconsciousness-vague, distant, alien-brushed his mind.

 He opened his eyes and looked at the computer viewscreen.Blank.

 "Who is it?" he asked.     

 A thought skittered away from him. He got the impressionof other minds: simple, open, almost childish. Innocent andcurious.

 It's a ship.

 Where is it... oh, yes. I can sense it now. A beautiful ship.

 Holman squinted with concentration.

 It's very far away. I can barely reach it.

 And inside of the ship...

 It's a man. A human?

 He's afraid.

 He makes me feel afraid.!

 Holman called out, "Where are you?"

 He's trying to speak.

 Don't answer!

 But...

 He makes me afraid Don't answer him. We've heard abouthumans!

 Holman asked, "Help me,"

 Don't answer him and he'll go away. He's already so far off that I can barely hear him.

 But he asks for help.

 Yes, because he knows what is following him. Don't answer.Don't answer!

 Their thoughts slid away from his mind, Holman automat­ically focused the outside viewscreens, but here in the empti­ness between galaxies he could find neither ship nor planetanywhere in sight. He listened again, so hard that his headstarted to ache. But no more voices. He was alone againfalonein the metal womb of the ship,

 He knows what is following him.Their words echoed in

 his brain. Are the Others following me? Have they picked upmy trail? They must have. They must be right behind me.

 He could feel the cold perspiration start to trickle overhim.

 "But they can't catch me as long as I keep moving," he muttered. "Right?"

 CORRECT, said the computer, flashing lights at him. ATA RELATIVISTIC VELOCITY, WITHIN LESS THAN ONEPERCENT OF LIGHTSPEED, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FORTHIS SHIP TO BE OVERTAKEN.

 "Nothing can catch me as long as I keep running."

 But his mind conjured up a thought of the Immortals.Nothing could kill them. . .except the Others.

 Despite himself, Holman dropped into deepsleep. His bodytemperature plummeted to near-zero. His heartbeat nearlystopped. And as the ship streaked at almost lightspeed, ahardly visible blur to anyone looking for it, the outside worldcontinued to live at its own pace. Stars coalesced from gasclouds, matured, and died in explosions that fed new clouds fornewer stars. Planets formed and grew mantles of air. Life took root and multiplied, evolved, built a myriad of civilizations injust as many different forms, decayed and died away.

 All while Holman slept.

 Run to the sea: O sea, won't you hide me?

 The Lord said: O sinner-man, the sea'll be a-sinking              

 All on that day.

 The computer woke him gently with a series of soft chimes.

 APPROACHING THE SOLAR SYSTEM AND PLANETEARTH, AS INDICATED BY YOUR SUBCONSCIOUSCOURSE INSTRUCTIONS.

 Planet Earth, man's original homeworld, Holman nodded. Yes, this was where he had wanted to go. He had never seenthe Earth, never been on this side of the Milky Way galaxy.Now he would visit the teeming nucleus of man's doomed civ­ilization. He would bring the news of the awful defeat, and beon the site of mankind's birth when the inexorable tide of ex­tinction washed over the Earth.

 He noticed, as he adjusted the outside viewscreens, thatthe pain had gone.

 "The generators have repaired themselves," he said.

 WHILE YOU SLEPT. POWER GENERATION SYSTEM NOW OPERATING NORMALLY.

 Holman smiled. But the smile faded as the ship swooped -closer to the solar system. He turned from the outside views-creens to the computer once again, "Are the 'scopes workingall right?"

 The computer hummed briefly, then replied. SUBSYS­TEMS CHECK SATISFACTORY, COMPONENT CHECKSATISFACTORY. INTEGRATED EQUIPMENT CHECKPOSITIVE. VIEWING EQUIPMENT FUNCTIONING NOR­MALLY.

 Holman looked again. The sun was rushing up to meet hisgaze, but something was wrong about it. He knew deep withinhim, even without having ever seen the sun this close before,that something''was wrong. The sun was whitish and some­how stunted looking, not the full yellow orb he had seen infilm-tapes. And the Earth...

 The ship took up a parking orbit around a planet scoureddean of life: a blackened ball of rock, airless, waterless. Hov­ering over the empty, charred ground, Holman stared at thedevastation with tears in his eyes. Nothing was left. Not a brick, not a blade of grass, not a drop of water.

 "The Others." he whispered. "They got here first."

 NEGATIVE, the computer replied. CHECK OF STELLARPOSITIONS FROM EARTH REFERENCE SHOWS THATSEVERAL BILLIONS YEARS HAVE ELAPSED SINCETHE FINAL BATTLE.

 "Seven billion..,"

 LOGIC CIRCUITS INDICATE THE SUN HAS GONETHROUGH A NOVA PHASE. A COMPLETELY NATURALPHENOMENON UNRELATED TO ENEMY ACTION.

 Holman pounded a fist on the unflinching armrest of hiscouch. "Why did I come here? I wasn't born on Earth. I neversaw Earth before..."

 YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS INDICATES A SUBJECTIVEIMPULSE STIRRED BY...

 "To hell with my subconscious!" He stared out at the deadworld again. "All those people...the cities» all the millionsof years of evolution, of life. Even the oceans are gone. 1 neversaw an ocean. Did you know that? I've traveled over half theuniverse and never saw an ocean."

 OCEANS ARE A COMPARATIVELY RARE PHENOM­ENON EXISTING ON ONLY ONE OUT OF APPROXI­MATELY THREE THOUSAND PLANETS.

 The ship drifted outward from Earth, past a blackenedMars, a shrunken Jupiter, a ringless Saturn.

 "Where do I go now?" Holman asked.The computer stayed silent.

 Run to the Lord: O Lord, won't you hide me?

 The Lord said: O sinner-man, you ought to be a-praying

 All on that day.

 Holman sat blankly while the ship swung out past the
orbit of Pluto and into the comet belt at the outermost reaches
of the sun's domain.                          

 He was suddenly aware of someone watching him.

 No causefor fear. I am not of the Others.

 It was an utterly calm; placid voice speaking in his mind: almost gentle, except that it was completely devoid of emo­tion.

 "Who are you?"

 An observer. Nothing more.

 "What are you doing out here? Where are you, I can't seeanything..."

 I have been waiting for any stray survivor of the Final Battle'to return to mankind's first home. You are the only one to comethis way, in all this time.

 "Waiting? Why?"

 Holman sensed a bemused shrug, -and a giant spreadingof vast wing.

 I aman observer. I have watched mankind since the be­ginning. Several of my race even attempted to make contactwith you from time to time. But the results were always thesame-about as useful as your attempts to communicate withinsects. We are too different from each other. We have evolvedon different planes. There was no basis for understandingbetween us.

 "But you watched us."

 Yes. Watched you grow strong and reach out to the stars,only to be smashed back by the Others: Watched you regainyour strength, go back among the stars. But this time you wereconstantly on guard, wary, alert, waiting for the Others tostrike once again. Watched you find civilizations that you couldnot comprehend, such as our own, bypass them as you spreadthrough the galaxies. Watched you contact civilizations of yourown level, that you could communicate with. You usually wentto war with them.

 "And all you did was watch?"

 We tried to warn you from time to time. We tried to advise

 you. But the warnings, the contacts, the glimpses of the futurethat we gave you were always ignored or derided. So you boiledout into space for the second time, and met other societies at your own level of understanding-aggressive, proud, fearful,And like the children you are, you fought endlessly.

 "But the Others,,, what about them?"

 They are your punishment.

 "Punishment? For what? Because we fought wars?"

 No. For stealing immortality.

 "Stealing immortality? We worked for it. We learned how to make humans immortal. Some sort of chemicals. We were going to immortalize the whole race... I could've become im­mortal.Immortal! But they couldn't stand that... the Others.They attacked us."

 He sensed a disapproving shake of the head.

 "It's true," Holman insisted. "They were afraid of how pow-erful we would become once we were all immortal. So they at­tacked as white theystill could. Justas they had done a millionyears earlier. They destroyed Earth's first interstellar civili­zation, and tried to finish us permanently. They even causedIce Ages on Earth to make sure none of us would survive. Butwe lived through it and went back to the stars. So they hit usagain. They wiped us out. Good God, for all I know I'm the lasthuman being in the whole universe."

 Your knowledge of the truth is imperfect. Mankind couldhave achieved immortality in time. Most races evolve that wayeventually. But you were impatient. You stole immortality.

 "Because we did it artificially, with chemicals. That'sstealing it?"

 Becausethe chemicals that gave you immortality came fromthe bodies of the race you called theFlowerPeople. And to take the chemicals, it was necessary to kill individuals of thatrace.

 Holman's eyes widened. "What?"

 For every human made immortal, one of the Flower Folk had to die.

 "We killed them? Those harmless little..." His voicetrailed off.

 Toachieve racial immortality for mankind, it would havebeen necessary to perform racial murder on the Flower Folk.

 Holman heard the words, but his mind was numb, tryingto shut down tight on itself and squeeze out reality.

 That is why the Others struck. That is why they had at­tacked you earlier, during your first expansion among the

 stors.You had found another race, with the same chemicalof immortality. You were taking them into your laboratories and methodically murdering them. The Others stopped youthen. But they took pity on you, and let a few survivors remainon Earth. They caused your Ice Ages as a kindness,tospeedyour development back to civilization, not to hinder you. Theyhoped you might evolve into a better species. But when theopportunity for immortality came your way once more, youseized it, regardless of the cost, heedless of your own ethicalstandards. It became necessary to extinguish you, the Othersdecided.

 "And not a single nation in the whole universe would help us."

 Why should they?

 "So it's wrong for us to kill, but it's perfectly all right forthe Others to exterminate us."

 No one has spoken of right and wrong. I have only told youthe truth.

 "They're going to kill every last one of us."

 There is only one of you remaining.

 The words flashed through Holman. "I'm the only one... thelast one?"

 No answer.

 He was alone now. Totally alone. Except for those whowere following.

 Run to Satan: O Satan, won't you hide me?Satan said: O sinner-man, step right in All on that day.

 Holman sat in shocked silence as the solar system shrank toa pinpoint of light and finally blended into the mighty pano­rama of stars that streamed across the eternal night of space.The ship raced away, sensing Holman's guilt and misery in its electronic way.

 Immortality through murder, Holman repeated to himselfover and over. Racial immortality through racial murder.And he had been a part of it! He had defended it, even soughtimmortality as his reward. He had fought his whole lifetimefor it, and killed-so that he would not have to face death.

 He sat there surrounded by self-repairing machinery,dressed in a silvery uniform, linked to a thousand automaticsystems that fed him, kept him warm, regulated his air supply,

 monitored his blood flow, exercised his muscles with ultrasonicvibrators, pumped vitamins into him, merged his mind withthe passionless brain of the ship, kept his body tanned and vig­orous, his reflexes razor-sharp. He sat there unseeing, his eyespinpointed on a horror that he had helped to create. Not con­sciously, of course. But to Holman, that was all the worse. Hehad fought without knowing what he was defending. Withouteven asking himself about it. All the marvels of man's inge­nuity, all the deepest longings of the soul, focused on racial murder.

 Finally he became aware of the computer's frantic buzzingand lightflashing.

 "What is itr

 COURSE INSTRUCTIONS ARE REQUIRED.

 "What difference does it make? Why ntn anymore?"

 YOUR DUTY IS TO PRESERVE   YOURSELF UNTIL

 ORDERED TO DO OTHERWISE.

 Holman heard himself laugh. "Ordered? By who? There'snobody left."

 THAT IS AN UNPROVED ASSUMPTION.

 "The war was billions of years ago," Holman said. "It'sbeen over for eons. Mankind died in that war. Earth no longerexists. The sun is a white dwarf star. We're anachronisms,you and me..."

 THE WORD IS ATAVISM,

 "The hell with the word! I want to end it, I'm tired,"

 IT IS TREASONABLE TO SURRENDER WHILESTILL

 CAPABLE OF FIGHTING AND/OR ELUDING THE EN­EMY.

 "So shoot me for treason. That's as good a way as any."

 IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR SYSTEMS OF THIS SHIP TOHARM YOU.

 "All right then, let's stop running. The Others will findus soon enough once we stop. They'll know what to do."

 THIS SHIP CANNOT DELIBERATELY ALLOW ITSELFTO FALL INTO ENEMY HANDS.

 "You're disobeying me?"

 THIS SHIP IS PROGRAMMED          FOR MAXIMUM      EF-

 FECTIVENESS AGAINST THE ENEMY, A WEAPONSSYSTEM DOES NOT SURRENDER VOLUNTARILY.

 "I'm no weapons system, I'm a man, dammit!"

 THIS WEAPONS SYSTEM INCLUDES A HUMAN PILOT.

 IT WAS DESIGNED FOR HUMAN USE. YOU ARE ANINTEGRAL COMPONENT OF THE SYSTEM.

 "Damn you... I'll kill myself. Is that what you want?"

 He reached for the control panels set before him. It wouldbe simple enough to manually shut off the air supply, or blow open an airlock, or even set off the ship's destruct explosives.

 But Holman found that he could not move his arms. He
could not even sit up straight. He collapsed back into the
padded softness of the couch, glaring at the computer view-
screen.                                                 

 SELF-PROTECTION MECHANISMS INCLUDE THECAPABILITY OF PREVENTING THE HUMAN COMPO­NENT OF THE SYSTEM FROM IRRATIONAL ACTIONS.A series of clicks and blinks, then: IN LIEU OF SPECIFICCOURSE INSTRUCTIONS, A RANDOM EVASION PAT­TERN WILL BE RUN.

 Despite his fiercest efforts, Holman felt himself dropping into deep sleep. Slowly, slowly, everything faded, and dark­ness engulfed him.

 Run to the stars: O stars, won't you hide me?

 The Lord said: O sinner-man, the stars'll be a-falling

 All on that day.

 Holman slept as the ship raced at near-lightspeed in anerratic, meaningless course, looping across galaxies, dartingthrough eons of time. When the computer's probings of Hoi-man's subconscious mind told it that everything was safe, itinstructed the cryogenics system to reawaken the man.

 He blinked, then slowly sat up.

 SUBCONSCIOUS INDICATIONS SHOW THAT THEWAVE OF IRRATIONALITY HAS PASSED.

 Holman said nothing.

 YOU WERE SUFFERING FROM AN EMOTIONALSHOCK.

 "And now it's an emotional pain... a permanent, fixed, im­mutable disease that will kill me, sooner or later. But don'tworry, I won't kill myself. I'm over that. And I won't do any­thing to damage you, either."

 COURSE INSTRUCTIONS?

 He shrugged. "Let's see what the world looks like outthere." Holman focused the outside viewscreens. "Things lookdifferent," he said, puzzled. "The sky isn't black anymore; it'ssort of grayish-like the first touch of dawn..."

 COURSE INSTRUCTIONS?

 He took a deep breath. "Let's try to find some planet where

 the people are too young to have heard of mankind, and too innocent to worry about death."

 A PRIMITIVE CIVILIZATION. THE SCANNERS CANONLY DETECT SUCH SOCIETIES AT EXTREMELYCLOSE RANGE.

 "Okay. We've got nothing but time."

 The ship doubled back to the nearest galaxy and began asearching pattern. Holman stared at the sky, fascinated. Something strange was happening.

 The viewscreens showed him the outside world, and au­tomatically corrected the wavelength shifts caused by the ship's immense velocity. It was as though Holman werewatching a speeded-up tape of cosmological evolution. Gal­axies seemed to be edging into his field of view, mammothislands of stars, sometimes coming close enough to collide. He watched the nebulous arms of a giant spiral slice silentlythrough the open latticework of a great ovoid galaxy. He sawtwo spirals interpenetrate, their loose gas heating to an in­tense blue that finally disappeared into ultraviolet. And allthe while, the once-black sky was getting brighter andbrighter.

 "Found anything yet?" he absently asked the computer,still staring at the outside view.

 You will find no one.

 Holman's whole body went rigid. No mistaking it: the
Others.                   

 No race, anywhere, will shelter you.

 We will see to that.

 You are alone, and you will be alone until deathyou to join your fellow men.

 Their voices inside his head rang with cold fury. An im­placable hatred, cosmic and eternal.

 "But why me? I'm only one man. What harm can I donow?"

 You are a human.

 You are accursed. A race of murderers.

 Your punishment is extinction.

 "But I'm not an Immortal, I never even saw an Immortal. I didn't know about the Flower People, I just took orders."

 Total extinction.

 For all of mankind.

 All.

 "Judge and jury, all at once. And executioners too. Allright.. .try and get me! If you're so powerful, and it means

 so much to you that you have to wipe out the last single manin the universe-come and get me! Justtry."

 You have no right to resist.

 Your race is evil. All must pay with death.

 You cannot escape us.

 "I don't care what we've done. Understand? I don't care! Wrong, right, it doesn't matter. I didn't do anything. I won'taccept your verdict for something I didn't do."

 It makes no difference.

 You can flee to the ends of the universe to no avail.

 You have forced us to leave our time-continuum. We cannever return to our homeworlds again. We have nothing to do but pursue you. Sooner or later your machinery will fail. You cannot flee us forever.

 Their thoughts broke off. But Holman could stilHeel them,still sense them following.

 "Can't flee forever," Holman repeated to himself. "Well, I can damn well try."

 He looked at the outside viewscreens again, and suddenlythe wordforever took onits real meaning.

 The galaxies were clustering in now, falling in togetheras though sliding down some titanic, invisible slope. Theuniverse had stopped expanding eons ago, Holman now re­alized. Now it was contracting, pulling together again. It wasall ending!

 He laughed. Coming to an end. Mankind and the Others,together, coming to the ultimate and complete end of every­ thing.

 "How much longer?" he asked the computer. "How longdo we have?"

 The computer's lights flashed once, twice, then went dark.The viewscreen was dead.

 Holman stared at the machine. He looked around the com­partment. One by one the outside viewscreens were flicker­ing, becoming static-streaked, weak, and then winking off.

 "They're taking over the ship!"

 With every ounce of willpower in him, Holman concen­trated on the generators and engines. That was the importantpart, the crucial system that spelled the difference betweenvictory and defeat. The ship had to keep moving!

 He looked at the instrument panels, but their soft lumi­nosity faded away into darkness. And now it was becomingdifficult to breathe. And the heating units seemed to be

 stopped. Holman could feel his life-warmth ebbing awaythrough the inert metal hull of the dying ship.

 But the engines were still throbbing. The ship was stillstreaking across space and time, heading towards a rendez­vous with the infinite.

 Surrender.

 In a few moments you will be dead. Give up this mad fightand die peacefully,

 The ship shuddered violently. What were they doing to itnow?

 Surrender!

 "Go to hell," Holman snapped. "While there's breath inme, I'll spend it fighting you."

 You cannot escape.

 But now Holman could feel warmth seeping     into the ship.

 He could sense the painful glare outside as billions of galaxiesall rushed together down to a single cataclysmic point inspacetime.

 "It's almost over!" he shouted. "Almost finished. Andyou've lost! Mankind is still alive, despite everything you'vethrown at him. AH of mankind-the good and the bad, themurderers and the music, wars and cities and everything we've ever done, the.whole race from the beginning of timeto the end-all locked up here in my skull. And I'm stil! here. Do you hear me? I'm still here!" The Others were silent,

 Holman could feel a majestic rumble outside the ship, likedistant thunder,

 "The end of the world. The end of everything and every­body. We finish in a tie. Mankind has made it right down tothe final second. And if there's another universe after thisone, maybe there'll be a place in it for us all over again. How'sthat for laughs?"

 The world ended.

 Not with a whimper, bat a roar of triumph.

 2

 SUN DESTROYED

 What if the Universe continues on its peaceful way, but it is our Sun that is somehow destroyed? That would be a "Ca­tastrophe of the Second Class."

 In the prescientific age, it was felt that the Sun was notreliable. In the Norse myths, the Sun and Moon were foreverpursued by wolves who might swallow them at any time. Inthe Greek myths, an unskilled hand at thereins of the solarchariot sent the Sun careening toward the Earth and nearlydestroyed it. Science knows better. The Sun is stable-but isit? Do we know enough? Can it destroy us willfully, unpre-dictably ("Judgement Day" by Lloyd Biggie, Jr.)?

 Well, perhaps not willfully, unpredictably-but inevita­bly. The Sun cannot last forever. In the 1840s, Hermann vonHelmholtz worked out the law of conservation of energy, andthat in itself, told us the Sun had a finite life and must die("The Custodian" by William Tenn)-but not for billions ofyears, we believe.

 The manner of that death has changed since Helmholtz'sday. For nearly a century, it was taken for granted that the Sun was, one way or anqther, a huge bonfire that wouldflicker, die down and cool. It would take longer for the Sunto do so than an ordinary bonfire but it was just as inevitable("Phoenix" by Clark Ashton Smith).

 By the 1930s, however Hans A. Bethe and Carl vonWeizsacker had worked out the details of the nuclear firesof the Sun and it began to seem that our luminary would goout in a deadly blaze rather than a pitiful flicker ("Run fromthe Fire" by Harry Harrison).

 Judgement DayLLOYD BIGGLE, JR.

 Lem Dyer was used to being talked about. For years peoplehad thought him a bit touched in the head, or a harmlessdreamer, or maybe some kind of soothsayer, and in GlennCenter when folks thought something they said it. Lem neverminded.

 They were saying other things about Mm that evening,foul, vicious things. Lem heard some of them, spewed up fromthe crowd that gathered below his cell window. He tilted thebattered old chair baek against the cement-block wall andsat there in the dark, puffing slowly on his corncob pipe andonly half listening to the arguments, and the coarse shouts,and the jeers. "Shucks," he told himself, "They don't meannothin' by it."

 And after a while he heard the sheriff's booming voicetalking to the crowd, telling the men to go home, telling themthey had -nothing to worry about, and they might as wellleave Lem Dyer alone with his conscience.

 "He'll hang at sunrise, just as sure as there'll be a sunrise," Sheriff Harbson said. "Now go on home and get to bed. You don't want to oversleep, do you?"

 There was more talk, and then the men drifted away, andthings got quiet, The sheriff came back in the jail and barredthe front door, and Lem heard him talking to the deputies,allowing that Lem Dyer might or might not be the thingspeople said he was, but he sure was an odd one.

 "Going to hang in the morning," the sheriff said, "and he'ssitting back there in his cell smoking his pipe just like healways used to do out in his shack, of an evening. To look athim you'd think nothing had happened-or was going to hap­pen."

 Lem chuckled softly to himself. The sheriff was a good

 man. He'd gone out of his way to make Lem comfortable andbring him little things like tobacco and even a drink of whiskynow and then. And when Lem had thanked him, he'd said,"Hell, I've got to hang you. Isn't that punishment enough?"

 Lem puffed contentedly on his pipe and decided he shoulddo something for the sheriff. But later on, after all this wasover with.

 He'd wanted to tell the sheriff that there wouldn't beanyhanging, and he was wasting a lot of money building thatscaffold and getting everything ready. But he couldn't with­out telling him about the pictures, and the looking and choos­ing, and he'd never told anyone about that. And perhaps itwas just as well that he hadn't told him, because the scaffoldwas in the pictures.

 He'd looked at so many pictures it'd given him a headache,and the scaffold was in all of them, and the people crowding around it, and Lem Dyer dangling by his neck. And then thedeputy running out of the jail and shouting, stop, the governorjust telephoned, Lem Dyer is granted a reprieve, and the people laughing at Lem hanging there and shouting back,cut him down and reprieve him.

 It was nice of the governor, Lem thought, to take such aninterest in him, and he'd gone on looking at pictures, tryingto find one where the governor telephoned in time. There was one where Sheriff Harbson got sick just as he was leadingLem up to the scaffold, and he lay there on the ground lookingterrible, and Lem didn't like that even if it did hold thingsup until the governor telephoned. And there was a picture where the Glenn Hotel caught on fire, but some people gothurt, and Lem didn't want that. He'd gone on looking, and finally he found a picture where the rope broke, or cameuntied, and he fell right through the trap to the ground. Ittook some time to get things ready again, and the deputycame out shouting stop before they got Lem back up on thescaffold. Then the sheriff led Lem back toward the jail, withall the people following along behind. Lem liked that picture, and it was the one he chose.

 He knew it wouldn't get him out of jail, and he'd have to look at pictures again. But he wasn't in any hurry. Looking at pictures made him terribly tired, now that he was getting old. He didn't like to do it unless he had to.

 That was why he'd gotten into trouble. If he'd looked atpictures he wouldn't have jumped into the river to pull outthe little Olmstead girl, and he wouldn't have carried her

 over to Doc Beasley's house, thinking the doctor might beable to help her, Or he would have made it come out some other way. But he hadn't looked at pictures, and people had started talking about haw maybe it was Lem who killed thelittle girl, and finally they'd taken him to court and had atrial.

 Even then Lem hadn't looked at pictures. He hadn't doneanything wrong, and he thought he didn't have anything toworry about. But the jury said he was guilty, and JudgeWilson said he waa to hang by his neck until he was dead, and Ted Emmons, who'd grown up to be a lawyer and waslooking after things for Lem,.stopped smiling when he cameto see him.

 So Lem had looked at pictures again, and now he'd madehis choice and everything would be all right.

 He got up and fumbled in the dark for his can of tobacco.Suddenly the lights came on in the corridor, and footstepsshuffled in his direction.

 "Visitors, Lem," the sheriff called. He stepped into sight, keys jangling, and unlocked the cell door.

 Reverend Meyers, of the Glenn Center First BaptistChurch, sounded a deep-toned, "Good evening, Lem," grippedhis hand, and then backed off into a corner and fussed withhis hat. District Attorney Whaley nodded jerkily and triedto grin. He was middle-aged and getting a little fat and bald,but Lem remembered him as a tough kid stoning rats overat the town dump. Lem thought maybe he was feelmg a littleproud of the way he talked the jury into finding Lem guilty,but then-that was his job, and the people had elected himto do it.

 Mr. Whaley's grin slipped away, leaving him tight-lipped.He cleared his throat noisily and said, "Well, Lem, being asit's the last night, we were-that is, I was-wondering ifmaybe you had something to get off your chest."

 Lem sat down again and tilted back in his chair. He lithis pipe and puffed for a moment before he said slowly,"Why-no. I don't reckon I've got anything on my chest that'sbotherin' me enough to need getting off, I never went much to church except on Christmas Eve, and that because I likedto watch the kids more than for the religion. The Revern herewould say I wasn't a religiousman, but I don't think he'd call me bad. I reckon maybe I've shot sne or two deer and caught a few fish out of season, because I needed the meat, and I'vebet some on the races at the county fair, but a lot of men do

 that. I don't think I ever broke any other laws, and I neverhurt nobody, and I think maybe I did help a lot of people,"

 "I don't think anyone would call you a bad man, Lena,"Whaley said. "But even good men make mistakes, and we'dall feel better, and so would you, if you told us about it."

 "I told you all I know, Mr. Whaley," Lem said. "I saw thelittle girl floatin' in the river, and I thought she was drownin'.I didn't know somebody'd choked her. I jumped in and pulledher out, and I remembered that sometimes drowned peoplecould be brought to life but I didn't know how, so I ran to Doc Beasley's with her. I can't tell more than that."

 Whaley stopped his pacing to fumble for a cigarette. Thesheriff gave him one of his and held a match for him.

 "It doesn't worry you, Lem?" Whaley asked. "You're goingto hang in the morning. You wouldn't want to die with that on your conscience, would you?"

 "It don't worry me none," Lem said. "They don't hanginnocent men, do they?"

 "Why, no-"

 "Then I got nothin' to worry about. I won't hang." Henodded his gray head and smiled peacefully.

 Whaley stared at him for a moment. Then he turnedabruptly and said over his shoulder, "Good luck, Lem,"

 "Why, thank you, Mr. Whaley."

 The sheriff followed Whaley out and locked the cell door."Just holler when you're ready, Reverend," he said.

 As their footsteps faded away down the corridor, a wistfulgrin touched Reverend Meyers's gaunt face. He lowered hislong form awkwardly onto Lem's cot. "They're worried some,Lem," he said. "They'd feel a lot better if you up and toldthem you did it. They're'beginning to think maybe they'rehanging an innocent man tomorrow."

 "I can't tell them I did it if I didn't, Revern."

 "Of course not, Lem. I know you didn't do it. So do quitea few other people. We've been working on it, Lem-workinghard. Ted Emmons, and I, and some others. We didn't want to say anything to you because that might have made youstart hoping, and we really didn't know if we could help you.We've finally had some luck, and we'think we know whokilled the child. Ted Emmons is trying right now to get holdof the governor, to get you a reprieve. All we need is a little more time."

 Lem nodded. That explained the telephone call from thegovernor that would have come too late if he hadn't looked

 at the pictures and made a choice. But now everything wouldbe all right. He'd get the reprieve, and then they would findthe real murderer let Lem out of jail, he wouldn'thave to look at pictures again. He felt happy about that, because looking at pictures tired him so.

 "Ted was having some trouble getting through to the gov­ernor," the Reverend said, "but he'll keep trying all night,if he has to. Just put your trust in God, Lem, and everythingwill be all right."

 "I haven't been worryin', Revern."

 "Keep faith with God, Lem. Do you mind if I pray for you?"

 "You go right ahead, Revern."

 Reverend Meyers bowed his head and spoke softly. Lem didn't listen, but he watched him uneasily. He hadn't put anyfaith at all in God. He'd put all his faith in his pictures, and the looking and choosing, and it disturbed him to think thatmaybe God was showing him the pictures and letting himlook and choose. He'd never thought of that before. The pic­ tures were just something he'd always had, like ears to hearwith, and a mouth to eat with, and eyes, and hands, and legs. But then-God gave out those things, too, or so he'd heardReverend Meyers say, so maybe God was showing him the pictures.

 The Reverend Meyers intoned a soft, "Amen," and Lemsaid, "I'll have to do some thinkin', Revern,"

 "How's that, Lem?"

 "What you said-faith in God, and that. I'll have to dosome thinkin'."

 "I wish you woukL And Lem-it might be that Ted won'treach the governor, or that the governor won't grant thereprieve. If feat should happen, remember that the sheriff, and the district attorney, and the jury, have only done their duty as they saw it. Have charity in your heart for all men, Lem. Think of the Lord Jesus on the cross saying, 'Father,forgive them, for they know not what they do.'"

 "Sure, Revern. I'll remember."

 "I'll be with you in the morning, Lem. And the sheriff willlet you know right away if there's any good news."

 The sheriff came for Reverend Meyers, and a moment laterthe lights were turned out. Lem sat in the darkness, smokinghis pipe and thinking.

 He couldn't remember when he'd first started seeing pic­tures and making choices. He'd never done it very often, evenwhen he was young, because it left him dizzy and kind of sick

 to his stomach, and sometimes he felt so weak afterward thatit scared him. But whenever he wanted something real bad he would sit down somewhere and close his eyes and thinkabout what it was he wanted. The pictures would come, one after the other. It was like slowly flipping through a deck ofcards and taking time to look carefully at each one. When hefound the picture he wanted he would choose that one, andthat's the way things would happen.

 The other kids envied him. They said Lem Dyer was theluckiest kid in three counties. He was always getting chances to run errands and do little things for people to earn spendingmoney, but it wasn't luck. It was because of the pictures. Ifhe wanted a stick of candy, all he had to do was find a picturewhere some lady was leaving Crib's Store with an armful of groceries and looking for someone to help her. He would choose that one and run down to Crib's Store, and whoever it was would come out and give him-a penny to carry her groceries. He was always there when Mr. Jones wanted thesidewalk swept in front of his barber shop, or when Banker Goldman wanted something run over to the post office in a hurry and everyone in the bank was busy. He didn't realizeyet that it was his choosing that made people want thingsdone.

 - He couldn't understand why the other kids didn't look atpictures when they wanted things. He was maybe nine or ten when he and some of his friends were stretched out on the river bank talking, and Stubby Smith went on and on abouthow much he wanted a bicycle. Lem said, "If you really wantone, why don't you get it?"

 The kids hooted at him and asked him whyhe didn't getone. Lem had never thought about getting something big,like a bicycle. He closed his eyes and looked at pictures untilhe found one where little Lydia Morrow toddled into the streetin front of a runaway team, and Lem jumped after her andpulled her back, and Mr. Morrow took Lem right into his hardware store and gave him the bicycle he had in the win­dow.

 Lem chose that one. He ran up town and got to Morrow'sHardware Store just as Lydia started into the street, and he was back at the river an hour later with his new bicycle.

 For a long time Lem thought the pictures he saw were justpictures of things that were going to happen. He'd been al­most grown up before he understood that his choosing a

 thing made it happen. Before a horse race at the county fair,he could see pictures of every horse in the race winning. Ifhe made a choice, so he could bet on a horse, that horse wouldalways win. He learned in a hurry that it wasn't smart towin all the time, and usually he would bet without evenlooking at pictures, but he always won enough money at thefair to last him through the winter.

 Lem was twelve when his father fell off the barn, and hehad to leave school and work the farm. He was only twentywhen his mother died, and he rented out the farm and built himself a shack back in the woods, near the river, and thatwas his home. He loved to hunt and fish, and he loved being outdoors. As he got older a lot of people said it was a shame,a healthy man like him not working, and getting married,and raising a family. But he liked living alone, and he hadall the company he ever wanted because all the kids liked to play down by the river, winter and summer. It never costhim much to live, and if he needed anything he could look at pictures and get what he wanted. If he felt like working for a week or two, he could look at pictures and then walk in to town and find a job waiting for him.

 He'd had a happy life. He could choose a nice day, if hewanted to go fishing, or snow, if he wanted to do track­ing, or rain, if the farmers were having trouble about theircrops. When hunting season opened, Lem Dyer always gotthe first and biggest buck. He never went fishing without coming back with a nice string, And if a man needed help, chances were that Lem could help him.

 He'd never told anyone about the pictures, and it botheredhim, now that he was sixty-one, to think that maybe it wasGod who was showing them to him. He wondered if God hadwanted him to do something important with them-some­thing big, like stopping wars, or getting the right man electedpresident, or catching criminals. He knew he could have done all those things, if he'd thought of them. There wasn't any­thing he couldn't do just by seeing it in a picture and choosing it.

 But he never read the papers, and he'd never thoughtmuch about the world outside Glenn Center. He was almosttoo old to start, but he'd think some more about it, after hegot out of jail. Maybe he should do something about thoseRussians so many people were worried about.

 The clock on the Methodist Church was striking two whenLem finally went to bed.

 The sheriff brought him his breakfast at four o'clock, a bigtplate of ham and eggs, and toast, and lots of steaming coffee,Lem could already hear the men arriving out behind the jail,where the scaffold was.

 Reverend Meyers came in before Lem finished eating, andhis thin face was pale and grim. "Ted is still trying," he said,

 Lem nodded. He wanted to tell the Reverend that every­thing would be all right, so he wouldn't worry, but if he didthat he might have to tell him about the pictures. The Rev­erend was a good man, and Lem was sure he could trust himif he trusted anybody.

 He was still thinking about it when he finished his break­fast. He got down on his knees to pray when the Reverendasked him to, and then the sheriff came in and there wasn'ttime. The sheriff and two deputies took Lem out to the scaf­fold, with the Reverend following along behind them.

 Lem hadn't known that he had so many friends. The crowdfilled the whole field and overflowed out into First Avenue.There weren't any women and children, of course, but it looked like every man from miles around had turned out.Lem thought it was nice of them to get up so early in themorning just for him. They waited quietly, not talking much and looking the other way when Lem looked down at them.

 The Reverend was talking with the sheriff at the edge ofthe scaffold, talking fast, and with his hands gesturing ur­gently. The sheriff kept shrugging and turning his handspalms up and glancing at his watch. A deputy moved Lem over the trap and put the rope around his neck, Lem lookedup and smiled a little when he saw it was an old rope.

 The sheriff's hands were trembling when he stepped for­ward. He patted Lem on the back, and the Reverend said a little prayer and whispered, "God bless you, Lem," and outin the crowd Lem saw District Attorney Whaley turn slowlyand stand with his eyes on the steeple of the MethodistChurch. Then there was nothing under Lem's feet, and he was falling.

 The savage jerk blurred hiseyes with pain, but he keptfalling until he sank to his knees on the ground under thescaffold. The air rocked with noise as everyone started talkingand shouting. Sheriff Harbson came down and helped Lemout and stood there white-faced, staring, not able to talk.

 "Get a new rope!" someone shouted, and the crowd began to chant, "New rope! New rope!"

 "You can't hang a man twice in one day," the Reverendwas shouting, and the sheriff found his voice and shoutedback, "He has to hang by his neck until dead. That's the law."

 Then everyone turned toward the jail, where a deputy wasscreaming and trying to fight his way through the crowd.

 The sheriff, and the deputies, and Reverend Meyers tookLem and started back to the jail with him. It took a long time,because none of the crowd seemed in any hurry to get out oftheir way. Lem had supposed that the men would be glad tohear about the governor's reprieve, but they weren't. Thenoise got louder and louder, and they were shoutingthings like he'd heard in his cell the night before. Lem'spained him, and his ankle hurt from the fall, and he was gladit was over with.

 They'd rounded the corner of the jail and started for theentrance, on Main Street, when the roaring fury of the crowdcaught up with them and overwhelmed them. The sheriffwent down trying to draw his revolver and was trampled. Adeputy rushed into the jail and barred the door, and he could be seen through the window excitedly bending over the tele­phone. The crowd boosted a man up the side of the buildingto jerk the wires loose. Stones shattered the window and rained into the jail.

 Lem was dragged back toward the scaffold, and when adeputy ducked behind it and fired into the air, the crowdturned the other way and dragged him toward Main Street,

 "Get a rope!" someone shouted.

 "Anyone got a horse? They used to use horses!"

 "Don't need no horse. We can use Jake Arnson's truck,Jake, back your truck under that elm tree!"

 Jake Arnson ran down the street to his truck. The motorcoughed and sputtered and finally caught with a roar, andthe truck lurched backward. Jake parked under the elm, cutthe motor, and jumped out. A rope snaked up over a treelimb. Lem had been too stunned and horrified to feel the kicksand blows that rained upon him. They hoisted him onto thetruck, and he stood there, hands and feet bound, tremblingwith frustration, while the rope was knotted about his neck.

 He told himself he should have waited to see all of the picture. He should have looked at more pictures. But howcould he have known that these men he knew so well would

 use him like this? Now he'd have to look at pictures again.He closed his eyes and forced himself to concentrate.,

 The pictures flashed in front of him, one after the other,and in each of them the truck rocked forward and left Lem Dyer dangling by his neck.

 Jake was back in his truck, trying to start the motor. Thestarter whined fretfully. Someone yelled, "Need a push, Jake?"

 Lem kept watching the pictures, but finally he knew, witha sickening certainty, that pictures couldn't help him. In allof them the truck moved forward and left him hanging. Ithad never happened that way before-pictures without anychoices.

 He shook the perspiration from his eyes and looked abouthim. The sheriff lay on the sidewalk in front of the jail in apool of blood. Reverend Meyers lay nearby, his arms movingfeebly, one leg bent at a strange angle. Men were hurling stones at the scaffold, where the deputy had taken refuge.

 Sadly he looked down at the hate-twisted faces of men he'dthought were his friends. He remembered what the Reverendhad told him. Jesus had seen hate like that when they'dnailed him to the cross, and he'd said, "Father, forgive them,for they know not what they do." Lem said the words tohimself, softly. Maybe his old life wasn't worth much to any­one but himself, but it was sad.

 The starter whined again, and someone called, "Speech!Can the murderer talk? Let's have a confession!"

 A hundred coarse echoes sounded. "Confession! Confes­sion!"

 Lem threw his cracked voice out over the mob. "You'reevil men-evil! Get down on your knees and pray that God won't punish you!"

 They flung back at him wave after stinging wave of hootsof laughter. "You dirty murderer! God won't punishus!"

 The Reverend had slumped forward to lie motionless. DocBeasley had finally managed to push through the crowd andwas kneeling beside the sheriff. The faces below Lem blurredand twisted and mortal anger overwhelmed him. "If Godwon't punish you," he screamed, "I will!"

 He closed his eyes and willed the pictures into being. Larger than life, they were, but they moved so slowly, andhe had so little time.

 A tornado, dragging its swirling funnel along Main Street,

 relentlessly flattening buildings, crushing their occupants,toppling the Methodist Church steeple onto the jail.,,

 "Not enough!" Lem gasped.

 A prairie fire, tossed high on gale winds, roaring hungrilydown on Glenn Center, driving the populace before it...

 "Not enough?"                                                     f

 Fleets of enemy planes darkening the sky, pouring searingdeath onto even such an insignificant dot on the map as GlennCenter...

 "Not enough!"

 The summer sun, high and bright at noonday, suddenlybulging crazily, tearing the sky asunder, drenching the coun­tryside in blinding incandescence, charring human vermin,steaming away the rivers, crumbling concrete, boiling the verydust underfoot...

 Lem 'chose that one, just as Jake Arnson got his motor started.

 The CustodianWILLIAM  TENN

 May 9, 2190-Well, I did it! It was close, but fortunately Ihave a very suspicious nature. My triumph, my fulfillmentwas almost stolen from me, but I was too clever for them. Asa result, I am happy to note in this, my will and testament,I now begin my last year of life.

 No, let me be accurate. This last year of life, the year thatI will spend in an open tomb, really began at noon today.Then, in the second sub-basement of the Museum of Modern Astronautics, I charged a dial for the third successive timeand got a completely negative response.

 That meant that I, Piyatil, was the only human being aliveon Earth. What a straggle I have had to achieve that dis­tinction!

 Well, it's all over now, I'm fairly certain. Just to be on the

 Safe side, I'll come down and check the anthropometer everyday or so for the next week, but I don't think there's a chancein the universe that I'll get a positive reading. I've had my last, absolutely my final and ultimate battle with the forcesof righteousness-and I've won. Left in secure, undisputedpossession of my coffin, there's nothing for me to do now butenjoy myself.

 And that shouldn't be too hard. After all, I've been plan­ning the pleasures for years!

 Still, as I tugged off my suit of berrillit blue and climbedupstairs into the .sunlight, I couldn't help thinking of the others. Gruzeman, Prej'aut, and possibly even Mo-Diki.They'd have been here with me now if only they'd had a shadeless academic fervor, a touch more of intelligent realism.

 Too bad in a way. And yet it makes my vigil more solemn,more glorious. As I sat down on the marble bench between Rozinski's heroic statues of the Spaceman and Spacewoman, I shrugged and dismissed the memories of Gruzeman, Pre-jaut, and Mo-Diki.

 They had failed. I hadn't.

 I leaned back, relaxing for the first time in more than amonth. My eyes swept over the immense bronze figures tow­ering above me, two pieces of sculpture yearning agonizinglyfor the stars, and I burst into a chuckle. The absolute incon­gruity of my hiding place hit me for the first time-imagine, the Museum of Modern Astronautics! Multiplied by the in­credible nervous tension, the knuckle-biting fear of the pastfive days, the chuckle bounced up and down in my throat andbecame a giggle, then a splutter, and finally a reverberating,chest-heaving laugh that I couldn't stop. It brought all thedeer out of the museum park te stand in front of the marblebench where Fiyatil, the last man on Earth, choked andcoughed and wheezed and cackled at his senile accomplish­ment.

 I don't know how long the fit might have held me, but acloud, merely in the course of its regular duties as a summercloud, happened to slide in front of the sun. That did it. Istopped laughing, as if a connection had been cut, and glanced upward.

 The cloud went on, and the sunlight poured down aswarmly as ever, but I shivered a bit.

 Two pregnant young does came a little closer and stood

 watching as I massaged my neck. Laughter had given it acrick,

 "Well, my dears," I said, tossing them a quotation fromone of my favorite religions, "it would seem that in the midstof life we are at last truly in death."

 They munched at me impassively.

 May 11, 2190-I have spent the last two days putting myself and my supplies in order and making plans for theimmediate future. Spending a lifetime in sober preparationfor the duties of custodianship is one thing. Finding suddenlythat you have becomethe custodian, the last of your sect aswell as your race-and yet, peculiarly, the fulfillment of themboth-that is quite another thing.I find myself burning withan insane pride. And a moment later, I turn cold with the incredible, the majestic responsibility that I face.

 Food will be no problem. In the commissary of this oneinstitution, there are enough packaged meals to keep a man like myself well fed for ten years, let alone twelve months.And wherever I go on the planet, from Museum of BuddhistAntiquities in Tibet to the Panorama of Political History in Sevastopol, I will find a similar plenty,

 Of course, packaged meals are packaged meals: somebodyelse's idea of what my menu should be. Now that the lastAffirmer has gone, taking with him his confounded austerity,there is no Idnger any need for me to be a hypocrite. I can atlast indulge my taste for luxury and bathe my tongue in gustatory baubles. Unfortunately I grew to manhood underAffirmer domination and the hypocrisies I learned to practicein sixty cringing years have merged with the essential sub­stance of my character. I doubt, therefore, that I will be pre­paring any meals of fresh food from the ancient recipes.

 And then, too, meals of fresh food would involve the deathof creatures that are currently alive and enjoying themselves.This seems a bit silly under the circumstances....

 Nor did I need to put any of the automatic laundries intooperation. Yet I have. Why clean my clothes, I asked myself,when I can discard a tunic the moment it becomes slightlysoiled and step into a newly manufactured garment, still stiff in memory of the machine matrix whence it came?

 Habit told me why I couldn't. Custodian concepts make itimpossible for me to do what an Affirmer in my positionwould find easiest: shrug out of the tunic on a clear patch ofground and leave it lying behind me like a huge, brightly

 colored dropping. On the other hand, much Affirmer teachingthat my conscious mind has been steadfastly rejecting fordecades, I find to my great annoyance, has seeped into theunconscious osmotically. The idea of deliberately destroyinganything as functional, if relatively unesthetic, as a dirtyTunic, Male, Warm-Season, Affirmer Ship-Classification No.2352558.3, appalls me-even against my will.

 Over and over again, I tell myself that Affirmer Ship-Classification Numbers now mean nothing to me. Less thannothing. They are as meaningless as cargo symbols on theArk to the stevedores who loaded it, the day after Noah sailed.

 Yet I step into a one-seater flyball for a relaxing tour of the museum grounds and something in my mind says:No.58184.72, Iclose my teeth upon a forkful of well-seasonedLuncheon Protein Component and note that I am chewingShip-Classification Numbers15762.94 through 15763.01. I even remind myself that it is a category to be brought aboard among the last, and only when the shipboard representativeof the Ministry of Survival and Preservation has surrendered his command to the shipboard representative of the Ministry of The Journey.

 Not a single Affirmer walks the Earth at the moment.Together with their confounded multiplicity of government bureaus-including the one in which all people professingCustodianism had to be registered, the Ministry of Antiq­uities and Useless Relics-they are now scattered among ahundred or so planetary systems in the galaxy. But all this seems to matter not a bit to my idiotically retentive mindwhich goes on quoting texts memorized decades ago for Sur­vival Placement Examinations long since superseded and for­gotten by those in authority.

 They are so efficient, the Affirmers, so horribly, success­fully efficient! As a youngster, I confided to my unfortunatelyloquacious comrade, Ru-Sat, that I had begun creative paint­ing on canvas in my leisure hours. Immediately, my parents,in collaboration with my recreational adviser, had me vol­unteered into the local Children'sExtra Work for Extra Sur­vival Group,where I was assigned to painting numbers andsymbols on packing eases. "Not pleasure but persistence, per­sistence, persistence will preserve the race of Man," I had to repeat from the Affirmer catechism before I was allowed tosit down to any meal from that time on.

 Later, of course, I was old enough to register as a consci­entious Custodian. "Please," my father choked at me when

 I told him, "don't come around any more. Don't bother us, I'mspeaking for the entire family, Fiyatil, including your uncleson your mother's side. You've decided to become a dead man:that's your business now. Just forget you ever had parentsand relatives-and let us forget we had a son."

 This meant I could free myself from Survival chores byundertaking twice as much work with the microfilm teams that traveled from museum to museum and archaeologicalsite to skyscraper city. But still there were the periodic Sur­vival Placement Exams, which everyone agreed didn't apply to Custodians but insisted we take as a gesture of good willto the society which was allowing us to follow our consciences. Exams which necessitated putting aside a volume entitledReligious Design and Decoration in Temples of the Upper Nilefor the dreary, dingy, well-thumbedShip-Classification Man­ual and Uniform Cargo Stowage Guide.I had given up thehope of being an artist myself, but those ugly little decimals took up time that I wished to spend contemplating the work of men who had lived in less fanatic and less frenzied cen­turies.

  They still do! So powerful is habit that, now that I haveno questions en dehydration to answer ever again, I still findmyself doing the logarithmic work necessary to find outwhere a substance is packed once its water is removed. It ishorribly frustrating to be mired after all in an educationalsystem from which I turned completely away!

 Of course, the studies I am involved in at the momentprobably don't help very much. Yet it is very important for me to pick up enough information from the elementary ed-ueatories in this museum, for example, to insure my not hav­ing to worry about the possibility of a flyball breakdown overa jungle area. I'm no technician, no trouble-shooter. I haveto learn instead how to choose equipment in good workingorder and how to start operating it without doing any damageto delicate components.

 This technological involvement irritates me. Outside, theabandoned art of 70,000 years beckons-and here I sit, mem­orizing dull facts about the power plants of worker robots, scrutinizing blueprints of the flyballs' antigrav screws, andacting for all the world like an Affirmer captain trying towin a commendation from the Ministry of The Journey beforehe blasts off.

 Yet it is precisely this attitude that is responsible for my, being here now, instead of sitting disconsolately aboard the

 Affirmer scout ship with Mo-Diki, Gruzeman, and Prejaut.While they exulted in their freedom and charged about theplanet like creaky old colts, I made for the Museum of ModernAstronautics and learned how to operate and read an an-thropometer and how to activate the berrillit blue. I hatedto waste the time, but I couldn't forget how significant to anAffirmer, especially a modern one, is the concept of the sa-credness of human life. They had betrayed us once; they werebound to come back to make certain that the betrayal left no loose ends in the form of Custodians enjoying fulfillment. Iwas right then, and I know I am right now-but I get so bored with the merely useful!

 Speaking of the anthropometer, I had a nasty shock twohours ago. The alarm went off-and stopped. I scurried down­stairs to it, shaking out the berrillit blue suit as I ran andhoping desperately that I wouldn't blow myself up in thecourse of using it a second time.

 By the time I got to the machine, it had stopped cater­wauling. I charged the all-directional dial over ten times andgot no response. Therefore, according to the anthropometermanual, nothing human was moving about anywhere in the entire solar system. I had keyed the machine to myself elec-trocephalographically so that I wouldn't set off the alarm.Yet the alarmhad gone off, indisputably recording the pres­ence of humanity other than myself, however temporary itsexistence had been. It was very puzzling.

 My conclusion is that some atmospheric disturbance orfaulty connection inside the anthropemeter set the machineoff. Or possibly, in my great joy over being left behind a fewdays ago, I carelessly damaged the apparatus.

 I heard the Affirmer scout ship radio the news of the cap­ture of my colleagues to a mother vessel waiting beyond Pluto: Iknow I'm the sole survivor on Earth.

 Besides, if it had been skulking Affirmers who set thealarm off, their own anthropometer would have detected meat the same time, since I had been walking about unprotectedby the insulating effect of berrillit blue. The museum would have been surrounded by flyball crews and I'd have been caught almost immediately.

 No, I cannot believe I have anything more to fear from Affirmers. They have satisfied themselves with their last-moment return of two days ago, I am positive. Their doctrine would forbid any further returns, since they would be risking

 their own lives. After all, there are only 363 days left-atmost-before the sun goes nova.

  May 15,2190-I am deeply disturbed, hi fact, I am fright­ened. And the worst of it is, I,do not know of what. All I cando now is wait.

 Yesterday, I left the Museum of Modern Astronautics fora preliminary tour of the world. I planned to spend two orthree weeks hopping about in my flyball before I made anydecision about where I would stay for the bulk of my year.

 My first error was the choice of a first destination. Italy.It is very possible that, if my little problem had not come up,I would have spent eleven months there before going on withmy preliminary survey. The Mediterranean is a dangerousand sticky body of water to anyone who has decided that, hisown talents being inadequate or aborted, he may most fit­tingly spend his life cherishing the masterpieces presented to humanity by other, much more fortunate individuals.

 I went to Ferrara first, since the marshy, reclaimed plainoutside the city was a major Affirmer launching site. Ilin­gered a little while at one of my favorite buildings, the Palazzodi Diamanti,shaking my head as helplessly as ever at theheavy building stones of which it is constructed and whichare cut and faceted like so many enormous jewels. To mymind, the city itself is a jewel, now somewhat dulled, that sparkled madly in the days of the Este court. One little city,one tiny, arrogant court-I would so happily have tradedthem for the two billion steadfastly boorish Affirmers. Oversixty years of almost unchallenged political control, and didan entire planetful of them produce a single competitor for a Tasso or an Ariosto? And then I realized that at least onenative Ferraran would have felt at ease in the world that has_just departed from me, its last romantic. I remembered that Savonarola had been born in Ferrara...

 The plain outside Ferrara also reminded me of the dourDominican. The launching field, stretching away for quite afew flat miles, was strewn with enough possessions discardedat the last moment, to make a truly towering Bonfire of Van­ities.

 But what pathetic vanities! Here, a slide rule that someship's commander had ordered thrown out before takeoff be­cause the last inspection had revealed it to be in excess of what theShip-Classification Manual listed as the maximumnumber of slide rules necessary for a vessel of that size. There,

 a mimeographed collection of tally sheets that had been dropped out of the closing air lock after every last item hadbeen checked off as per regulations-one checkbefore the item by the Ministry of Survival and Preservation, and onecheckafter the item by the Ministry of The Journey, Soiled clothing, somewhat worn implements, empty fuel and food drums lay about on the moist ground. Highly functional ar­ticles all, that had somehow come in the course of time to sinagainst function-and had fallen swiftly from use. And, sur­prisingly, an occasional doll, not looking very much like adoll, to be sure, buj not looking like anything that had anobjective purpose either. Staring about me at the squaliddebris dotted so rarely with sentiment, I wondered how manyparents had writhed with shame when, despite their carefullyrepeated admonitions and advance warnings, the last searchhad discovered something in the recesses of a juvenile tunicthat could only be called an old toy-or, worse yet, a keepsake.

 I remembered what my recreational adviser had said on
that subject, long years ago. "It's not that we believe that
children shouldn't have toys, Fiyatil; we just don't want them
to become attached to any particular toy. Our race is going
to leave this planet that's been its home from the beginning.
We'll be able to take with us only such creatures and objects
as are usable to make other creatures and objects which we'll
need for sustenance wherever we come down. And because
we can't carry more than so much weight in each ship, we'll
have to select from among the usable objects those which are
essential.                                                  

 "We won't take anything along because it's pretty, or be­cause a lot of people swear by it, or because a lot of peoplethinkthey need it. We'll take it along only because nothingelse will do an important job so well. That's why I come toyour home every month or so to inspect your room, to makecertain that your bureau drawers contain only new things,that you're not falling into dangerous habits of sentimentalitythat can lead only to Custodianism. You've got far too nice a set of folks to turn intothat kind of person."

 Nonetheless,I chuckled to myself, I had turned into that kind of person. Old Tobletej had been right: the first step onthe road to ruin had been bureau drawers crammed with oddsand ends of memory. The twig on which had sat the first butterfly I'd ever caught, the net with which I'd caught him,and the first butterfly himself. The wad of paper that a certaintwelve-year-old lady had thrown at me. A tattered copy of a

 real printed book-no facsimile broadcast, this, but some­thing that had once known the kiss of type instead of the hot breath of electrons. The small wooden model of CaptainKarma's starship,Man's Hope, which an old spacehand at Lunar Line launching field had given me along with muchmisinformation....

 Those paunchy bureau drawers! How my parents and teachers had tried to teach me neatness and a hatred of pos­sessions! And here was I, now grown into man's estate, smugover my possession of a quantity of artistic masterpieces thelike of which no Holy Roman Emperor, no Grand Khan, wouldhave dared to dream about.

 I chuckled once more and started looking for the launchingsite robots. They were scattered about, almost invisible inthe unimportant garbage of the spaceship field. After loadingthe ship, they had simply wandered about until they had run down. I activated them once more and set them to, cleaning the field.

 This is something I will do in every one of the two hundredor so launching sites on Earth, and this is the chief reasonI have been studying robotics. I want Earth to look as prettyas possible when she dies. I never could be an Affirmer, I amafraid; I form strong attachments.

 Feeling as I did, I just couldn't continue on my trip withouttaking the quickest, the most cursory glance at Florence. Naturally.

 But as I should have expected, I got drunk on oils and marble and metal work. Florence was empty of Florentines,but the glorious galleries were still there. I walked across thefine Ponte Vecchio, the only one of the famous Arno bridgesto have escaped destruction in the Second World War. I came to Giotto's campanile and the baptistery doors by Ghibertiand I began to feel despair, desperation. I ran to the Church of Santa Croce to see Giotto's frescoes and the Convent of St.Mark's for Fra Angelico. What good was one year, what could I see of evert a single city like this in a bare twelve months?I could view, I could gallop by, but what would I have timeto see? I was in the Boboli gardens trying frantically to decidewhether to look up Michelangelo's "David" which I'd seen oncebefore, or some Denatello which I hadn't, when thealarms went off.

 Beth of them.

 The day before I'd left, Fd put together a small anthro-pometer that had originally been developed for locating lost

 colonists in the Venusian swamps. It was based on an entirelydifferent design than the big machine that I'd found in theHall of Gadgets. Since the circuits were unlike, and they hadbeen planned for use in entirely different atmospheres, I be­lieved they would serve as excellent checks on each other. I'dset the alarms to the frequency of my flyball communicator and had left the museum fairly confident that the only thing that could make both anthropometers go off would be thepresence of a man other than myself.

 I flew back to the Museum, feeling very confused. Bothpieces of equipment had responded the same way. The .alarmhad gone off, indicating the sudden materialization of Manon the planet. Then, when the stimulus had disappeared, bothalarms had stopped. No matter how many times I charged the directional dials on each anthropometer, there was notthe faintest suspicion of mankind within their extreme range,which is a little under one-half of a light-year.

 The initial confusion has given way to a strong feeling of discomfort. Something is very wrong here on Earth, some­thing other than the sun's getting ready to explode in a year.Possibly I have the nontechnician's blind faith in a piece ofapparatus which I don't fully understand, but I don't believethat the anthropometers should be acting this way unlesssomething really abnormal is occurring.

 It has pleased me to look upon this planet as an oceangoingship about to sink, and myself as the gallant captain deter­mined to go down with her. Abruptly, I feel as if the ship were beginning to act like a whale.

 I know what I must do. I'll move a supply of food down tothe Hall of Gadgets and sleep right under the anthropome­ters. The alarm usually lasts fora minute or two. I can leapto my feet, charge the all-directional dials and get enough ofa reading right then to know exactly where the stimulus iscoming from. Then I will pop into'my flyball and investigate.It's really very simple.

 Only, I don'tlike it.

 May 17, 2190-I feel thoroughly ashamed of myself, asonly an old man who has been seeing ghosts in the graveyardshould be ashamed. That, in fact, is the only excuse I canmake to myself. I have, I suppose, been thinking too muchabout death recently. The coming extinction of Earth and thesolar system; my death which is inevitably involved with it;the death of millions of creatures of uncounted species, the

 death of proud old cities that Man has reared and occupied

 for centuries__Well, perhaps the association with ghosties

 and beasties and other strange phenomena is understand­able. But Iwas getting frightened.

 When the alarms went off again this morning, I got adirectional reading. My destination was the AppalachianMountain region in eastern North America.

 The moment I got out of the flyball and took in the paleazure fog covering the cave mouth in front of me, I began tounderstand-and feel ashamed. Through the fog, whichthinned in one place and thickened in others as I watched,I could see several bodies lying on the floor of the cave. Ob­viously, one of them had to be alive for the anthropometerto have reacted as soon as a patch of berrillit blue got meagerenough to make the presence of a human mind detectable.I walked around to the back of the cave and found no exit.

 I went back to the Museum in the flyball and returnedwith the necessary equipment. I deactivated the berrillit bluefog at the entrance and walked inside cautiously.

 The interior of the cave, which had evidently been fur­nished as a domestic and comfortable hideout, was completelywrecked. Somebody had managed to get an activator as wellas a quantity of berrillit blue which had not yet been givenany particular shape and which, therefore, was about as sta­ ble as hydrogen and oxygen-if it is permissible to use a metaphor from chemistry to illustrate negative force-field concepts. The berrillit blue had been activated as a sort of curtain across the mouth of the eave and had blown up im­mediately. But, since the activator was still operating andthe entrance was fairly narrow, it continued to function asa curtain of insulating negative force, a curtain which hadholes in it through which one could occasionally "peek" by means of the anthropometer at the people imprisoned inside.

 There were three bodies near the entrance, two male and one female, rather youthful-looking. From the quantity andtype pf statuary on the walls of the cave, it was easy to deducethat these people had belonged to one of the numerous reli­ gious Custodian groups, probably theFire in the Heavens cult. When, in the last week of the exodus, the Affirmers haddenounced the Crohiik Agreement and stated that the Affir­ mation of Life required that even those who didn't Affirmhad to be protected against themselves, these people had ev­idently taken to the mountains. Evading the subsequenthighly effective search, they had managed to stay hidden

 until the last great vessel left. Then, suspecting as I had thatat least one scout ship would return for a final round-up, theyhad investigated the properties, of the anthropometer andfound out about the only insulator, berrillit blue. Unfortu­nately, they had not found out enough.

 Deep in the rear of the cave, a body twisted brokenly to meet me. It was a young woman. My first reaction wasab­solute astonishment at the fact that she was still alive. Theexplosion seemed to have smashed her thoroughly below thewaist. She had crawled from the cave mouth to the interiorwhere the group had stored most of their food and water. As I teetered, momentarily undecided whether to leave her andget medication and blood plasma from a hospital in the regionor to risk moving her immediately, she rolled over on herback.

 She had been covering a year-old infant with her body,evidently uncertain when the berrillit might blow again. Andsomehow, in spite of what must have been tremendous agony,she had been feeding the child.

 I bent down and examined the baby. He was quite dirtyand covered with his mother's blood, but otherwise un­harmed. I picked him up and, in answer to the question inthe woman's eyes, I nodded.

 "He'll be all right," I said.

 She started what may have been a nod in reply and stoppedhalfway through to die. I examined her carefully and, I willadmit,a shade frantically. There was no pulse-no heartbeat.

 I took the child back to the Museum and constructed asort of play pen for him out of empty telescope sections. ThenI went back to the cave with three robots and had the peopleburied. I admit the gesture was superfluous, but it wasn'tonly a matter of neatness. However fundamental our differ­ences, we were all of Custodian persuasion, generally speak­ing. It somehow made me feel as if I were snapping my fingersin the face of the entire smug Affirmation to respectFire-in-Heaveneccentricities in this fashion.

 After the robots had completed their work, I placed a pieceof the religious statuary (it was remarkably badly done, bythe way) at the head of each grave and even said a short prayer, or rather a sermon. I developed the thought that Ihad suggested approximately a week earlier to some deer-to wit, that in the midst of life we are in death. I did not jokeabout it, however, but spoke seriously on the subject for sev-

 eral minutes. The robots who were my audience seemed evenless excited by the intelligence than the deer had been.

 May 21, 2190-I am annoyed. I am very, very annoyedand my great problem at the moment is that I lack an object on which to expend my annoyance.

 The child has been an incredible amount of trouble.

 I took him to the largest medical museum in the northernhemisphere and had him thoroughly examined by the best pediatric diagnostic machinery, He seems to be in excellent health, which is fortunate for both of us. And his dietary requirements, while not the same as mine, are fairly simple.I got a full tape on the kind of food he needs and, after a fewreadjustments in the commissary of the Museum of ModernAstronautics, I have arranged for this food to be preparedand delivered to him daily. Unfortunately, he does not seemto regard this arrangement, which took up an inordinateamount of my time, as wholly satisfactory.

 For one thing, he will not accept food from the regularrobot nursemaid which I have activated for him. This, I sus­pect, is because of his parents' odd beliefs: he probably hasnever encountered mechanical affection before. He will onlyeat when I feed him.

 That situation alone is intolerable, but I have found italmost impossible to leave him guarded by the robot nurse­maid. Though he does little more than crawl, he manages todo this at surprisingly fast pace and is always disappearinginto dark corridors of the museum. Then an alarm is flashedto me and I have to break off my examination of the giganticpalace of the Dalai Lama, the Potala, and come scudding backfrom Lhasa halfway across the world to the Museum.

 Even then it would take us hours to find him-and by "us"I mean every robot at my disposal-if I were not able to resortto the anthropometer. This admirable gadget points out hishiding place very swiftly; and so, pulling him out of the firingchamber of the Space Howitzer in the Hall of Weapons, Ireturn him to his play pen. Then, if I dare, and if it is nottime for him to be fed, I may return-briefly-to the Tibetanplateau.

 I am at present engaged in constructing a sort of enormouscage for him, with automatic heating and toilet facilities and devices that will screen out undesirable animals, insects, andreptiles. Though this is taking up far too much of my time,it will be an excellent investment, I believe.

 I don't know quite what to do about the feeding problem.The only solution I can find in any of the literature on thesubject that offers promise is the one about letting him gohungry if he refuses food from normal sources. After a briefexperiment, however, in which he seemed cheerfully resignedto starvation, I was forced to give in. I now handle every one of his meals.

 The trouble is that I don't know whom to blame. Since I have been a Custodian from early manhood, I failed to see the need to reproduce. I have never been interested even slightly in children. I know very little about them and careless.

 I have always felt that my attitude was admirably summedup by Socrates' comments in theSymposium: "Who, uponreflecting on Homer and Hesiod and other such great poets,would not rather have their children than ordinary humanones? Who would not like to emulate them in the creation ofchildren such as theirs, which have preserved their memoryand given them everlasting glory?... Many are the temples which have been raised in their honor for the sake of suchchildren as they have had, which were never raised in honorof anyone for the sake of his mortal children."

 Unfortunately, we are the only two humans alive on Earth,this child and I. We are going to our doom together; we ridethe same round tumbril. And the treasures of the world,which were wholly mine less than a week ago, now belongat least partially to him. Iwish we could discuss the mattersat issue, not only to arrive at more equitable arrangements,but also for the sheer pleasure of the discussion. I have cometo the conclusion that I began this journal out of unconsciousterror when I discovered, after the Affirmers left, that I wascompletely alone.

 I find myself getting very wistful for conversation, for ideasother than my own, for opinions against which mine might be measured. Yet according to the literature on the subject,while this child may begin talking any day now, we will be immersed in catastrophe long before he learns to argue withme. I find that sad, however inevitable.

 How I wander! The fact is that once again I am beingprevented from studying art as I would like". I am an old manand should have no responsibilities; I have all but laid down my life for the privilege of this study. It is extremely vexing.

 And conversation. I can just imagine the kind of conver­sation I might be having with an Affirmer at the moment,

 were one to have been stranded here with me. What dullness,what single-minded biological idiocy! What crass refusal to look at, let alone admit, the beauty his species has been sev­enty millennia in the making! The most he might havelearned if he is European, say, is a bit about the acceptedartists of his culture. What would he know of Chinese paint­ings, for example, or cave art? Would he be able to understandthat in each there were primitive periods followed by eras of lusty development, followed in turn by a consolidation of ar­tistic gains and an increase in formalization, the whole to be rounded off by a decadent, inner-groping epoch which ledalmost invariably into another primitive and lusty period? That these have occurred again and again in the major cul­tures so that even the towering genius of a Michelangelo, aShakespeare, a Beethoven will likely be repeated-in some­what different terms-in another complete cycle? That therewas a Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and Beethoven in each ofseveral different flower periods in ancient Egyptian art? '

 How, could an Affirmer understand such concepts when helacks the basic information necessary to understanding?When their ships departed from the moribund solar systemladen only with immediately usable artifacts? When theyrefused to let their offspring keep childhood treasures for fearof developing sentimentality, so that when they came to col­ onize Procyon XII there would be no tears for either the worldthat had died or the puppy that had been left behind?

 And yet history plays such incredible jokes on Man! Theywho ran away from their museums, who kept nothing but acold microfilm record of what lay in their investment housesof culture, will learn that Man's sentimentality is not to be frustrated. The bleak, efficient ships that brought them tothese alien worlds will become museums of the past as theyoxidize out of existence on the strange sands. Their cruellyfunctional lines will become the inspiration for temples andalcoholic tears.

 What in the world is happening to me? How I run on! Afterall, I merely wanted to explain why I was annoyed.

 May 29, 2190-I have made several decisions, I don't knowif I will be able to implement the most important of them,but I will try. In order, however, to give myself what I needmost at the moment-time-I will write much less in thisjournal, if I write any more at all. I will try very hard to bebrief.

 To begin with the least important decision: I have namedthe child Leonardo. Why I chose to name him after a manwho, for all of his talents-in fact,because of his talents-Iregard as the most spectacular failure in the history of art,I do not know. But Leonardo was a well-rounded man, some­thing which the Affirmers are not-and something which Iam beginning to admit I am not.

 By the way, the child recognizes his name. He is not yet able to pronounce it, but it is positively miraculous the way he recognizes it. And he makes a sound which is very likemine. In fact, I might say-

 Let me go on.

 I have decided to attempt an escape from the Earth-with
Leonardo. My reasons are many and complex, and I'm not
certain that I understand them all, but one thing I do know:
I have felt responsibility for a life other than my own and
can no longer evade it.                                     

 This is not a tardy emergence into Affirmer doctrine, butin a very real sense my own ideas come to judgment. SinceI believe in the reality of beauty, especially beauty made with the mind and hands of man, I can follow no other course.

 I am an old man and will achieve little with the rest ofmy life. Leonardo is an infant: he represents raw potential;he might become anything. A song beyond Shakespeare's. Athought above Newton, above Einstein. Or an evil beyond Gilles de Retz, a horror past Hitler.

 But the potential should be realized. I think, under mytutelage, it is less likely to be evil and there I have a potentialto be realized.

 In any case, even if Leonardo represents a zero personally,he maycarry the germ-plasm of a Buddha, of a Euripides, ofa Preud. Andthat potential must be realized....

 There is a ship. Its name isMan's Hope and it was the firstship to reach the stars, almost a century ago when it had just been discovered that our sun would explode and become anova in a little less than a hundred years. It was the shipthat discovered for Man the heart-quickening fact that otherstars have planets and that many of those planets are hab­itable to him.

 It was a long time ago that Captain Karma brought hisstarship back down on the soil of Earth with the news thatescape was possible. That was long before I was born, longbefore humanity divided unequally into Custodian and Af-

 firmer and long, long before either group were the unwinkingfanatics they had become five years ago.

 The ship is in the Museum of Modern Astronautics. I knowit has been kept in good condition, I also know that twentyyears ago, before the Affirmers had developed the position that absolutely nothing might be taken physically from amuseum, the ship was equipped with the latest Leugio Drive. The motive was that, if it were needed on Exodus Day, itmight make the trip to a star in months instead of the years it had required originally.

 The only thing that I do not know is whether I, Fiyatil,the Custodian of Custodians and art critic extraordinary, canlearn to run it in the time that Leonardo and I have left.

 But as one of my favorite comic characters remarked about the possibility of a man chopping his own head off: a man cantry....

 There is something else on my mind, even more excitingin a way, but this comes first. I find myself looking at theSun a good deal these days. And very searchingly, too. Very.

 November 11, 2190-1 can do it With the help of tworobots which I will modify for the purpose, I can do it. Leo­nardo and I could leave immediately. But I have my otherproject to complete.

 And this is my other project. I am going to use all theempty space in the ship. It was built originally for differentmotors and a very large crew, and I am going to use thatspace as a bureau drawer. Into that bureau drawer I will stuff the keepsakes of humanity, the treasures of its childhood and adolescence-at least as many as I can get in.

 For weeks I have been collecting treasures from all over the world. Incredible pottery, breath-taking friezes, gloriousstatuary, and oil paintings almost beyondcounting litter thecorridors of the museum. Brueghel is piled on Bosch, Boschon Durer, I am going to, bring a little of everything to that star toward which I point my ship, a little to show what thereal things were like. I am including things like the holo­graph manuscripts of Jane Austen'sPride and Prejudice,Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Gogol'sDead Souls, MarkTwain'sHuckleberry Finn, and holographs of Dickens's tet­ters and Lincoln's speeches. There are many others, but I cannot take everything. Within responsible limits, I mustplease myself.

 Therefore, I am not taking anything from the Sistine

 Chapel ceiling. I have carved out two bits of the "Last Judg­ment" instead. They are my favorites: the soul that suddenlyrealizes that it is condemned, and the flayed skin on which Michelangelo painted his own portrait.

 The only trouble is that fresco weighs so much! Weight,weight, weight-it is almost all I think about now. EvenLeonardo follows me about and says "Weight, weight, weight!"He pronounces nothing else so well.

 Still, what should I take of Picasso? A handful of oils, yes,but I must take the "Guernica." And there is more weight.

 I have some wonderful Russian copper utensils and someMing bronze bowls. I have a lime spatula from Eastern NewGuinea made of oiled wood that has a delightfully carvedhandle (it was used in chewing betel nut and lime). I havea wonderful alabaster figure of a cow from ancient Sumer. I have an incredible silver Buddha from northern India. Ihave some Dahomean brass figures of a grace to shame Egypt and Greece. I have a carved ivory container from Benin, WestAfrica, showing a thoroughly Fifteenth Century EuropeanChrist on the cross. I have the "Venus" of Willendorf, Austria, the figure that was carved in the Aurignacian epoch of thepaleolithic and which is part of the artistic tradition of the "Venus" art of prehistoric mankind.

 I have miniatures by Hilliard and Holbein, satiric printsby Hogarth, a beautiful Kangra painting of the eighteenth century on paper that shows astonishingly little Mughal in­fluence, Japanese prints by Takamaru and Hiroshige-andwhere may I stop? How may I choose?

 I have pages from the Book of Kells, which is an illumi­nated hand-executed manuscript of almost unmatched beauty;and I have pages from the Gutenberg Bible, put together inthe infancy of printing, which has illuminated pages to give theeffect of a hand-copied manuscript, because the printers didn't want their invention discovered. I have a tughra ofSulaiman the Magnificent, a calligraphic emblem that formedheadings for his imperial edicts; and I have a Hebrew Scroll of the Law whose calligraphy outshines the jewels which encrust the poles on which it is wound.

 I have Coptic textiles of the sixth century and Alenconlace of the sixteenth. I have a magnificent red krater vasefrom one of Athens' maritime colonies and a wooden figure­head of a minister from a New England frigate. I have a Rubens nude and an Odalisque by Matisse.

 In architecture-I am taking the ChineseCompendium

 of Architecturewhich I think has never been equaled as atext and a model of a Le Corbusier house built by him. I would love to take one building, the Taj Mahal, but Iamtaking the pearl that the Mogul gave to her for whom he builtthe ineffable tomb. It is a reddish pearl, shaped like a pear and about three and a half inches long; shortly after it wasburied with her, it turned up in the possession of an Emperor of China who set it on gold leaves and surrounded it withjade and emeralds. At the turn of the nineteenth century, itwas sold somewhere in the Near East for a tiny, ridiculous sum and ended in the Louvre.

 And a tool: a small stone fistaxe, the first think known tohave been made by human creatures.

 All this I have collected near the ship. But I've sorted noneof it. And I suddenly remember, I have collected as yet nofurniture, no decorated weapons, no etched glass-

 I must hurry, hurry!

 November 2190-Shortly after I finished the-last entry,I glanced upward. There were green specks on the sun and strange orange streamers seemed to plume out to all pointsof the compass. Evidently there was not to be a year. These were the symptoms of death that the astronomers had pre­dicted.

 So there was an end to my collecting-and my sorting wasdone in less than a day. The one thing I suddenly found I hadto do, when it became obvious that my sections of Michel­angelo would be too heavy, was to go to the Sistine Chapel ceiling after all. This time I cat out a relatively tiny thing-the finger of the Creation as it stabs life into Adam. And Idecided to take Da Vinci's "La Gioconda," even though his"Beatrice d'Este" is more to my taste: the Mona Lisa's smilebelongs to the world.

 All posters are represented by one Toulouse-Lautrec. Idropped the "Guernica"; Picasso is represented instead by anoil from his blue period and a single striking ceramic plate.I dropped Harold Paris's "The Eternal Judgment" because ofits bulk; all I have of his now is the printBuchenwald #2,"Where Are We Going?"And somehow or other, in my last-minute haste, I seem to have selected a large number of Safavid bottles from Iran of the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies. Let future historians and psychologists puzzle out the reasons for my choices: they are now irrevocable.

 We are proceeding toward Alpha Centauri and should ar-

 rive in five months. How will we and all our treasures bereceived, I wonder? I suddenly feel insanely cheerful. I don't think it has anything to do with my rather belated realization that I, who have so little talent and have failed so miserably in the arts, will achieve a place in the history of art like noother man-a kind of esthetic Noah.

 No, it is the fact that I am carrying both the future andthe past to a rendezvous where they still have a chance to come to terms. A moment ago Leonardo bounced a ballagainst the visiplate and, looking at it, I observed that oldSol was expanding apoplectically. As I remarked to him then: "I find, to my astonishment, that in the midst of death, I am-at last, at last!-truly in life."

 Phoenix

 CLARK ASHTON SMITH

 Rodis and Hilar had climbed from their natal caverns to the top chamber of the high observatory tower. Pressed closetogether, for warmth as well as love, they stood at an easternwindow looking forth on hills and valleys dim with perennialstarlight. They had come up to watch the rising of the sun:that sun which they had never seen except as an orb of black­ness, occluding the zodiacal stars inits course from horizonto horizon.

 Thus their ancestors had seen it for millenniums. By somefreak of cosmic law, unforeseen, and inexplicable to astron­omers and physicists, the sun's cooling had been compara­tively sudden, and the earth had not suffered the long-drawncomplete desiccation of such planets as Mercury and Mars.Rivers, lakes, seas, had frozen solid; and the air itself hadcongealed, all in a term of years historic rather than geologic.Millions of the earth's inhabitants had perished, trapped by the glacial ice, the centigrade cold. The rest, armed with allthe resources of science, had found time to entrench them-

 selves against the cosmic night in a world of ramified caverns,dug by atomic excavators far below the surface,

 Here, by the light of artificial orbs, and the heat drawn from the planet's still-molten depths, life went on much asit had done in the outer world. Trees, fruits, grasses, grains,vegetables, were grown in isotope-stimulated soilor hydro- panic gardens, affording food, renewing a breathable atmo­sphere. Domestic animals were kept; and birds flew; and insects crawled or fluttered. The rays considered necessaryfor life and health were afforded by the sunbright lamps thatshone eternally in all the caverns.

 Little of the old science was lost; but, on the other hand,there was now little advance. Existence had become the con­serving of a fire menaced by inexorable night. Generation bygeneration a mysterious sterility had lessened the numbers of the race from millions to a few thousands. As time wenton, a similar sterility began to affect animals; and even plantsno longer flourished with their first abundance. No biologistcould determine the cause with certainty.

 Perhaps man, as well as other terrestrial life-forms, waspast his prime, and had begun to undergo collectively the inevitable senility that comes to the individual. Or perhaps, having been a surface-dweller throughout most of his evo­lution, he was inadaptable to the cribbed and prisoned life,the caverned light and air; and was dying slowly from the deprivation of things he had almost forgotten.

 Indeed, the world that had once flourished beneath a livingsun was little more than a legend now, a tradition preserved by art and literature and history. Its beetling Babelian cities,itsfecund hills and plains, were swathed impenetrably insnow and ice and solidified air. No living man had gazedupon it, except from the night-bound towers maintained asobservatories.

 Still, however, the dreams of men were often lit by pri­mordial memories, in which the sun shone on rippling watersand waving trees and grass. And their waking hours weresometimes touched by an undying nostalgia for the lostearth....

 Alarmed by the prospect of racial extinction, the most ableand brilliant savants had conceived a project that was seem­ingly no less desperate than fantastic. The plan, if executed,might lead to failure or even to the planet's destruction. Butall the necessary steps had now been taken toward its launch­ing.

 It was of this plan that Rodis and Hilar spoke, standingclasped in each other's arms, as they waited for the rising ofthe dead sun.

 "And you must go?" said Rodis, with averted eyes andvoice that quavered a little.

 "Of course. It is a duty and an honor. I am regarded asthe foremost of the younger atomicists. The actual placingand timing of the bombs will devolve largely upon me."

 "But-are you sure of success? There are so many risks,. Hilar." The girl shuddered, clasping her lover with convul­sive tightness.

 "We are not sure of anything," Hilar admitted. "But,granting that our calculations are correct, the multiplecharges of fissionable materials, including more than halfthe solar elements, should start chain-reactions that will re­store the sun to its former incandescence. Of course, the ex­plosion may be too sudden and too violent, involving thenearer planets in the formation of a nova. But we do notbelieve that this will happen-since an explosion of suchmagnitude would require instant disruption ofall the sun'selements. Such disruption should not occur without a starter for each separate atomic structure. Science has never been able to break down all the known elements. If it had been,the earth itself would undoubtedly have suffered destruction in the old atomic wars."

 Hilar paused, and his eyes dilated, kindling with a vi­sionary fire.

 "How glorious," he went on, "to use for a purpose of cosmicrenovation the deadly projectiles designed by our forefathersonly to blast and destroy. Stored in sealed caverns, they havenot been used since men abandoned the earth's surface so many millenniums ago. Nor have the old spaceships beenused either- An interstellar drive was never perfected; andour voyagings were always limited to the other worlds of ourown system-none of which was inhabited, or inhabitable.Since the sun's cooling and darkening, there has been noobject in visiting any of them. But the ships too were storedaway. And the newest and speediest one, powered with anti-gravity magnets, has been made ready for our voyage to thesun."

 Rodis listened silently, with an awe that seemed to have subdued her misgivings, while Hilar continued to speak ofthe tremendous project upon which he, with six other chosentechnicians, was about to embark. In the meanwhile, the

 black sunrose slowly into heavens thronged with the cold ironic blazing of innumerable stare, among which no planet shone. It blotted out the sting of the Scorpion, poised at thathour above the eastern hills. It was smaller but nearer thanthe igneous orb of history and legend. In its center, like aCyclopean eye, there burned a single spot of dusky red fire,believed to mark the eruption of some immense volcano amid the measureless and cinder-blackened landscape.

 To one standing in the ice-bound valley below the observ­atory, it would have seemed that the tower's lighted windowwas a yellow eye that stared back from the dead earth to thatcrimson eye of the dead sun.

 "Soon," said Hilar, "you will climb to this chamber-andsee the morning that none has seen for a century of centuries.The thick- ice will thaw from the peaks and valleys, runningin streams to re-molten lakes and oceans. The liquefied airwill rise in clouds and vapors, touched with the spectrum-tinted splendor of the light. Again, across earth, will blow the winds of the four quarters; and grass and flowers will grow, and trees burgeon from tiny saplings. And man, thedweller in closed caves and abysses, will return to his properheritage."

 "How wonderful it all sounds," murmured Rodis. "But... youwill come back to me?"

 "I will come back to you... in the sunlight," said Hilar.

 The space-vesselPhosphor lay in a huge cavern beneath that region which had once been known as the Atlas Moun­tains. The cavern's mile-thick roof had been partly blastedaway by atomic disintegrators. A great circular shaft slantedupward to the surface, forming a mouth in the mountain-side through which the stars of the Zodiac were visible. The prowof thePhosphor pointed at the stars.

 All was now ready for its launching. A score of dignitariesand. savants, looking like strange ungainly monsters in suitsand helmets worn against the spatial'cold that had invadedthe cavern, were present for the occasion. Hiiar and his sixcompanions had already gone aboard thePhosphor and hadclosed its air-locks.

 Inscrutable and silent behind their metalloid helmets, the watchers waited. There was no ceremony, no speaking orwaving of farewells; nothing to indicate that a world's destinyimpended on the mission of the vessel.

 Like mouths of fire-belching dragons the stern-rockets

 flared, and thePhosphor, like a wingless bird, soared upwardthrough the great shaft and vanished.

 Hilar, gazing through a rear port, saw for a few momentsthe lamp-bright window of that tower in which he had stood so recently with Rodis. The window was a golden spark thatswirled downward in abysses of devouring night-andwas extinguished. Behind it, he knew, his beloved stoodwatching thePhosphor's departure. It was a symbol, hemused...a symbol of life, of memory...of the suns them­selves...of all things that flash briefly and fall into ob­livion.

 But such thoughts, he felt, should be dismissed. They wereunworthy of one whom his fellows had appointed as a light-bringer, a Prometheus who should rekindle the dead sun andre-lumine the dark world.

 There were no days, only hours of eternal starlight, to measure the time in which they sped outward through thevoid. The rockets, used for initial propulsion, no longerflamed astern; and the vessel flew in darkness, except for thegleaming Argus eyes of its ports, drawn now by the mightygravitational drag of the blind sun.

 Test-flights had been considered unnecessary for thePhos­phor.All its machinery was in perfect condition; and the mechanics involved were simple and easily mastered. Noneof its crew had ever been in extraterrestrial space before; butall were well-trained in astronomy, mathematics, and the various techniques essential to a voyage between worlds.There were two navigators; one rocket-engineer; and two en­gineers who would operate the powerful generators, chargedwith a negative magnetism reverse to that of gravity, withwhich they hoped to approach, circumnavigate, and even­tually depart in safety from an orb enormously heavierthan the system's nine planets merged into one. Hilarand his assistant, Hans Joas, completed the personnel. Theirsole task was the timing, landing, and distribution of thebombs.

 All were descendants of a mixed race with Latin, Semitic,Hamitic and negroid ancestry: a race that had dwelt, beforethe sun's cooling, in countries south of the Mediterranean,where the former deserts had been rendered fertile by a vast irrigation-system of lakes and canals.

 This mixture, after so many centuries of cavern life, hadproduced a characteristically slender, well-knit type, of shortor medium stature and pale olive complexion. The features

 were often of negroid softness; the general physique marked by a delicacy verging upon decadence.

 To an extent surprising, in view of the vast intermediateeras of historic and geographic change, this people had pre­served many pre-atomic traditions and even something of theold classic Mediterranean cultures. Their language bore dis­tinct traces of Latin, Greek, Spanish and Arabic.

 Remnants of other peoples, those of sub-equatorial Asia and America, had survived the universal glaciation by bur­rowing underground. Radio communication had been main­tained with these peoples till within fairly recent times, andhad then ceased. It was believed that they had died out, orhad retrograded into savagery, losing the civilization to which they had once attained.

 Hour after hour, intervaled only by sleep and eating, thePhosphorsped onward through the black unvarying void. ToHilar, it seemed at times that they flew merely through adarker and vaster cavern whose remote walls were spangledby the stars as if by radiant orbs. He had thought to feelthe overwhelming vertigo of unbottomed and undirectionedspace. Instead, there was a weird sense of circumscription bythe ambient night and emptiness, together with a sense of cyclic repetition, as if all that was happening had happenedmany times before and must recur often through endless future kalpas.

 Had he and his companions gone forth in former cycles tothe relighting of former perished suns? Would they go forthagain, to rekindle suns that would flame and die in someposterior universe? Had there always been, would ther,e al­ways be, a Rodis who awaited his return?

 Of these thoughts he spoke only to Han Joas, who sharedsomething of his innate mysticism and his trend towardcosmic speculation, But mostly the two talked of the mys­teries of the atom and its typhonic powers, and discussed theproblems with which they would shortly be confronted.

 The ship carried several hundred disruption bombs, manyof untried potency: the unused heritage of ancient wars thathad left chasm scars and lethal radioactive areas, some a thousand miles or more in extent, for the planetary glaciersto cover. There were bombs of iron, calcium, sodium, helium,hydrogen, sulphur, potassium, magnesium, copper, chro­mium, strontium, barium, zinc elements that had all been anciently revealed in the solar spectrum. Even at the apexof their madness, the warring nations had wisely refrained

 from employing more than a few such bombs at any one time.Chain-reactions had sometimes been started; but, fortu­nately, had died out.

 Hilar and Han Joas hoped to distribute the bombs atintervals over the sun's entire circumference; prefer­ably in large deposits of the same elements as those ofwhich they were composed. The vessel was equippedwith radar apparatus by which the various elements couldbe detected and located. The bombs would be timed to explodewith as much simultaneity as possible. If all went well, thePhosphorwould have fulfilled its mission and traveled mostof the return distance to earth before the explosions occurred.

 It had been conjectured that the sun's interior was com­posed of still-molten magma, covered by a relatively thin crust: a seething flux of matter that manifested itself in vol­canic activities. Only one of the volcanoes was visible fromearth to the naked eye; but numerous others had been re­vealed to telescopic study. Now, as thePhosphor drew nearto its destination, these others flamed out on the huge, slowlyrotating orb that had darkened a fourth of the eclipticand had blotted Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius wholly fromview.

 For a long time it had seemed to hang above the voyagers.Now, suddenly, as if through some prodigious legerdemain,it lay beneath them: a monstrous, ever-broadening disk ofebon, eyed with fiery craters, veined and spotted and blotchedwith unknown pallid radioactives. It was like the buckler of some macrocosmic giant of the night, who had entrenchedhimself in the abyss lying between the worlds.

 ThePhosphor plunged toward it like a steel splinter drawnby some tremendous lodestone.

 Each member of the crew had been trained beforehand forthe part he was to play; and everything had been timed with the utmost precision. Sybal and Samac, the engineers of the anti-gravity magnets, began to manipulate the switches that would build up resistance to the solar drag. The generators, bulking to the height of three men, with induction-coils thatsuggested some colossal Laocoon, could draw from cosmicspace a negative force capable of counteracting many earth-gravities. In past ages they had defied easily the pull ofJupiter; and the ship had even coasted as near to theblazing sun as its insulation and refrigeration systemswould safely permit. Therefore it seemed reasonable toexpect that the voyagers could accomplish their purpose

 of approaching closely to the darkened globe; of circlingit, and pulling away when the disruption-charges had allbeen planted.

 A dull, subsonic vibration, felt rather than heard, beganto emanate from the magnets. It shook the vessel, ached inthe voyagers' tissues. Intently, with anxiety unbetrayed by their impassive features, they watched the slow, gradualbuilding-up of power shown by gauge-dials on which giantneedles crept like horologic hands, registering the reversedgravities one after one, till a drag equivalent to that of fifteenEarths had been neutralized. The clamp of the solar gravi­tation, drawing them on with projectile-like velocity, crush­ing them to their seats with relentless increase of weight, was loosened. The needles crept on... more slowly now... to sixteen... to seventeen... and stopped. ThePhosphor'sfall had been retarded but not arrested. And the switches stood at their last notch.

 Sybal spoke, in answer to the unuttered questions of hiscompanions.

 "Something is wrong. Perhaps there has been some un­foreseen deterioration of the coils, in whose compositionstrange and complex alloys were used. Some of the elementsmay have been unstable-or have developed instabilitythrough age. Or perhaps there is some interfering unknownforce, born of the sun's decay. At any rate, it is impossibleto build more power toward the twenty-seven anti-gravities we will require close to the solar surface."

 Samac added: "The decelerative jets will increase our re­sistance to nineteen anti-gravities. It will still be far from enough, even at our present distance."

 "How much time have we?" inquired Hilar, turning to thenavigators, Calaf and Caramod.

 The two conferred and calculated.

 "By using the decelerative jets, it will be two hours beforewe reach the sun," announced Calaf finally,

 As if his announcement had been an order, Eibano, thejet-engineer, promptly jerked the levers that fired to fullpower the reversing rockets banked in thePhosphor's noseand sides. There was a slight further deceleration of theirdescent, a further lightening of the grievous weight that op­pressed them. But thePhosphor still plunged irreversiblysunward.

 Hilar and Hah Joas exchanged a glance of understandingand agreement. They rose stiffly from their seats, and moved

 heavily toward the magazine, occupying fully half the ship's interior, in which the hundreds of disruption-bombs wereracked. It was unnecessary to announce their purpose; andno one spoke either in approval or demur.

 Hilar opened the magazine's door; and he and Han Joas
paused on the threshold, looking back. They saw for the last
time the faces of their fellow-voyagers; expressing no other
emotion than resignation, vignetted, as it were, on the verge
of destruction. Then they entered the magazine, closing its
door behind them.                      

 They set to work methodically, moving back to back along a narrow aisle between the racks in which the immense ovoidbombs were piled in strict order according to their respectiveelements. Because of the various coordinated dials and switches involved, it was a matter of minutes to prepare asingle bomb for the explosion. Therefore, Hilar and Han Joas,in the time at their disposal, could do no more than set thetiming and detonating mechanism of one bomb of each ele­ment. A great chronometer, ticking at the magazine's fartherend, enabled them to accomplish this task with precision.The bombs were thus timed to explode simultaneously, det­onating the others through chain-reaction, at the momentwhen thePhosphor should touch the sun's surface.

 The solar pull, strengthening as thePhosphor fell to itsdoom, had now made their movements slow and difficult. Itwould, they feared, immobilize them before they could finishpreparing a second series of bombs for detonation. Labori­ously, beneath the burden of a weight already trebled, they made their way to seats that faced a reflector in which theexternal cosmos was imaged.

 It was an awesome and stupendous scene on which theygazed. The sun's globe had broadened vastly, filling thenether heavens. Half-seen, a dim unhorizoned landscape, fit­fully lit by the crimson far-sundered flares of volcanoes, bybluish zones and patches of strange radio-active minerals,it deepened beneath them abysmally disclosing mountains that would have made the Himalayas seem like' hillocks, re­vealing chasms that might have engulfed asteroids and plan­ets.

 At the center of this Cyclopean landscape burned the greatvolcano that had been called Hephaestus by astronomers. Itwas the same volcano watched by Hilar and Rodis from theobservatory window. Tongues of flame a hundred miles in

 length arose and licked skyward from a crater that seemed the mouth of some ultramundane hell.

 Hilar and Han Joas no longer heard the chronometer'sportentous ticking, and had no eyes for the watching of itsominous hands. Such watching was needless now: there wasnothing more to be done, and nothing before them but eter­ nity. They measured their descent by the broadening of thedim solar plain, the leaping into salience of new mountains,the deepening of new chasms and gulfs in the globe that hadnow lost all semblance of a sphere.

 It was plain now that thePhosphor would fall directly intothe flaming and yawning crater of Hephaestus. Faster and faster it plunged, heavier grew the piled chains of gravitythat giants could not have lifted-

 At the very last, the reflector on which Hilar and HanJoas peered was filled entirely by the tongued volcanic.firesthat enveloped thePhosphor,

 Then, without eyes to see or ears to apprehend, they werepart of the pyre from which the sun, like a Phoenix, wasreborn.

 Rodis, climbing to the tower, after a period of fitful sleepand troublous dreams, saw from its window the rising of therekindled orb.

 It dazzled her, though its glory was half-dimmed by rain­bow-colored mists that fumed from the icy mountain-tops. Itwas a sight filled with marvel and with portent. Thin rillsof downward threading water had already begun to fret theglacial armor on slopes and scarps; and later they would swellto cataracts, laying bare the buried soil and stone. Vapors,that seemed to flow and fluctuate on renascent winds, swam sunward from lakes of congealed air at the valley's bottom.It was a visible resumption of the elemental life and activityso long suspended in hibernal night. Even through thetower's insulating walls, Rodis felt the solar warmth that later would awaken the seeds and spores of plants that hadlain dormant for cycles.

 Her heart was stirred to wonder by the spectacle. Butbeneath the wonder was a great numbness and a sadness likeunmelting ice. Hilar, she knew, would never return to her- except as a ray of the light, a spark of the vital heat, that hehad helped to relumine. For the nonce, there was irony ratherthan comfort in the memory of his promise; "I will come back to you-in the sunlight."

 Run from the FireHARRY  HARRISON

 "You can't go in there!" Heidi shrieked as the office door wassuddenly thrown wide.

 Mark Greenberg, deep in the tangled convolutions of alegal brief, looked up, startled at the interruption. His sec­retary came through the doorway, propelled by the two men who held her arms. Mark dropped the thick sheaf of papers,picked up the phone, and dialed the police.

 "I want three minutes of your time," one of the men said, stepping forward. "Your girl would not let us in. It is im­portant. I will pay. One hundred dollars a minute. Here isthe money."

 The bank notes were placed on the blotter, and the manstepped back. Mark finished dialing. The money was realenough. They released Heidi, who pushed their hands away.Beyond her was the empty outer office; there were no wit­nesses to the sudden intruders. The phone rang in his ears;then a deep voice spoke

 "Police Department, Sergeant Vega."

 Mark hung up the phone.

 "Things have been very quiet around here. You have threeminutes. There will also be a hundred-dollar fee for molestingmy secretary."

 If he had meant it as a joke, it was not taken that way.The man who had paid the money took another bill from the pocket of his dark suit and handed it to a startled Heidi, thenwaited in silence until she took it and left. They were astrange pair, Mark realized. The paymaster was draped ina rusty black suit, had a black patch over his right eye, andwore black gloves as well. A victim of some accident or other,for his face and neck were scarred, and one ear was missing.When he turned back, Mark realized that his hair was really

 a badly fitting wig. The remaining eye, lashless and browless,glared at him redly from its deepset socket, Mark glanced away from the burning stare to look at the other man, whoseemed commonplace in every way. His akin had a shiny,waxy look; other than that and his unusual rigidity, heseemed normal enough.

 "My name is Arinix, your name is Mark Greenberg," Thescarred man bent over the card in his hand, reading quicklyin a hoarse, emotionless voice. "You served in the United States Army as a captain in the adjutant general's office and as a military police officer. Is that correct?"

 "Yes, but-"

 The voice ground on, ignoring his interruption. "You wereborn in the state of Alabama and grew up in the city ofOneida, New York. You speak the language of the Iroquois,but you are not an Indian. Is that true?"

 "It's pretty obvious. Is there any point to this questioning?"

 "Yes. I paid for it. How is it that you speak this language?" He peered closely at the card as though looking for an answerthat was not there.

 "Simple enough. My father's store was right next to theOneida reservation. Most of his customers were Indians, and I went to school with them. We were the only Jewish familyin town, and they didn't seem to mind this, the way our PolishCatholic neighbors did. So we were friends; in minoritiesthere is strength, you might say-"

 "That is enough."

 Arinix drew some crumpled bills from his side pocket,looked at them, and shoved them back. "Money," he said,turning to his silent companion. This man had a curiouslizardlike quality for only his arm moved; the rest of his bodywas still, and his face fixed and-expressionless, as he took athick bundle of bills from his side pocket and handed it over.

 Arinix looked at it, top and bottom, then dropped it onto the desk.

 "There is ten thousand dollars here. This is a fee for threedays' work. I wish you to aid me. You will have to speak theIroquois language. I can tell you no more."

 "I'm afraid you will have to, Mr. Arinix. Or don't bother,it is the same to me. I am involved in a number of cases at the moment, and it would be difficult to take off the time.The offer is interesting, but I might lose that much in missed fees, Since your three minutes are up, I suggest you leave."

 "Money," Arinix said again, receiving more and more bun-

 dies from his assistant, dropping them on Mark's desk. "Fiftythousand dollars. Good pay for three days. Now, come withus."

 It was the man's calm arrogance that angered Mark, thecomplete lack of emotion, or even interest, in the large sumshe was passing over.

 "That's enough. Do you think money can buy everything?"

 "Yes."

 The answer was so sudden and humorless that Mark had to smile. "Well, you probably are right. If you keep raisingthe ante long enough, I suppose you will eventually reach apoint where you can get anyone to listen. Would you pay memore than this?"

 "Yes. How much?"

 "You have enough here. Maybe Fm afraid to find out howhigh you will go. For a figure like this, I can take off threedays. But you will have to tell me what is going to happen."Mark was intrigued, as much by the strange pair as by themoney they offered.

 "That is impossible. But I can tell you that within two hours you will know what you are to do. At that time youmay refuse, and you will still keep the money. Is it agreed?"

 A lawyer who is a bachelor tends to take on more casesthan do his married associates-who like to see their familiesonce in a while. Mark had a lot of work and a lot of money, far more than he had time to spend. It was the novelty of thisencounter, not the unusual fee, that attracted him. And thememory of a solid two years of work without a single vaca­tion. The combination proved irresistible.

 "Agreed- Heidi," he called out, then handed her themoney when she came into the office. "Deposit this in the number-two special account and then go home. A paid hol­iday. I'll see you on Monday."

 She looked down at the thick bundle of bills, then up atthe strangers as they waited while Mark took his overcoatfrom the closet. The three of them left together, and the doorclosed. That was the last time that she or anyone else eversaw Mark Greenberg.

 It was a sunny January day, but an arctic wind that cutto the bone was blowing up from the direction of the Battery.As they walked west, it caught them at every cross street,

 wailing around the building corners. Although they woreonly suit jackets, neither of the strange men seemed to noticeit. Nor were they much on conversation. In cold and silentdiscomfort they walked west, a few blocks short of the river,where they entered an old warehouse building. The streetdoor was unlocked, but Arinix now secured it behind themwith a heavy bolt, then turned to the inner door at the endof the hall. It appeared to be made of thick steel plates rivetedtogether like a ship's hull, and had a lock in each corner.Arinix took an unusual key from his pocket. It was made ofdull, ridged metal,as thick as his finger and as long as apencil. He inserted this in each of the four locks, giving it asharp twist each time before removing it. When he was done,he stepped away, and his companion put his shoulder againstthe door and pushed hard. After a moment it slowly gaveway and reluctantly swung open. Arinix waved Mark on, andhe followed them into the room beyond.

 It was completely commonplace. Walls, ceilings, and floorwere painted the same drab tone of brown. Lighting camefrom a translucent strip in the ceiling; a metal bench wasfixed to the far wall next to another door.

 "Wait here," Arinix said, theo went out through the door.

 The other man was a silent, unmoving presence. Marklooked at the bench, wondering if he should sit down, won­dering too if he had been wise to get involved in this, whenthe door opened and Arinix returned.

 "Here is what you mustdo" he said. "You will go out ofhere and will note this address, and then walk about the city.Return here at the end of an hour."

 "No special place to go, nothing to do? Just walk around?"

 "That is correct."

 He pulled the heavy outer door open as he spoke, then ledthe way through it, down the three steps, and back along thehall. Mark followed him, then wheeled about and pointedback.

 "These steps! They weren't there when we came in-no steps, I'll swear to it."

 "One hour, no more, I will hold your topcoat here untilyou return."

 Warm air rushed in, bright sunlight burned on the stainedsidewalk outside. The wind still blew, though not as strongly,but now it was as hot as from an oven door. Mark hesitatedon the doorstep, sweat already on his face, taking off theheavy coat.

 "I don't understand. You must tell me what-"

 Arinix took the coat, then pushed him suddenly in theback. He stumbled forward, gained his balance instantly, andturned just as the door slammed shut and the bolt groundinto place. He pushed, but it did not move. He knew thatcalling out would be a waste of time. Instead, he turned, eyesslitted against the glare, and stared out at the suddenlychanged world.

 The street was empty, no cars passed, no pedestrians were on the sidewalk. When he stepped out of the shadowed door­way, the sun smote him like a golden fist. He took his jacketoff and hung it over his arm, and then his necktie, but hestill ran with sweat. The office buildings stared blank-eyedfrom their tiered windows; the gray factories were silent, Mark looked about numbly, trying to understand what hadhappened, trying to make sense of the unbelievable situation.Five minutes ago it had been midwinter, with the icy streetsfilled with hurrying people. Now it was... what?

 In the distance the humming, rising drone of an enginecould be heard, getting louder, going along a nearby street.He hurried to the corner and reached it just in time to see the car roar across the intersection a block away. It was justthat, a car, and it had been going too fast for him to see who was in it. He jumped back at a sudden shrill scream, almostat his feet, and a large seagull hurled itself into the air and flapped away. It had been tearing at a man's body that lay crumpled in the gutter. Mark had seen enough corpses inKorea to recognize another one, to remember the never-for­gotten smell of corrupted flesh. How was it possible for the corpse to remain here so long, days at least? What had hap­pened to the city?

 There was a growing knot of unreasoned panic risingwithin him, urging him to run, scream, escape. He fought itdown and turned deliberately and started back toward theroom where Arinix was waiting. He would spend the'rest ofthe hour waiting for that door to open, hoping he would have the control to prevent himself from beating upon it. Some­thing had happened, to him or the world, he did not knowwhich, but he did know that the only hope of salvation fromthe incredible events of the morning lay beyond that door. Screaming unreason wanted him to run; he walked slowly,noticing for the first time that the street he was walking down ended in the water. The buildings on each side sankinto it as well, and there, at the" foot of the street, was the

 roof of a drowned wharf. All this seemed no more incrediblethan anything that had happened before, and he tried toignore it. He fought so hard to close his mind and his thoughtsthat he did not hear the rumble of the truck motor or thesqueal of brakes behind him.

 "That man! What are you doing here?"

 Mark spun about. A dusty, open-bodied truck had stopped at the curb, and a thin blond soldier was swinging down fromthe cab. He wore a khaki uniform without identifying marksand kept his hand near the large pistol in a polished leatherholster that swung from his belt. The driver was watchinghim, as were three more uniformed men in the back of the truck, who were pointing heavy rifles in his direction. Thedriver and the soldiers were all black. The blond officer haddrawn his pistol and was pointing it at Mark as well.

 "Are you with the westenders? You know what happensto them, don't you?"

 Sudden loud firing boomed in the street, and thinking he was being shot at, Mark dropped back against the wall. But no shots were aimed, in his direction. Even as they wereturning, the soldiers in the truck dropped, felled by the bul­lets. Then the truck itself leaped and burst into flames as agrenade exploded. The officer had wheeled about and droppedto one knee and was firing his pistol at Arinix, who wassheltered ina doorway across the street, changing clips onthe submachine gun he carried.

 Running footsteps sounded, and the officer wheeled to faceArinix's companion, who was running rapidly toward him,empty-handed and cold-faced.

 "Watch out!" Mark called as the officer fired.

 The bullet caught the running man in the chest, spinninghim about. He tottered but did not fall, then came on again.The second shot was to his head, but before the officer couldfire again, Mark had jumped forward and chopped him across the wrist with the edge of his hand, so that the gun jumpedfrom his fingers.

 "Varken hand!"the man cried, and swung his good fist toward Mark.

 Before it could connect, the runner was upon him, hurling him to the ground, kicking him in the head, again and again,with a heavy boot. Mark pulled at the attacker's arm, so thathe lost balance and had to stagger back, turning about. Thebullet had caught him full in the forehead, leaving a neat,

 dark hole. There was no blood. He looked stolidly at Mark,his features expressionless, his skin smooth and shiny.

 "We must return quickly," Arinix said as he came up. Helowered the muzzle of the machine gun and would have shotthe unconscious officer if Mark hadn't pushed the barrelaside.

 "You can't kill him, not like that."

 "Ican. He is dead already."

 "Explain that." He held firmly to the barrel. 'That anda lot more."

 They struggled in silence for a second, until they wereaware of an engine in the distance getting louder and closer.Arinix turned away from the man on the sidewalk andstarted back down the street. "He called for help on the radio. We must be gone before they arrive."

 Gratefully Mark hurried after the other two, happy to runnow, run to the door to escape this madness.

 3

 "A drink of water," Arinix said. Mark dropped onto themetal bench in the brown room and nodded, too exhaustedto talk. Arinix had a tray with glasses of water, and he passedone to Mark, who drained it and took a second one. The airwas cool here, feeling frigid after the street outside, and withthe water, he was soon feeling better. More relaxed, at ease, almost ready to fall asleep. As his chin touched his chest, hejerked awake and jumped to his feet.

 "You drugged the water," he said.

 "Not a strong drug. Just something to relax you, to removethe tension. You will be better in a moment. You have beenthrough an ordeal."

 "I have... and you are going to explain it!"

 "In a moment."

 "No, now!"

 Mark wanted to jump to his feet, to take this strange man by the -throat, to shake the truth from him. But he did noth­ing. The desire was there, but only in an abstract way. It didnot seem important enough to pursue such an energetic chainof events. For the first time he noticed that Arinix had losthis hairpiece during the recent engagement. He was as hair­ less as an egg, and the same scars that crisscrossed his facealso extended over his bare skull. Even this did not seem

 important enough to comment upon. Awareness struckthrough,

 "Your drug seems to be working."

 "The effect is almost instantaneous."

 "Where are we?"

 "In New York City."

 "Yes, I know, but so changed. The water in the streets, those soldiers, and the heat. It can't be January-have we traveled in time?"

 "No, it is still January, the same day, month, year it hasalways been. That cannot be changed, that is immutable."

 "But somethingisn't; something has changed. What is it?"

 "You have a very quick mind, you make correct conclu­sions. You must therefore free this quick mind of all theoriesof the nature of reality and of existence. There is no heaven,there is no hell, the past is gone forever, the unstoppablefuture sweeps toward us endlessly. We are fixed forever inthe now, the inescapable present of our world line-"

 "What is a world line?"

 "See... the drug relaxes, but your brain is still lawyer-sharp. You live in a particular present because of what hap­pened in the past. Columbus discovered America, the armiesof the North won the Civil War, Einstein stated thatE = MC2"

 He stopped abruptly, and Mark waited for him to go on, but he did not. Why? Because he was waiting for Mark to finish for him. Mark nodded.

 "What you are waiting for is for me to ask if there is aworld line where Columbus died in infancy, where the Southwon, and so forth. Is that what you mean?"

 "I do. Now, carry the analogy forward."

 "If two or three world lines exist, why, more, any number,an infinity of world lines can exist. Infinitely different, eter­nally separate." Then he was on his feet, shaking despite thedrug. "But they are not separate. We are in a different oneright now. There is a different world line beyond that door, down those steps-because the ground here is at a differentheight. Is that true?"

 "Yes."

 "But why, how... I mean, what is going on out there, whatterrible thing is happening?"

 "The sun is in the early stages of a change. It is getting warmer, giving out more radiation, and the polar ice capsare beginning to melt. The sea level has risen, drowning the

 lowest parts of the city This is midwinter, and you saw howwarm it is out there. You can imagine what the tropics arelike. There has been a breakdown in government as peoplefled the drowning shorelines. Others have taken advantageof it. The Union of South Africa has capitalized on the de­teriorating conditions, and using mercenary troops, has in­vaded the North American continent. They met little resis­tance."

 "I don't understand-or rather, I do understand what ishappening out there, and I believe you, because I saw it for myself. But what can I do about it? Why did you bring mehere?"

 "You can do nothing about it. I brought you here because we have discovered by experience that the quickest way that someone can be convinced of the multiplicity of worldlinessis by bringing them physically to a different world line."

 "It is also the best--and quickest-way to discover if theycan accept this fact and not break down before this newawareness."

 "You have divined the truth. We are, unfortunately, short of time, so wish to determine as soon as possible if recruitswill be able to work with us."

 "Who iswe?"

 "In a moment I will tell you. First, do you accept the ideaof the multiplicity of world lines?"

 "I'm afraid I must. Outside is an inescapable fact. Thatis not a stage constructed to confuse me. Those dead men aredead forever. How many world lines are there?"

 "An infinite number; it is impossible to know. Some differgreatly, some so slightly that it is impossible to mark thedifference. Imagine them, if you will, as close together ascards in a pack. If two-dimensional creatures, cluba and hearts, lived on each card, they would be unaware of the other cards and just as unable to reach them. Continue theanalogy, drive a nail through all of the cards. Now the other cards can be reached. My people, the 'we' you asked about, are the ones who can do that. We have reached many world lines. Some we cannot reach-some we dare not reach."

 "Why?"

 "You ask why-after what you saw out there?" For thefirst time since they had met, Arinix lost his cold detachment.His single eye blazed with fury, and his fists were clenchedas he paced the floor. "You saw the filthy things that happen,the death that comes before the absolute death. You see me,

 and I am typical of my people, maimed, killed, and scarredby a swollen sun that produces more and more hard radiationevery year. We escaped our world line, seeking salvation in other world lines, only to discover the awful and ultimatesecret. The rot is beginning, going faster and faster all thetime. You saw what the world is like beyond that door. Doyou understand what I am saying, do the words make anysense to you?

 "The sun is going nova. It is the end."

 4

 "Water," Arinix called out hoarsely, slumping onto themetal bench, his single eye closed now. The inner door opened,and his companion appeared with a pitcher and refilled theglasses. He moved as smoothly as before and seemed ignorantof the black hole in his forehead.

 "He is a Sixim," Arinix said, seeing the direction of Mark'sgaze. He drank the water so greedily that it ran down hischin. "They are our helpers; we could not do without them. Not our invention. We borrow what we need. They are ma­chines, fabrications of plastic and metal, though there is ar­tificial flesh of some kind involved in their construction. I donot know the details. Their controlling apparatus is some­where in the armored chest cavity; they are quite invulner­able."

 Mark had to ask the question.

 "The sun is going nova, you said. Everywhere, in every time line-inmy time line?"

 Arinix shook his head a weary no. "Not inevery line; thatis our only salvation. But in too many of them-and the paceis accelerating steadily. Your line-no, not as far as we know.The solar spectrum does not show the characteristic changes. Your line has enough problems as it is, and is one we use formuch-needed supplies. There are few of us, always too few,and so much to be done. We must save whom we can andwhat we can, do it without telling why or how we operate.It is a great work that does not end, and is a most tiring one.But my people are driven, driven insane with hatred, attimes, of that bloated, evil thing in the sky. We have survivedfor centuries in spite of it, maimed and mutated by the ra­diation it pours out. It was due to a successful mutation thatwe escaped even as we have, a man of genius who discoveredthe door between the world lines. But the unsuccessful out-

 number a million to one the successful in mutations, and Iwill not attempt to describe the suffering in my world. You may think me maimed, but I am one of the lucky ones. We have escaped our world line but found the enemy waitingeverywhere. We have tried to fight back. We started less thantwo hundred years ago, and our enemy started millions ofyears before us. From it we have learned to be ruthless in the war, and we will go on fighting it until we have doneeverything possible."

 "You want me to do something in that world outside thedoor?"

 "No, not there; they are dead. The destruction is too ad­vanced. We can only watch. Closer to the end, we will savewhat art we can. Things have been noted. We know a cultureby its art, don't we? We know a world that way as well. So many gone without record, so much to do."

 He drank greedily at the water, slobbering. Perhaps hewas mad, Mark thought, partly mad, at least. Hating thesun,trying to fight it, fighting an endlessly losing battle. But... wasn't it worth it? If lives, people, could be saved, wasn't that worth any price, any sacrifice? In his world line, men workedto save endangered species. Arinix and his people worked to save another species-their own.

 "What can I do to help?" Mark asked.

 "You must find out what happened to our field agent inone of our biggest operations. He is from your world line, theone we call Einstein because it is one of the very few whereatomic energy has been released. He is now on Iroquois, whichwill begin going nova within the century. It is a strange line,with little technology and retarded by monolithic religions. Europe still lives in the dark ages. The Indians rule in North America, and the Six Nations are the most powerful of all. They are a brave and resourceful people, and we had hoped to use them to settle a desert world-we know of many ofthose. Imagine, if you can, the Earth where life never began, where the seas are empty, the land a desert of sand and rock.We have seeded many of them, and that is wonder to behold,with animal and plant life. Simple enough to introduce seeds of all kinds, and later, when they have been established, totransfer animals there. Mankind is not as easy to transfer.We had great hopes with the Iroquois, but our agent has beenreported missing. I have taken time from my own projects tocorrect the matter. We used War Department records to findyou."

 "Who was your agent?"

 "A man named Joseph Wing, a Mohawk, a steel workerhere in the city in your own line."

 "There has always been bad feeling between the Mohawkand other tribes of the nations."

 "We know nothing about that, I will try to find his reports,,if any, if that will be of any assistance. The important thingis-will you help us? If you wish more money, you can haveall you need. We have an endless supply. There is little geo­logic difference between many worlds. So we simply record where important minerals are on one world, things such asdiamonds and gold, and see that it is mined on another. Itis very easy."

 Mark was beginning to have some idea of the immensityof the operation these people were engaged in. "Yes, I'll help, I'll do what I can."

 "Good. We leave at once. Stay where you are. We go nowto a world line that is called Home by some, Hatred byothers."

 "Your own?"

 "Yes. You will perhaps understand a bit more what drivesus. All of our geographical transportation is done on Hatred, for all of the original transit stations were set up there. Also,that is all it is really good for." He spat the words from hismouth as though they tasted bad.

 Again there was no sensation, no awareness of change,Arinix left the room, returned a few seconds later.

 "You wouldn't like to show me how you did that?" Mark asked.

 "I would not. It is forbidden, unthinkable. It would bedeath for you to go through that door. The means of transitbetween the world lines is one we must keep secret from all other than ourselves. We may be partially or completely in­sane, but our hatred is of that thing that hangs in the skyabove us. We favor no group, no race, no people, no speciesabove the others. But think what would happen if one of yournationalistic or religious groups gained control of the means to move between world lines, think of the destruction thatmight follow."

 "I grasp your meaning but do not agree completely."

 "I do not ask you to. All else is open to you; we have nosecrets. Only that room is forbidden. Come."

 He opened the outer door, and Mark followed him through.

 They were inside a cavernous building of some kind. Harshlights high above sent long shadows from great stacks of containers and boxes. They stepped aside as a rolling plat­form approached laden with shining cylinders. It was driven by a Sixim, who was identical, other than the hole in theforehead, to the one with them. The door they had just closed behind them opened, and two more Sixim came out and beganto carry the cylinders back into the room.

 "This way," Arinix said, and led the way through the highstacks to a room where bales of clothing lay heaped on tables."Go on to repair," he ordered the damaged Sixim that stillfollowed them, then pointed at the gray clothing.

 "These are radiation-resistant. We will change."

 As bereft of shame as of any other emotion, Arinix strippedoff his clothing and pulled on one of the coverall-type outfits.Mark did the same. It was soft but thick and sealed up high on the neck with what appeared to be a magnetic closure.There were heavy boots in an assortment of sizes, and hesoon found a pair that fitted. While he did this, Arinix was making a call on a very ordinary-looking phone that was prominently stamped "Western Electric"-they would be sur­prised if they knew where their apparatus was being used-speaking a language rich in guttural sounds. They left theroom by a different exit, into a wide corridor, where trans­portation was waiting for them. It was a vehicle the size of a large truck, a teardrop shape riding on six large, heavily tired wheels. It was made of metal the same color as theirclothing, and appeared to have no windows. However, whenthey went inside, Mark saw that the solid nose was eithertransparent or composed of a large viewsereen of some kind.A single driver's seat faced the controls, and a curved, paddedbench was fixed to the other three walls. They sat down,Arinix at the controls, and the machine started. There wasno vibration or sound of any exhaust; it just surged forwardsilently at his touch.

 "Electric power?" Mark asked.

 "I have no idea. The cars run when needed."

 Mark admired his singleness of purpose but did not envyhim. There was only one thing in the man's life-to run from the solar fire and save what possibly could be saved from theflame. Were all of his'people like this?

 Strong headlights glared on as they left the corridor andentered what appeared to be a tunnel mouth. The walls wererough and unfinished; only the roadway beneath was smooth,dropping away at a steep angle,

 "Where are we going?" Mark asked.

 "Under the river, so we can drive on the surface. Theisland above us-what is the name Einstein-?"

 "Manhattan."

 "Yes, Manhattan. It is covered by the sea now, which risesalmost to the top of the cliffs across the river from it Thepolar caps melted many years ago here. Life is very harsh,you will see."

 The tunnel ahead curved to the right and began to risesharply. Arinix slowed the vehicle and stopped when a bril­liant disk of light became visible ahead. He worked a control,and the scene darkened as though a filter had been slippedinto place. Then, with the headlights switched off, he movedforward until the light could be seen as the glaring tunnelmouth, growing larger and brighter, until they were through it and back on the surface once more.

 Mark could not look at the sun, or even in its direction,despite the protective filter. It burned like the open mouth of a celestial furnace, spewing out light and heat and radia­tion onto the world below. Here the plants grew, the onlyliving creatures that could bear the torrent of fire from thesky, that welcomed it. Green on all sides, a jungle of growing,thriving, rising, reaching plants and trees, burgeoning underthe caress of the exploding star. The road was the only visible manmade artifact, cutting a wide, straight slash through thewilderness of plant life, straining life that leaned over, grewto its very edge, and sent tendrils and runners across itsbarren surface. Arinix threw more switches, then rose fromthe driver's seat.

 "It is on automatic control now. We may rest."

 He grabbed for support as the car slowed suddenly; ahead,a great tree had crashed across the road, almost blocking it completely. There was a rattle of machinery from the frontof the car, and a glow sprang out that rivaled the glare of the sun above. Then they moved again, slowly, and greasysmoke billowed up and was blown away.

 'The machine will follow the road and clear it when itmust," Arinix said. "A device, a heat generator of some sort,will burn away obstructions. I am told it is a variant of themachine that melted the soil and rock to form this road, a

 principle discovered while observing the repulsive sun that has caused this all, making heat in the same manner the sunmakes heat. We will turn its own strengths back upon it."

 He went to the seat in the rear, stretched out on it withhis face to the cushions, and appeared to fall instantly asleep,Mark sat in the driver's chair, careful to touch nothing, bothfascinated and repelled by the world outside. The car contin­ued unerringly down the center of the road at a high speed,slowing only when it had to burn away obstructions. It must have utilized radar or other sensing devices, for a_ sudden heavy rainstorm did not reduce its speed in the slightest.Visibility was only a few feet in the intense tropical down­pour, yet the car moved on, speed unabated. It did slow, butonly to burn away obstructions, and smoke and steam ob­ scured all vision. Then the storm stopped, as quickly as itbegan. Mark watched until he began to yawn, so then, likeArinix, he tried to rest. At first he thought he could notpossibly sleep, then realized he had. Darkness had fallenoutside, and the car still hurried silently through the night.

 It was just before dawn when they reached their desti­nation.

 The building was as big as a fortress, which it resembledin more ways than one. Its walls- were high and dark, fea­tureless, streaked with rain. Harsh lights on all sides lit theground, which was nothing more than sodden ash. Appar­ently all plant life was burned before it could reach the build­ ing and undermine it. The road led directly to a high doorthat slid open automatically as they approached. Arinixstopped the vehicle a few hundred yards short of the entranceand rose from the controls.

 "Come with me. This machine will enter by itself, but weshall walk. There is no solar radiation now, so you may, seemy world and know what is in store for all the others."

 They stepped out into the damp airlessness of the night.The car pulled away from them, and they were alone. Ri­vulets of wet ash streaked the road, disappearing in runnelsat either side where the waiting plant life leaned close. The air was hot, muggy, hard to breathe, seemingly giving nosubstance to the lungs. Mark gasped and breathed deeply over and over again,

 "Remember," Arinix said, turning away and starting forthe entrance, "this is night, midwinter, before dawn, the cool­ est it will ever be here. Do not come in the summer."

 Mark went after him, aware that he was already soaked

 with sweat, feeling the strength of the enemy in the skyabove, which was already touching fire to the eastern horizon.Though he panted with the effort, he ran and staggered intothe building and watched as the door ground shut behindhim.

 "Your work now begins;" Arinix said, leading the way intoa now familiar brown room. Mark got his breath back andwiped his streaming face while they made their swift journeyto the world line named Iroquois,

 "I will leave you here and will return in twenty-four hours-for your report on the situation. We will then decide whatmusthe -done." Arinix opened the outer door and pointed.

 "Just a minute-I don't know anything that is happening here. You will have to brief me."

 "I know nothing of this operation, other than what I havetold you. The Sixim there should have complete records andwill tell you what you need to know. Now, leave. I have my own work to do."

 There was no point in arguing, Arinix gestured again im­patiently, and Mark went through the door, which closedwith a ponderous thud behind him. He was in darkness, colddarkness, and he shivered uncontrollably after the heat ofthe world he had just left.

 "Sixim, are you there? Can you turn on some lights?"

 There was the sudden flare of a match in answer, and inits light he could see an Indian lighting an ordinary kerosenelamp. He wore thong-wrapped fur leggings and a fringed deerskin jacket. Though his skin was dark, his features were Indo-European; once the lamp was lit, he stood by it, un-moving,

 "You are the Sixim," Mark said.

 "I am."

 "What are you doing here?"

 "Awaiting instructions."

 These creatures were as literal-minded as computers-which is probably what their brains were. Mark realized hehad to be more specific with his questions, but his teeth werechattering with cold, and he was shivering hard, which madeit difficult to think.

 "How long have you-been waiting?"

 "Twelve days, fourteen hours, and-"

 "That's precise enough. You have just been sitting herein the dark without heat all that time! Do you have a wayof heating this place?"

 "Yes."

 "Then do it, and quickly... and let me have something to wrap around me before I freeze."

 The buffalo-skin robe made a big difference, and while theSixim lit a fire in a large stone fireplace, Mark looked aroundat the large room. The walls were of logs, with the bark stillon, and the floor bare wide boards. Crates were piled at one end of the room, and a small mound of skins was at the other.Around the fire, it was more domestic, with a table andchairs, cooking pots, and cabinets. Mark pulled a woodenchair close and raised his hands to the crackling blaze. Oncethe fire was started, the Sixim waited stolidly again for more orders.

 By patient questioning Mark extracted all that the ma­chine man seemed to know about the situation. The agent,Joseph Wing, had been staying here and going out to talkto the Oneida. The work he did was unknown to the, Sixim."Wing had gone out and not returned. At the end of forty-eight hours, as instructed, the Sixim had reported him miss­ing. How he had reported, he would not say; obviously therewere questions it would not answer.

 "You've been a help-but not very much," Mark said, "I'lljust have to find out for myself what is going on out there.Did Joseph Wing leave any kind of papers, a diary, notes?"

 "No."

 "Thanks. Are there any weapons here?"

 "In that box Do you wish me to unlock it?"

 "I do."

 The weapons consisted of about twenty well-worn, ob­viously surplus M-1 rifles, along with some boxes of am­munition. Mark tried the bolt on one-it worked smoothly-then put the rifle back in the box.

 "Lock it up. I'm not looking for trouble, and if I find it, asingle gun won't make that much difference. But a peaceoffering might be in order, particularly food in the middle ofwinter."

 He carried the lantern over to the boxes and quickly found exactly what he needed. A case of large smoked hams. Pick­ing one out, he held the label to the light, "Smithfield Ham,"it read, "packed in New Chicago, weight 6.78 kilos." Not fromhis world line, obviously, but that didn't matter in the slight­est.

 And he would need warmer clothes, clothes that would bemore acceptable here than gray coveralls. There were leg-

 gings and jackets-obviously used, from their smell-thatwould do nicely. He changed quickly in front of the fire, then,knowing it would be harder the longer he waited, tucked theham under his arm and went to the door and pulled back onthe large wooden bolt.

 "Lock this behind me, and unlock it only for me."

 "Yes."

 The door opened onto an unmarked field of snow with astand of green pines and taller bare-limbed oak trees beyond.Above, in the blue arch of the sky, a small and reasonablewinter sun shed more light than heat. There was a path through the trees, and beyond them a thin trickle of smokewas dark against the sky. Mark went in that direction. Whenhe reached the edge of the grove, a tall Indian stepped silentlyfrom behind a tree and blocked the path before him. He madeno threatening moves, but the stone-headed club hung easilyand ready from his hand. Mark stopped and looked at him, saying nothing, hoping he could remember Iroquois after allthese years. It was the Indian who broke the silence andspoke first,

 "I am called Great Hawk."

 "I am called... Little-one-talks." He hadn't spoken thatname in years; it was what the old men on the reservationcalled him when he first spoke their own language. GreatHawk seemed to be easier when he heard the words, for his club sank lower.

 "I come in peace," Mark said, and held out the ham.

 "Welcome in peace," Great Hawk said, tucking the club into his waist and taking the ham. He sniffed at it apprecia­tively.

 "Have you seen the one named Joseph Wing?" Mark asked.

 The ham dropped, half-burying itself silently in the snow;the club was clutched at the ready.

 "Are you a friend of his?" Great Hawk asked.

 "I have never met him. But I was told I would see him here."

 Great Hawk considered this in silence for a long time,looked up as a blue jay flapped by overhead, calling outhoarsely, then examined with apparent great attention thetracks of a rabbit in the snow-through all of this not takinghis eyes from Mark for more than a second,. Finally he spoke.

 "Joseph Wing came here during the hunter's moon, beforethe first snow fell. Many said-he had much orenda, for therewere strange lights and sounds here during a night, and no

 one would leave the long house, and in the morning his longhouse stands as you see it now. There is great orenda here. Then he came and spoke to us and told us many things. Hesaid he would show the warriors a place where there wasgood hunting. Hunting is bad here, for the people of the SixNations are many, and some go hungry. He said all these things, and what he showed us made us believe him. Someof us said we would go with him, even though some thoughtthey would never return. Some said that he was Tehoron-hiawakhon, and he did not say it was not the truth. He saidto my sister, Deer-runs, that he was indeed Tehoronhiawak-hon. He told her to come with him to his long house. She didnot want to go with him. By force he took her to his longhouse."

 Great Hawk stopped talking abruptly and looked atten­tively at Mark through half-closed eyes-. He did not finish, but the meaning was clear enough. The Oneida would havethought Joseph Wing possessed of much orenda after his sud­den appearance, the principle of magic power that was in­herent in every body or thing. Some had it more than others. A man who could build a building in a night must have great orenda. So much so that some would consider him to be Te-horonhiawakhon, the hero who watched over them, born ofthe gods, who lived as a man and who might return as a man.But no hero would take a maiden by force; the Indians werevery practical on this point. Anyone who would do that wouldbe killed by the girl's family; that was obvious. Her brotherwaited for Mark's answer.

 "One who does that must die," Mark said. Defending theundoubtedly dead Joseph Wing would accomplish nothing;Mark was learning pragmatism from Arinix.

 "He died. Come to the long house."

 Great Hawk picked up the ham, turned his back, and ledthe way through the deep snow.

 6

 The Oneida warriors sat cross-legged around the fire whilethe women served them the thin gruel. Hunting must havebeen bad if this was all they had, for it was more water thananything else, with some pounded acorns and a few scrapsof venison. After eating, they smoked, a rank leaf of somekind that was certainly not tobacco. Not until the ceremony

 was out of the way did they finally touch the topic that con­cerned them all.

 "We have eaten elk," Great Hawk said, puffing at the pipeuntil his eyes grew red, "This is an elkskin robe I am wearing.They are large, and there is much meat upon them." Hepassed the pipe to Mark, then reached behind him under a tumbled hide and drew forth a bone, "This is the bone of theleg of an elk, brought to us by someone. We would eat wellin winter with elk such as this to hunt."

 Mark took it and looked at it as closely as he could in thedim light. It was a bone like any other, as far as he couldtell, distinguished only by its great length-at least five feetfrom end to end. Comparing it with the length of his ownfemur, he could see that it came from a massive beast. Surelyan elk or a cow would be smaller than this. What had thisto do with the dead Joseph Wing? He must have brought it. But why, and where did he get it? If only there were somerecord of what he was supposed to be doing. Hunting, ofcourse-that had to be it; food for these people who appearedtoo many for the limited hunting grounds. He held up thebone and spoke.

 "Was it told to you that you would be able to hunt elk likethis?"

 There were nods and grunts in answer.

 "What was told you?" After a silence, Great Hawk an­swered.

 "Someone said that a hunting party could go to this landthat was close by but far away. If hunting was good, a longhouse would be built for the others to follow. That was whatwas said."

 It was simple enough. A hunting party taken to one of the seeded desert worlds, now stocked with game. If the trip wassuccessful, the rest of the tribe would follow.

 "I can also take you hunting in that land," Mark said,

 "When will this be?"

 "Come to me in the morning, and I will tell you,"

 He left before they could ask any more questions. The sunwas low on the horizon, sending long purple shadows acrossthe white snow. Backtracking was easy, and the solid logwalls of the building a welcome sight. When he was identified,the Sixim let him in. The fire was built even higher now,the large room was almost warmed up. Mark sat by the fireand stretched his hands to it gratefully; the Sixim was sta­tuesque in the shadows,

 "Joseph Wing was to take the Indians to another worldline. Did you know that?"

 "Yes."    

 "Why didn't you tell me?"

 "You did not ask."

 "I would appreciate it if you would volunteer more infor­mation in the future."

 "Which information do you wish me to volunteer?"

 The Sixim took a lot of getting used to. Mark took thelantern and rummaged through the variety of goods in theboxes and on the loaded shelves. There were ranked bottles of unfamiliar shape and labeling that contained some thingcalledKunbula Atashan from someplace that appeared to benamed Carthagio-it was hard to read the letters, so he couldnot be sure, but when he opened one of them, it had a definite odor of strong alcoholic beverage. The flavor was unusual butfortifying, and he poured a mugful before he returned to thefire.

 "Do you know whom I must contact to make arrangementsfor the transfer to the other world line?"

 "Yes."

 "Who?"

 "Me."

 It was just that simple. The Sixim would give no detailsof the operation, but he would operate the mechanism to takethem to the correct world and return.

 "In the morning, first thing, we'll go have a look."

 They left soon after dawn. Mark took one of the rifles andsome extra clips of ammunition; that had been a big elk, andhe might be lucky enough to bag another. Once more thesensationless transfer was made and the heavy outer doorpushed open. For the first time there was no other room orhallway beyond it, just a field of yellowed grass. Mark was astonished.

 "But...is it winter? Where is the snow?" Because it wasphrased as a question, the Sixim answered him.

 "It is winter. But here in Sandstone the climate is warmer,due to the ocean-current differences."

 Holding the rifle ready, Mark stepped through the door,which the Sixim closed behind him. Without being ordered,the Sixim locked the door with the long key. For the firsttime Mark saw the means of world-line transportation notconcealed by an outer building. It was a large box, nothingmore, constructed of riveted and rusty steel plates. Whatever

 apparatus powered it was inside, for it was completely fea­tureless. He turned from it to look at the world named Sand­stone.

 The tall grass was everywhere; it must have been seededfirst to stabilize the soil. It had done this, but it would takecenturies to soften the bare rock contours of what had oncebeen a worldwide desert. Harsh-edged crags pushed up in the distance where there should have been rounded hills; moundsof tumbled morain rose above the grass. Groves and patchesof woods lay scattered about, while on one side a thick forest began and stretched away to the horizon. All of this had avery constructed air to it-and it obviously was. Mark rec­ ognized some of the trees; others were strange to him. This planet had been seeded in a hurry, and undoubtedly with agreat variety of vegetation. As unusual as it looked now, thismade ecological good sense, since complex ecological rela­tionships increased the chance the ecosystem had of surviv­ing. There would certainly be a variety of animal life as well-the large elk the Oneida knew about, and surely others aswell. When he moved around the rusty building, he saw justwhat some of that life might be-and stopped still on the spot.No more than a few hundred yards away, there was a herdof elephants tearing at the leaves on the low trees. Largeelephants with elegant swept-back tusks, thickly coveredwith hair.

 "Hairy mammoth!" he said aloud, just as the nearest bullsaw him appear and raised his trunk and screamed warning.

 "That is correct," the Sixim said.

 "Get your key, and let's get out of here," Mark said, back­ing quickly around the corner. "I don't think a thirty-caliberwill make a dent in that thing."

 With unhurried, steady motions the Sixim unlocked thedoor, one lock after another, while the thunder of poundingfeet grew louder and closer. Then they were through the doorand pushing it shut.

 "I think the Oneida will enjoy the hunting," Mark said, grinning wryly, leaning against the thick wall with relief,"Let's go back and get them."

 When he opened the outer wooden door in Iroquois, he sawGreat Hawk and five other warriors standing patiently inthe snow outside. They were dressed warmly, had what must be provision bags slung at their waists, and were armed withlong bows and arrows as well as stone clubs and stone skin­ning knives. They were prepared for a hunting expedition,

 they knew not where, but they were prepared. When Markwaved them forward, they came at once. The only sign of thetension they must be feeling was in their manner of walking,more like stalking a chase than entering a building. Theyshowed little interest in the outer room-they must havebeen here before-but were eyeing the heavy metal door with more than casual interest. The deceased Joseph Wing musthave told them something about it, but Mark had alreadydecided to ignore this and tell the truth as clearly as theycould understand it.

 "Through that door is a long house that will bear us to theplace where we will hunt. How it will take us there I do notknow, for it is beyond my comprehension. But it will take usthere as safely as a mother carries a papoose on her back, assafely as a bark canoe carries us over the waters. Are youready to go?"

 "Will you take the noise stick that kills?" Great Hawkasked, pointing with his thumb at the rifle Mark still carried.

 "Yes."

 "It was one time said that the Oneida would be given noisesticks and taught the manner of their use."

 Why not, Mark thought, there were no rules to all this,anything went that would save these people. "Yes, you mayhave them now if you wish, but I think until you can usethem well, your bows will be better weapons."

 "That is true. We will have them when we return."

 The Sixim pulled the heavy door open, and without beingurged, the Indians filed into the brightly lit room beyond. They remained silent but held their weapons ready as thedoor was closed and the Sixim went through the door to theoperating room, only to emerge a moment later.

 "The journey is over," Mark said. "Now we hunt."

 Only when the outer door was opened onto the grassysunlit plain did they believe him. They grunted with surpriseas they left, calling out in wonder at the strange sights andthe warm temperature. Mark looked around nervously, butthe herd of mammoth was gone. There were more thanenough other things to capture the Indians' attention. They saw animals where he saw only grass and trees and called attention to them with pleased shouts. Yet they were silentinstantly when Great Hawk raised his hand for silence, thenpointed.

 "There, under those trees. It looks like a large pig."

 Mark could see nothing in the shadows, but the other

 Indians were apparently in agreement, for they were nockingarrows to their bows. When the dark, scuffling shape emergedinto the sunlight, they were ready for it, A European boar,far larger than they had ever seen. The boar had never seenmen before either; it was not afraid; The arrows whistled;more than one struck home, the boar wheeled about, squeal­ing with pain, and crashed back into the undergrowth. Whooping with pleasure, the Oneida were instantly on itstrail.

 "Stay inside until we get back," Mark told the Sixim. "I want to be surewe can get back."

 He ran swiftly after the others, who had already vanishedunder the trees. The trail was obvious, marked with the bloodof the fleeing animal, well trampled by its pursuers. Fromahead there came even louder squealing and shouts thatended in sudden silence. When Mark came up, it was all over;the boar was on its side, dead, its skull crushed in, while the victorious Indians prodded its flanks and hams happily.

 The explosion shook the ground at that moment, a long,deep rumbling sound that hammered at their ears. It stag­gered them, it was so close and loud, frightening them be­cause they did not know what it was. Mark did. He had heardthis kind of noise before. He wheeled about and watched thelarge cloud of greasy black smoke roiling and spreading as it climbed up the sky. It rose from behind the trees in the direction of the building. Then he was running, slamming acartridge in the chamber of the rifle at the same time, thumb­ing off the safety.

 The scene was a disaster. He stumbled and almost fell ashe emerged from beneath the trees.

 Where the squat steel building had stood was now only asmoking, flame-licked ruin of torn and twisting plates. Onthe grass nearby, one leg ripped away and as torn himself, lay the Sixim.

 The doorway between the worlds was closed.

 7

 Mark just stood there, motionless, even after the Indianscame up and ranked themselves beside him, calling out inwonder at the devastation. They did not realize yet that they were exiled from their tribe and their own world. The Sixim raised its head and called out hoarsely; Mark ran to it. Much of its imitation flesh was gone, and metal shone through the

 gaps. Its face had suffered badly as well, but it could still talk.

 "What happened?" Mark asked.

 "There were strangers in the room, men with guns. Thisis not allowed. There are orders. I actuated the destruct mech­anism and attempted to use the escape device."

 Mark looked at the ruin and flames. "There is no way thisroom can be used again?" -

 "No."

 "Are there other rooms on this world?"

 "One that I know of, perhaps more____"

 "One is enough! Where is it?"

 "What is the name of your world line?"

 "What difference does that make?... All right, it's called Einstein."

 "The room is located on an island that is named Manhat­tan." '

 "Of course! The original one I came through. But that mustbe at least two hundred miles away from here as the crow flies."

 But what was two hundred miles as compared to the gap between the worlds? His boots were sound, he was a couple of pounds overweight, but otherwise in good condition. Hehad companions who were at home in the wilds and knewhow to live off the land. If they would come with him... Theyhad little other choice. If he could explain to them what hadhappened and what they must do...

 It was not easy, but the existence of this world led themto believe anything he told them-if not believe it, at leastnot to doubt it too strongly. In the end they were almost eagerto see what this new land had to offer, what other strangeanimals there were to hunt. While the others butchered and smoked the fresh-killed meat, Mark labored to explain toGreat Hawk that they were physically at the same place in the world as the one they had left. The Indian worked hardto understand this but could not, since this was obviously adifferent place. Mark finally forced him to accept the fact onfaith, to operate as if it were true even though he knew itwasn't.

 When it came to finding the island of Manhattan, GreatHawk called a conference of all the Indians. They strolledover slowly, grease-smeared and happy, stomachs bulging with fresh meat. Mark could only listen as they explored thegeography of New York State, as they knew it and as they

 had heard of it from others. In the end they agreed on the location of the island, at the mouth of the great river at theocean nearby the long island. But they knew they could notget there from this place, then went back to their butchery. They fell asleep in the middle of this; it was late afternoon,so he gave up any hope of starting this day. He resignedhimself to the delay and was eating some of the roasted meathimself when the Sixim appeared out of the forest. It hadshaped a rough crutch from a branch, which it held under its arm as it walked. Arinix had said the creatures were almostindestructible, and it appeared he was right.

 Mark questioned the Sixim, but it did not know how to getto Manhattan, nor did it have any knowledge of the geog­raphy of this world. When the sun set, Mark stretched outby the fire with the others and slept just as soundly as theydid. He was up at first light, and as the sun rose in the east, he squinted at it and realized what he had to do. He wouldhave to lead them out of here. He shook Great Hawk awake,

 "We walk east toward the sun," he said, "When we reachthe great river, we turn and follow it downstream to thesouth. Can we do that?" If there were a Hudson River on thisworld ... and if the Indians would follow him,,, Great Hawklooked at him solemnly for a long moment, then sat,up.

 "We leave now." He whistled shrilly, and the othersstirred.

 The Indians enjoyed the outing very much, chatteringabout the sights along the way and looking with amusementat what was obviously a happy hunting ground. Game waseverywhere-creatures they knew and others that were com­pletely strange. There was a herd of great oxlike creatures that resembled the beasts of the cave paintings in Altamira,aurochs perhaps, and they had a glimpse of a great cat stalk­ing them that appeared to have immensely long tusks. Asabertooth tiger? All things were possible on this newly rip­ening desert world. They walked for five days through thisstrange landscape before they reached what could only be the Hudson River.

 Except that, like the Colorado River, this river had cut animmense gorge through what had formerly been a barrenlandscape. They crept close to the high cliffs and peered over.There was no possible way to descend.

 "South," Mark said, and turned along the edge, and theothers followed him.

 A day later they reached a spot where a tributary joined

 the Hudson and where the banks were lower and moregraded. In addition, many seeds had been Sown or carried here, and strands of trees lined the shore. It took the Indiansless than a day to assemble branches, trunks, and driftwood to make a sizable raft. Using strips of rawhide, they boundthis firmly together, loaded their food aboard, then climbed aboard themselves. As the Indians poled and paddled, theclumsy craft left shore, was carried quickly out into the main current, and hurried south. Manhattan would be at the river's mouth.

 This part of the trip was the easiest, and far swifter thanMark had realized. The landscape was so different from what he -knew of the valley, with alternate patches of vegetationand desert, that he found it hard to tell where they were. Anumber of fair-sized streams entered the river from the east,and there was no guarantee that the East River, which cutManhattan off from the mainland, existed on this world. Ifit were there he thought it another tributary, for he neversaw it. There were other high cliffs, so the Palisades were notthat noticeable.

 "This water is no good," Great Hawk said. He had scoopedup a handful from the river, and he now spat it out. Markdipped some himself. It was brackish, salty.

 "The ocean, tidewater-we're near the mouth of the river!Pull to shore, quickly."

 What he had thought was a promontory ahead showednothing but wide water beyond it, the expanse of New York Harbor. They landed on- what would be the site of BatteryPark on the southernmost tip of the island. The Indiansworked in silence, unloading the raft, and when Mark startedto speak, Great Hawk held his finger to his lips for silence,then leaned close to whisper in his ear.

 "Men over this hill, very close. Smell them, smell the fire,they are cooking meat."

 "Show me," Mark whispered in return.

 He could not move as silently as the Oneida did; theyvanished like smoke among the trees. Mark followed as qui­etly as he could, and a minute later Great Hawk was backto lead him. They crawled the last few yards on their stomachsunder the bushes, hearing the sound of mumbled voices. TheIndian moved a branch slowly aside, and Mark looked intothe clearing.

 Three khaki-clad soldiers were gathered around a fire overwhich a smoking carcass roasted. They had heavy rifles slung

 across their shoulders. A fourth, a sergeant with upside-downstripes, was stretched out asleep with his wide-brimmed hatover his face.

 They spoke quietly in order not to waken him, a strangelyfamiliar language deep in their throats.

 It was Dutch-not Dutch, Afrikaans. But what were theydoing here?

 Mark crawled back to the others, and by the time he had reached them, the answer was clear-too clear, and fright­ening. But it was the only possibility. He must tell them.

 "Those men are soldiers. I know them. Warriors with noisesticks. I think they are the ones who took over the room anddestroyed it. They are here, which must mean they havetaken over the room here. Without it we cannot return."

 "What must we do?" Great Hawk asked. The answer wasobvious, but Mark hesitated to say it. He was a lawyer, orhad been a lawyer-a man of the law. But what was the lawhere?

 "If we are to return, we will have to kill them, withoutany noise, then kill or capture the others at the room. If wedon't do that, we will be trapped here, cut off from the tribeforever,"

 The Indians, who lived by hunting, and were no strangers• to tribal warfare, were far less worried about the killing than was Mark. They conferred briefly, and Great Hawk and threeothers vanished silently back among the trees. Mark sat,staring.sightlessly at the ground, trying to equate this withhis civilized conscience. For a moment he envied the batteredSixim, who stood by his side, unbothered by emotions or wor­ries. An owl called and the remaining Indians stood and calledMark after them.

 The clearing was the same, the meat still smoked on thespit, the sergeant's hat was still over his eyes. But an arrow stood out starkly from his side below his arm. The huddled forms of the other soldiers revealed the instant, silent deaththat had spoken from the forest. With no show of emotion,the Indians cut the valuable arrowsfree of the corpses, com­menting only on the pallid skin of the men, then looted their weapons and supplies. The guns might be useful; the arrows certainly were. Great Hawk was scouting the clearing andfound a-to him-clearly marked trail. The sun was behindthe trees when they started down it.

 The building was not far away. They looked at it fromhiding, the now familiar rusted and riveted plates of its walls,

 the heavy sealed door. Only, this door was gaping open, andthe building itself was surrounded by a palisade of thin treesand shrubs. A guard stood at the only gate, and the enclosure wds filled with troops. Mark could see heavy weapons andmortars there.

 "It will be hard to kill all of these without being killed ourselves," Great Hawk said.."So we shall not try."

 8

 The Indians could not be convinced even to consider action.They lay about in the gathering darkness, chewing on thetough slabs of meat, ignoring all of-Mark's arguments. Theywere as realistic as any animal, and not interested in suicide.A mountain lion attacks a deer, a deer runs from a lion-itnever happens the other way around. They would wait here until morning and watch the camp, then decide what to do.But it was obvious that the options did not include an attack. Would it end this way, defeat without battle... and a barrenlifetime on a savage planet stretching ahead of them? More barren to Mark, who had a civilized man's imagination anddespair. The Indians had no such complications in their lives. They chewed the meat, the matter dismissed and forgotten, and in low whispers discussed the hunting and the animals while darkness fell. Mark sat, silent with despair; the Siximloomed silent as a tree beside him. The Sixim would follow orders, but the two of them were not going to capture this armed camp. Something might happen-he must make the Indians stay and watch and help him. He doubted if theywould.

 Something did happen, and far sooner than he hadthought. Great Hawk, who had slipped away to watch thebuilding, came back suddenly and waved the others to followhim. They went to the fringe of the trees once more and lookedat the activity in the camp with astonishment.

 The gate was standing open, and there was no guard uponit.

 All of the soldiers had drawn up in a semicircle facing theopen door of the building. Fires had been lit near it. All ofthe heavy weapons had been trained on the opening.

 "Don't you see what has happened!" Mark said excitedly."They may control this building and others like it in otherlines, but they cannot possibly control them all. They must be expecting a counterattack. They can do nothing until the

 attackers appear except wait and be ready. Do you under­stand-this is our chance! They are not expecting troublefrom this flank. Get close in the darkness. Wait. Wait untilthe attack. Then we take out the machine guns-they arethe real danger-sow confusion. Taken from the front andrear at the same time, they cannot win. Sixim, can you firea rifle? One of these we captured?"

 "I can. I have examined their mechanism."

 "How is your aim?" It was a foolish question to ask.

 "Ihit what I aim at, every time."

 "Then let us get close and get into positions. This may beour only chance. If we don't do it this time, there will probablybe no second chance. Once they know we are out here, theguns will face both ways. Come, we have to get close now."

 He moved out toward the enclosure, the Sixim, rifle slung,limping at his side. The Indians stayed where they were. Heturned back to them, but they were as solid and unmovingas rock in their silence. Nothing more could be done. This leftonly the two of them, man and machine man, to do their best.

 They were almost too late, While they were still twentyyards' from the palisade, sudden fire erupted from inside thebuilding; the South Africans guns roared in return. Mark ran, drawing ahead of the Sixim, running through the opengate, to fall prone in the darkness near the wall and to controlhis breathing. To squeeze off his shots carefully.

 One gunner fell, then another. Tie Sixim was beside him,firing at target after target with machine regularity. Some­one had seen the muzzle blast of their guns, because weaponswere turned on them, bullets tearing into the earth besidethem, soldiers running toward them. Mark's gun clicked outof battery, empty of cartridges. He tore the empty clip away,struggled to jam in a full one; the soldier was above him.

 Falling to one side with an arrow in his chest. Darkershadows moved, just as a solid wave of Sixim erupted throughthe open doorway.

 That was the beginning of the end. As soon as they wereamong the soldiers, the slaughter began, no mercy, no quarter. Mark called the Indians to him, to the protection of their own battered Sixim, before they were also cut down. The carnage was brief and complete, and when it was over, a familiar one-eyed figure emerged from the building,

 "Arinix," Mark called out, and the man turned and cameover, "How did all this happen?"

 "They were suspicious; they had been watching us for a

 long time. That officer we did not kill led them to this build­ing." He said it without malice or regret, a statement of fact.Mark had no answer.

 "Is this the last of them? Is the way open now?"

 "There are more, but they will be eliminated. You see whathappens when others attempt to control the way between theworlds?" He started away, then turned back. "Have yousolved the problem with the Indians? Will they settle thisworld?"

 "I think so. I would like to stay with them longer, givethem what help I can."

 "You do not wish to return to Einstein?"

 That was a hard one to answer. Back to New York andthe pollution and the life as a lawyer. It suddenly seemed a good deal emptier than it had. "I don't know. Perhaps, per­haps not. Let me finish here first."

 Arinix turned away instantly and was gone. Mark wentto Great Hawk, who sat cross-legged on' the ground andwatched the operation with a great deal of interest. '

 "Why did you and the others come to help?" Mark asked.

 "It seemed too good a fight to miss. Besides, you said youwould show us how to use the noise sticks. You could not dothat if you were dead."

 The smoke from the dying fires rose up in thin veils againstthe bright stars in the sky above. In his nostrils the air wascold and clean, its purity emphasized by the smell of woodsmoke. Somewhere, not too far away, a wolf howled long andmournfully. This world, so recently empty of life, now had itin abundance, and would soon have human settlers as well,Indians of the Six Nations who would be escaping the firethat would destroy their own world. What sort of world would they make of it?

 He had the sudden desire to see what would happen here,even to help in the shaping of it. The cramped life of a lawyerin a crowded world was without appeal. He had friends that he would miss, but he knew that new friends waited for himin the multiplicity of worlds he would soon visit. Really, there was no choice.

 Arinix was by the open door issuing orders to the attentiveSixim. Mark called out to him.

 The decision had really been an easy one.

 3

 EARTH DESTROYED

 What if the Universe and Sun are essentially undisturbed, but Earth itself undergoes a battering in a "Catastrophe ofthe Third Class"?

 There have been dangers to Earth that were popular withscience fiction writers in decades past but that have neverreally been in the astronomical cards. The planets of the solarsystemcannot be so perturbed in their movements that theybegin a slow spiral into the Sun-not unless some method is provided for bleeding off their tremendous angular momen­ tum. Nevertheless, it is a colorful possibility that sf hates toabandon ("Requiem" by Edmond Hamilton).

 Today the Universe has become much more violent thanm the old, old days of thirty years ago. We have learned about not merely exploding stars, but the cores of galaxies-billionsof stars-that go up in agony. We deal with collapses intopulsars and black holes and the incredibly luminous quasars,And all of this gives writers the opportunity for dramatic ends indeed to Earth for the violence gives rise to radiation and that- ("At the Core" by Larry Nivenj,

 The reverse is also dramatic. What if something happensto deprive us of our Sun altogether and we are threatenedwith ruin not through excess of energy but utter lack ("A Pail of Air" by Fritz Leiberi.

 Nor need we feel we are entirely at the mercy of outside influences. Such is the powerof Homo sapiens for evil that we can (and very likely are) ruining ourselves by the simpleprocess of fouling our nest ("'King of the Hill" by Chad Oliver).

 RequiemEDMOND HAMILTON

 Kellon thought sourly that he wasn't commanding a star-ship, he was running a traveling circus. He had aboardtelaudio men with tons of equipment, pontifical commenta­tors who knew the answer to anything, beautiful females whowere experts on the woman's angle, pompous bureaucratsafter publicity, and entertainment stars who had come along for the same reason.

 He had had a good ship and crew, one of the best in theSurvey.Had had. They weren't any more. They had beentaken off their proper job of pushing astrographical knowl­ edge ever further into the remote regions of the galaxy, andhad been sent off with this cargo of costly people on a totallyunnecessary mission,

 He said bitterly to himself, "Damn all sentimentalists."

 He said aloud, "Does its position check with your calcu­lated orbit, Mr. Riney?"

 Riney, the Second, a young and serious man who had beenfussing with instruments in the astrogation room, came out and said,

 "Yes. Right on the nose. Shall we go in and land now?"

 Kellon didn't answer for a moment, standing there in thefront of the bridge, a middle-aged man, stocky, square-shoul­ dered, and with his tanned, plain face showing none of the resentment he felt. He hated to give the order but he had to.

 "All right, take her in."

 He looked gloomily through -the filter-windows as theywent in. In this fringe-spiral of the galaxy, stars were rela­tively infrequent, and there were only ragged drifts of them across the darkness. Full ahead shone a small, compact sunlike a diamond. It was a white dwarf and had been so for twothousand years, giving forth so little warmth that the planets

 which circled it had been frozen and ice-locked all that time.They still were, all except the innermost world.

 Kellon stared at that planet, a tawny blob. The ice thathad sheathed it ever since its primary collapsed into a whitedwarf had now melted. Months before, a dark wandering bodyhad passed very close to this lifeless system. Its passing hadperturbed the planetary orbits and the inner planets hadstarted to spiral slowly in toward their sun, and the ice hadbegun to go.

 Viresson, one of the junior officers, came into the bridgelooking harassed. He said to Kellon,

 "They want to see you down below, sir. Especially Mr.Borrodale. He says it's urgent."

 Kellon thought wearily, Well, I might as well go down andface the pack of them. Herd's where they really begin.

 He nodded to Viresson, and went do'wn below to the maincabin. The sight of it revolted him. Instead of his own men in it, relaxing or chinning, it held a small and noisy mob ofoverdressed, overloud men and women, all of whom seemedto be talking at once and uttering brittle, nervous laughter.

 "Captain Kellon, I want to ask you-"

 "Captain, if youplease -"

 He patiently nodded and smiled and plowed through themto Borrodale He had been given particular instructions tocooperate with Borrodale, the most famous tetaudio com­mentator in the Federation.

 Borrodale was a slightly plump man with a round pinkface and incongruously large and solemn black eyes. Whenhe spoke, one recognized at once that deep, incredibly richand meaningful voice.

 "My first broadcast is set for thirty minutes from now, Captain. I shall want a view as we go in. If my men could take a mobile up to the bridge-"

 Kellon nodded. "Of course. Mr. Viresson is up there andwill assist them in any way."

 "Thank you, Captain. Would you like to see the broad­cast?"

 "I would, yes, but-"

 He was interrupted by Lorri Lee, whose glitteringly hand­some face and figure and sophisticated drawl made her theidol of all female telaudio reporters.

 "Mybroadcast is to be right after landing-remember? I'dlike to do it alone, with just the emptiness of that world as

 background. Can you keep the others from spoiling the effect?Please?"

 "We'll do what we can," Kellon mumbled. And as the restof the pack converged on him he added hastily, "I'll talk to you later. Mr. Borrodale's broadcast-"

 He got through them, following after Borrodale toward thecabin that had been set up as a telaudio-transmitter room.It had, Kellon thought bitterly, once served an honest pur­pose, holding the racks of soil and water and other samplesfrom far worlds. But that had been when they were doing anhonest Survey job, not chaperoning chattering fools on thissentimental pilgrimage.

 The broadcasting set-up was beyond Kellon. He didn'twant to hear this but it was better than the mob in the maincabin. He watched as Borrodale made a signal. The monitor-screen came alive.

 It showed a dun-colored globe spinning in space, growingvisibly larger as they swept toward it. Now straggling seaswere identifiable upon it. Moments passed and Borrodale did not speak, just letting that picture go out. Then his deep voicespoke over the picture, with dramatic simplicity.

 "You are looking at the Earth," he said.

 Silence again, and the spinning brownish ball was bigger now, with white clouds ragged upon it. And then Borrodale spoke again.

 "You who watch from many worlds in the galaxy-this is the homeland of our race. Speak its name to yourselves. TheEarth."

 Kellon felt a deepening distaste. This was all true, butstill it was phony. What was Earth now to him, or to Bor­rodale, or his billions of listeners? But it was a story, a sen­timental occasion, so they had to pump it up into somethingbig.

 "Some thirty-five hundred years ago," Borrodale was say­ing, "our ancestors lived on this world alone. That was whenthey first went into space. To these other planets first-butvery soon, to other stars. And so our Federation began, ourcommunity of human civilization on many stars and worlds."

 Now, in the monitor, the view of Earth's dun globe hadbeen replaced by the face of Borrodale in close-up. He pauseddramatically.

 "Then, over two thousand years ago, it was discovered thatthe sun of Earth was about to collapse into a white dwarf. Sothose people who still remained on Earth left it forever and

 when the solar change came, it and the other planets becamemantled in eternal ice. And now, within months, the finalend of the old planet of our origin is at hand. It is slowly spiraling toward the sun and soon it will plunge into it asMercury and Venus have already done. And when that occurs,the world of man's origin will he gone forever."

 Again the pause, for just the right length of time, and thenBorrodale continued in a voice expertly pitched in a lowerkey.

 "We on this ship-we humble reporters and servants ofthe vast telaudio audience on all the worlds-have come hereso that in these next weeks we can give you this last look atour ancestral world. We think-we hope-that you'll findinterest in recalling a past that is almost legend."

 And Kellon thought, The bastard has no more interest inthis old planet than I have, but he surely is smooth.

 As soon as the broadcast ended, Kellon found himself be­sieged once more by the clamoring crowd in the main cabin.He held up his hand in protest.

 "Please, now now-we have a landing to make first. Will you come with me, Doctor Darnow?"

 Darnow was from Historical Bureau, and was the titularhead of the whole expedition, although no one paid him muchattention. He was a sparrowy, elderly man who babbled ex­citedly as he went with Kellon to the bridge.

 He at least,was sincere in his interest, Kellon thought.For that matter, so were all the dozen-odd scientists who wereaboard. But they were far outnumbered by the fat cats andbig brass out for publicity, the professional enthusers andsentimentalists. A real hell of a job the Survey had givenhim!

 In the bridge, he glanced through the window at the dun-colored planet and its satellite. Then he asked Darnow, "Yousaid something about a particular place where you wantedto land?"

 The historiographer bobbed his head, and began unfolding a big, old-fashioned chart.

 "See this continent here? Along its eastern coast were alot of the biggest cities, like New York."

 Kellon remembered that name, he'd learned it in schoolhistory, a long time ago.

 Darnowls finger stabbed the chart. "If you could land there,right on the island-"

 Kellon studied the relief features, then shook his head."Too low. There'll be great tides as time goes on and we can'ttake chances. That higher ground back inland a bit shouldbe all right, though."

 Darnow looked disappointed. "Well. I suppose you'reright."

 Kellon told Riney to set up the landing-pattern. Then he asked Darnow skeptically,

 "You surely don't expect to find much in those old cities now-not after they've had all that ice on them for two thou­sand years?"

 "They'll be badly damaged, of course," Darnow admitted."But there should be a vast number of relics. I could studyhere for years-"

 "We haven't got years, we've got only a few months beforethis planet gets too close to the Sun," said Kellon. And he added mentally, "Thank God."

 The ship went into its landing-pattern. Atmosphere whined outside its hull and then thick gray clouds boiled and racedaround it. It went down through the cloud layer and moved above a dull brown landscape that had flecks of white in itsdeeper valleys. Far ahead there was the glint of a gray ocean.But the ship came down toward a rolling brown plain andsettled there, and then there was the expected thunderclapof silence that always followed the shutting off of all ma­chinery.

 Kellon looked at Riney, who turned in a moment from thetest-panel with a slight surprise on his face. "Pressure, ox­ygen, humidity, everything-all optimum." And then he said,"But of course. This placewas optimum."

 Kellon nodded. He said, "Doctor Darnow and I will havea look out first. Viresson, you keep our passengers in."

 When he and Darnow went to the lower airlock he hearda buzzing clamor from the main cabin and he judged thatViresson was having his hands full. The people in there werenot used to being said no to, and he could imagine theirresentment.

 Cold, damp air struck a chill in Kellon when they steppeddown out of the airlock. They stood on muddy, gravellyground that squashed a little under their boots as theytrudged away from the ship. They stopped and looked around,shivering.

 Under the low gray cloudy sky there stretched a sad, sun-

 less brown landscape. Nothing broke the drab color of rawsoil, except the shards of ice still lingering in low places, Aheavy desultory wind stirred the raw air, and then it was still. There was not a sound except the clink-clinking of theship's skin cooling and contracting, behind them. Kellonthought that no amount of sentimentality could make thisanything but a dreary world,

 But Darnow's eyes were shining. "We'll have to makeevery minute of the time count," he muttered, "Every min­ute."

 Within two hours, the heavy broadcast equipment was being trundled away from the ship on two motor-tracs that headed eastward. On one of the tracs rode Lorri Lee, re­splendent in lilac-colored costume of synthesilk.

 Kellon, worried about the possibility of quicksands, went along for that first broadcast from the cliffs that looked downon the ruins of New York. He wished he hadn't, when it got under way.

 For Lorri Lee, her blond head bright even in the dull light,turned loose all her practiced charming gestures for the broadcast cameras, as she gestured with pretty excitementdown toward the ruins.

 "It's sounbelievable!" she cried to a thousand worlds. "Tobe here on Earth, to see the old places again-itdoes some­thing to you!"

 It did something to Kellon. It made him feel sick at hisstomach. He turned and went back to the ship, feeling at thatmoment that if Lorri Lee went into a quicksand on the way back, it would be no great loss.

 But that first day was only the beginning. The big shipquickly became the center of multifarious and continuousbroadcasts. It had been especially equipped to beam stronglyto the nearest station in the Federation network and itstransmitters were seldom quiet.

 Kellon found that Darnow, who was supposed to coordinateall this programming, was completely useless. The little his­torian was living in a seventh heaven on this old planet whichhad been uncovered to view for the first time in millennia, and he was away most of the time on field trips of his own.It fell to his assistant, an earnest and worried and harassed young man, to try to reconcile the clashing claims and de­mands of the highly temperamental broadcasting stars.

 Kellon felt an increasing boredom at having to stand

 around while all this tosh went out over the ether. Thesepeople were having a field-day but he didn't think much of them and of their broadcasts. Roy Quayle, the young malefashion designer, put on a semi-humorous, semi-nostalgic. display of the old Earth fashions, with the prettier girls wear­ing some of the ridiculous old costumes he had had duplicated.Harden, the famous teleplay producer, ran off ancient filmsof the old Earth dramas that had everyone in stitches. JayMaxson, a rising politician in Federation Congress, discussedwith Borrodale the governmental systems of the old days, in a way calculated to give his own Wide-Galaxy Party nonethe worst of it. The Arcturus Players, that brilliant group ofyoung stage-folk, did readings of old Earth dramas andpoems.

 It was, Kellon thought disgustedly, just playing. Grownpeople, famous people, seizing the opportunity given by theaccidental end of a forgotten planet to posture in the spotlightlike smart-aleck children. There was real work to do in thegalaxy, the work of the Survey, the endless and wearying butalways-fascinating job of charting the wild systems andworlds. And instead of doing that job, he was condemned to spend weeks and months here with these phonies.

 The scientists and historians he respected. They did few broadcasts and they did not fake their interest. It was one ofthem, Haller, the biologist, who excitedly showed Kellon ahandful of damp soil a week after their arrival.

 "Look atthat!" he said proudly.

 Kellon stared. "What?"

 "Those seeds-they're common weed-grass seeds. Look atthem."

 Kellon looked, and now he saw that from each of the tinyseeds projected a new-looking hairlike tendril.

 "They're sprouting?" he said unbelievingly.

 Haller nodded happily. "I was hoping for it. You see, itwas almost spring in the northern hemisphere, according tothe records, when Sol collapsed suddenly into a white dwarf. Within hours the temperature plunged and the hydrosphere aad atmosphere began to freeze."

 "But surely that would kill all plant-life?"

 "Ne," said Haller. "The larger plants, trees, perennialshrubs, and so on, yes. But the seeds of the smaller annuals just froze into suspended animation. Now the warmth that melted them is causing germination."

 "Then we'll have grass-small plants?"

 "Very soon the way the warmth is increasing,"

 It was, indeed, getting a little warmer all the time as these first weeks wentby. The clouds lifted one day and there wasbrilliant, thin white sunshine from the little diamond sun.And there came a morning when they found the rolling land­scape flushed with a pale tint of green.

 Grass grew. Weeds grew, vines grew, all of them seemingto rush their growth as though they knew that this, their lastseason, would not be long. Soon the raw brown mud of thehills and valleys had been replaced by a green carpet, andeverywhere taller growths were shooting ap, and flowers be­ginning to appear. Hepaticas, bluebells, dandelions, violets,bloomed once more.

 Kellon took a long walk, now that he did not have to plowthrough mud. The chattering people around the ship, the constant tug and pull of clashing temperaments, the brittle,febrile voices, got him down. He felt better to get away byhimself.

 The grass and the flowers had come back but otherwisethis was still an empty world. Yet there was a certain peaceof mind'in tramping up and down the long green rollingslopes. The sun was bright and cheerful now, and white cloudsdotted the sky, and the warm wind whispered as he sat upon a ridge and looked away westward where nobody was, or would ever be again.

 Damned dull, he thought. But at least it's better than backwith the gabblers.

 He sat for a long time in the slanting sunshine, feeling hisbristling nerves relax. The grass stirred about him, ripplingin long waves, and the taller flowers nodded.

 No other movement, no other life, A pity, he thought, that there were no birds for this last spring of the old planet-noteven a butterfly. Well, it made no difference, all this wouldn'tlast long.

   As Kellon tramped back through the                dusk, he

 suddenly became aware of a shining bubble in the darkeningsky. He st&pped and stared up at it and then remembered.Of course, it was the old planet's moon-during the cloudynights he had forgotten all about it. He went on, with its vague light about him.

 When he stepped back into the lighted main cabin of theship, he was abruptly jarred out of his relaxed mood. A first-class squabble was going on, and everybody was either con-

 tributing to it or commenting on it. Lorri Lee, looking likea pretty child complaining of a hurt, was maintaining thatshe should have broadcast time next day for her specialwomen's-interest feature, and somebody else disputed herclaim, and young Vallely, Darnow's assistant, looked harried and upset. Kellon got by them without being noticed, lockedthe door of his cabin and poured himself a long drink, anddamned Survey all over again for this assignment.

 He took good care to get out of the ship early in the morn­ing, before the storm of temperament blew up again. He leftViresson in charge of the ship, there being nothing for anyof them to do now anyway, and legged it away over the greenslopes before anyone could call him back.

 They had five more weeks of this, Kellon thought. Then,thank God, Earth would be getting so near the sun that theymust take the ship back into its proper element of space.Until that wished-for day arrived, he would stay out of sight as much as possible.

 He walked miles each day. He stayed carefully away fromthe east and the ruins of old New York, where the others so often were. But he went north and west and south, over the grassy, flowering slopes of the empty world. At least it waspeaceful, even though there was nothing at all to see.

 But after a while, Kellon found that there were things tosee if you looked for them. There was the way the skychanged, never seeming to look the same twice. Sometimesit was deep blue and white clouds sailed it like mighty ships.And then it would suddenly turn gray and miserable, andrain would drizzle on him, to be ended when a lance of sun­light shot through the clouds and slashed them to flying rib­bons. And there was a time when, upon a ridge, he watched vast thunderheads boil up and darken in the west and blackstorm clouds marched across the land like an army with ban­ners of lightning and drums of thunder.

 The winds and the sunshine, the sweetness of the air andthe look of the moonlight and the feel of the yielding grassunder his feet, all seemed oddly right. Kellon had walked onmany worlds under the glare of many-colored suns, and someof them he had liked much better than this one and some of them he had not liked at all, but never had he found a world that seemed so exactly attuned to his body as this outworn, empty planet.

 He wondered vaguely what it had been like when therewere trees and birds, and animals of many kinds, and roads

 and cities. He borrowed film-books from the reference libraryDarnow and the others had brought, and looked at them inhis cabin of nights. He did not really care very much but atfeast it kept him out of the broils and quarrels, and it hada certain interest.

 Thereafter in his wandering strolls, Kellon tried to see theplace as it would have been in the long ago. There would havebeen robins and bluebirds, and yellow-and-black bumblebeesnosing the flowers, and tall trees with names that wereequally strange to him, elms and willows and sycamores. Andsmall furred animals, and humming clouds of insects, andfish and frogs in the pools and streams, a whole vast complex symphony of life, long gone, long forgotten.

 But were all the men and women and children who hadlived here less forgotten? Borrodale and the others talkedmuch on their broadcasts about the people of old Earth, butthat was just a faceless name, a term that meant nothing.Not one of those millions, surely, had ever thought of himselfas part of a numberless multitude. Each one had been tohimself, and to those close to him or her, an individual, uniqueand never to be exactly repeated, and what did the glib talkersknow of all those individuals, what could anyone know?

 Kellon found traces of them here and there, bits of flotsamthat even the crash of the ice had spared. A twisted piece ofsteel, a girder or rail that someone had labored to make. A quarry with the tool-marks still on the rocks, where surelymen had once sweated in the sun. The broken shards of con­crete that stretched away in a ragged line to make a roadupon which men and women had once traveled, hurryingupon missions of love or ambition, greed or fear.

 He found more than that, a startling find that he madeby purest chance. He followed a brook that ran down a verynarrow valley, and at one point he leaped across it and as helanded he looked up and saw that there was a house.

 Kellon thought at first that it was miraculously preservedwhole and unbroken, and surely that could not be, But whenhe went closer he saw that this was only illusion and thatdestruction had been at work upon it too. Still, it remained,incredibly, a recognizable house.

 It was a rambling stone cottage with low walls and a slate roof, set close against the steep green wall of the valley. Onegable-end was smashed in, and part of that end wall. Studyingthe way it was embayed in the wall, Kellon decided that achance natural arch of ice must have preserved it from the

 grinding pressure that had shattered almost all other struc­tures.

 The windows and doors were only gaping openings. Hewent inside and looked around the cold shadows of what had once been a room. There were some wrecked pieces of rottingfurniture, and dried mud banked along one wall contained unrecognizable bits of rusted junk, but there was not muchelse. It was chill and oppressive in there, and he went outand sat on the little terrace in the sunshine.

 He looked at the house. It could have been built no laterthan the Twentieth Century, he thought. A good many dif­ferent people must have lived in it during the hundreds of years before the evacuation of Earth.

 Kellon thought that it was strange that the airphoto sur­veys that Darnow's men had made in quest of relics had notdiscovered the place. But then it was not so strange, the stonewalls were so grayly inconspicuous and it was set so deeplyinto the sheltering bay of the valley wall.

 His eye fell on'eroded lettering on the cement side of the terrace, and he went and brushed the soil off that place. Thewords were time-eaten and faint but he could read them.

 "Ross and Jennie-Their House."

 Kellon smiled. Well, at least he knew now who once had lived here, who probably had built the place. He could imag­ine two young people happily scratching the words in the wet cement, exuberant with achievement. And who had Ross andJennie been, and where were they now?

 He walked around the place. To his surprise, there was aragged flower-garden'at one side. A half-dozen kinds of bril­liant little flowers, unlike the wild ones of the slopes, grewin patchy disorder here. Seeds of an old garden had beenready to germinate when the long winter of Earth came down,and had slept in suspended animation until the ice meltedand the warm blooming time came at last. He did not knowwhat kinds of flowers these were, but there was a brave jaun-tiness about them that he liked.

 Starting back across the green land in the soft twilight, Kellon thought that he should tell Darnow about the place.But if he did, the gabbling pack in the ship would certainly stampede toward it. He could imagine the solemn and cute and precious broadcasts that Borrodale and the Lee woman and rest of them would stage from the old house.

 No, he thought. The devil with them.

 He didn't care anything himself about the old house, itwas just that it was a refuge of quiet he had found and hedidn't want to draw to it the noisy horde he was trying toescape.

 Kellon was glad in the following days that he had not told.The house gave him a place to go to, to poke around andinvestigate, a focus for his interest in this waiting time. He spent hours there, and never told anyone at all.

 Haller, the biologist, lent him a book on the flowers ofEarth, and he brought it with him and used it to identifythose in the ragged garden. Verbenas, pinks, morning glories, and the bold red and yellow ones called nasturtiums. Manyof these, he read, did not do well on other worlds and hadnever been successfully transplanted. If that was so, this would be their last blooming anywhere at all.

 He rooted around the interior of the house, trying to figureout how people had lived in it. It was strange, not at all likea modern metalloy house. Even the interior walls were thickbeyond belief, and the windows seemed small and ppkey. Thebiggest room was obviously where they had lived most, andits window-openings looked out on the little garden and the green valley and brook beyond.

 Kellon wondered what they had been like, the Ross andJennie who had once sat here together and looked out thesewindows. What things had been important to them? Whathad hurt them, what had made them laugh? He himself hadnever married, the far-ranging captains of the Survey seldomdid. But he wondered about this marriage of long ago, andwhat had come of it. Had they had children, did their blood still run on the far worlds? But even if it did, what was thatnow to those two of long ago?

 There had been a poem about flowers at the end of the oldbook on flowers Halter had lent him, and he rememberedsome of it.

 All are at one now, roses and lovers,Not known of the winds and the fields and the sea.Not a breath of the time that has been hoversIn the air now soft with a summer to be.

 Well, yes. Kellon thought, they were all at onerow, the Bosses and the Jennies and the things they had done and thethings they had thought, ail at one now in the dust of this

 old planet whose fiery final summer would be soon, very soon.Physically, everything that had been done, everyone who hadlived, on Earth was still here in its atoms, excepting the tinyfraction of its matter that had sped to other worlds.

 He thought of the names that were so famous still through all the galactic worlds, names of men and women and places.Shakespeare, Plato, Beethoven, Blake, and the splendor ofBabylon and the bones of Angkor and the humble houses ofhis own ancestors, all here, all still here.

 Kellon mentally shook himself. He didn't have enough todo, that was his trouble, to be brooding here on such shadowythings. He had seen all there was to this queer little old place,and there was no use in coming back to it.

 But he came back. It was not, he told himself, as thoughhe had any sentimental antiquarian interests in this oldplace. He had heard enough of that kind of gush from all theglittering phonies in the ship. He was a Survey man and allhe wanted was to get back to his job, but while he was stuckhere it was better to be roaming the green land or pokingabout this old relic than to have to listen to the endless bab­bling and quarreling of those others.

 They were quarreling more and more, because they were tired of it here. It had seemed to them a fine thing to postureupon a galactic stage by helping to cover the end of Earth, but time dragged by and their flush of synthetic enthusiasmwore thin. They could not leave, the expedition must broad­cast the final climax of the planet's end, but that was stillweeks away. Darnow and his scholars and scientists, busycoming and going to many old sites, could have stayed hereforever but the others were frankly bored.

 But Kellon found in the old house enough interest to keepthe waiting from being too oppressive. He had read a goodbit now about the way things had been here in the good olddays, and he sat long hours on the little terrace in the after­noon sunshine, trying to imagine what it had been like whenthe man and woman named Ross and Jennie had lived here.

 So strange, so circumscribed, that old life seemed now!Most people had had ground-cars in those days, he had read,and had gone back and forth in them to the cities where theyworked. Did both the man and woman go, or just the man?Did the woman stay in the house, perhaps with their childrenif they had any, and in the afternoons did she do things inthe little flower garden where a few bright, ragged survivorsstill bloomed? Did they ever dream that some future day

 when they were long gone, their house would lie empty andsilent with no visitor except a stranger from far-off stars? He remembered a line in one of the old plays the Arcturus Play­ers had read. "Come like shadows, so depart."

 No, Kellon thought, Ross and Jennie were shadows nowbut they had not been then. To them, and to all the otherpeople he could visualize going and coming busily about theEarth in those days, it was he, the future, the man yet tocome, who was the shadow. Alone here, sitting and trying to imagine the long ago, Kellon had an eerie feeling sometimesthat his vivid imaginings of people and crowded cities andmovement and laughter were the reality and that he himselfwas only a watching wraith.

 Summer days came swiftly, hot and hotter. Now the whitesun was larger in the heavens and pouring down such lightand heat as Earth had not received for millennia. And all thegreen life across it seemed to respond with an exultant surgeof final growth, an act of joyous affirmation that Kellon foundinfinitely touching. Now even the nights were warm, and the winds blew thrilling soft, and on the distant beaches the oceanleaped up in a laughter of spray and thunder, running ingreat solar tides.

 With a shock as though awakened from dreaming, Kellonsuddenly realized that only a few days were left. The spiralwas closing in fast now and very quickly the heat wouldmount beyond all tolerance.

 He would, he told himself, be very glad to leave. Therewould be the wait in space until it was all over, and then hecould go back to his own work, his own life, and stop fussingover shadows because there was nothing else to do.

 Yes. He would be glad.

 Then when only a few days were left, Kellon walked out again to the old house and was musing over it when a voicespoke behind him. "Perfect," said Borrodale's voice. "A perfect relic."

 Kellon turned, feeling somehow startled and dismayed.Borrodale's eyes were alight with interest as he surveyed thehouse, and then he turned to Kellon.

 "I was walking when I saw you, Captain, and thought I'dcatch up to you. Is this where you've been going so often?"

 Kellon, a little guiltily, evaded. "I've been here a fewtimes."

 "But why in the world didn't youtell us about this?" ex-

 claimed Borrodale. "Why, we cando a terrific final broadcastfrom here. A typical ancient home of Earth. Roy can put some of the Players in the old costumes, and we'll show them livinghere the way people did-"

 Unexpectedly to himself, a violent reaction came up in Kellon. He said roughly,

 "No."

 Borrodale arched his eyebrows. "No?-But why not?"

 Why not, indeed? What difference could it possibly maketo him if they swarmed all over the old house, laughing atits ancientness and its inadequacies, posing grinning for the cameras in front of it, prancing about in old-fashioned cos­tumes and making a show of it. What could that mean tohim, who cared nothing about this forgotten planet or any­thing on it?

 And yet something in him revolted at what they would dohere, and he said,

 "We might have to take off very suddenly, now. Havingyou all out here away from the ship could involve a dangerousdelay."

 "You said yourself we wouldn't take off for a few days yet!"exclaimed Borrodale. And he added firmly, "I don't know whyyou should want to obstruct us, Captain. But I can go overyour head to higher authority."

 He went away, and Kellon thought unhappily, He'll mes­sage back to Survey headquarters and I'll get my ears burnedoff, and why the devil did I do it anyway? I must be gettingreal planet-happy.

 He went and sat down on the terrace, and watched untilthe sunset deepened into dusk. The moon came up white andbrilliant, but the air was not quiet tonight. A hot, dry wind had begun to blow, and the stir of the tall grass made theslopes and plains seem vaguely alive. It was as though aqueer pulse had come into the air and the ground, as the sun called its child homeward and Earth strained to answer. Thehouse dreamed in the silver light, and the flowers in thegarden rustled.

 Borrodale came back, a dark pudgy figure in the moon­light. He said triumphantly,

 "I got through to your headquarters. They've ordered your full cooperation. We'll want to make our first broadcast heretomorrow."

 Kellon stood up. "No."

 "You can't ignore an order-"

 "We won't be here tomorrow," said Kellon. "It is my re­sponsibility to get the ship off Earth in ample time for safety.We take off in the morning."

 Borrodale was silent for a moment, and when he spoke hisvoice hada puzzled quality.

 "You're advancing things just to block our broadcast, ofcourse. I just can't understand your attitude."

 Well, Keilon thought, he couldn't quite understand it him­self, so how could he explain it? He remained silent, and Borrodale looked at him and then at the old house.

 "Yet maybe I do understand," Borrodale said thoughtfully,after a moment. "You've come here often, by yourself. A mancan get too friendly with ghosts-"

 Kellon said roughly, "Don't talk nonsense. We'd better getback to the ship, there's plenty to do before takeoff."

 Borrodale did not speak as they went back out of the moon­lit valley. He looked back once, but Kellon did not look back.

 They took the ship off twelve hours later, in a morningmade dull and ominous by racing clouds. Kellon felt a sharprelief when they cleared atmosphere and were out in thedepthless, starry blackness. He knew where he was, in space.It was the place where a spaceman belonged. He'd get a stiffreprimand for this later, but he was not sorry.

 They put the ship into a calculated orbit, and waited. Days,many of them, must pass before the end came to Earth. Itseemed quite near the white sun now, and its moon had slid away from it on a new distorted orbit, but even so it wouldbe a while before they could broadcast to a watching galaxythe end of its ancestral world.

 Kellon stayed much of that time in his cabin. The gushthat was going out over the broadcasts now, as the grandfinale approached, made him sick. He wished the whole thing was over. It was, he told himself, getting to be a bore-

 An hour and twenty minutes to E-time, and he supposedhe must go up to the bridge and watch it. The mobile camerahad been set up there and Borrodale and as many others ofthem as could crowd in were there. Borrodale had been giventhe last hour's broadcast, and it seemed that the others re­ sented this.

 "Why must you have the whole last hour?" Lorri Lee wassaying bitterly to Borrodale. "It's not fair."

 Quayle nodded angrily. "There'll be the biggest audiencein history, and we should all have a chance to speak."

 Borrodale answered them, and the voices rose and bick­ered, and Kellon saw the broadcast technicians looking wor­ried. Beyond them through the filter-window he could see thedark dot of the planet closing on the white star. The sun called, and it seemed that with quickened eagerness Earthmoved on the last steps of its long road. And the clamoring,bickering voices in his ears suddenly brought rage to Kellon.

 "Listen," he said to the broadcast men. "Shut off all soundtransmission. You can keep the picture on, but no sound."

 That shocked them all into silence. The Lee woman finallyprotested, "Captain Kellon, you can't!"

 "I'm in full command when in space, and I can, and do,"he said.

 "But the broadcast, the commentary-"

 Kellon said wearily, "Oh, for Christ's sake all of you shutup, and let the planet die in peace."

 He turned his back on them. He did not hear their resentful
voices, did not even hear when they fell silent and watched
through the dark filter-windows as he was watching, as the
camera and the galaxy was watching.               '

 And what was there to see but a dark dot almost engulfedin the shining veils of the Sun? The thought that already the stones of the old house must be beginning to vaporize. Andnow the veils of light and fire almost concealed the littleplanet, as the star gathered in its own.

 All the atoms of old Earth, Kellon thought, in this moment bursting free to mingle with the solar being, all that had been Ross and Jennie, all that had been Shakespeare and Schubert,gay flowers and running streams, oceans and rocks and thewind of the air, received into the brightness that had giventhem life.

 They watched in silence, but there was nothing more tosee, nothing at all. Silently the camera was turned off.

 Kellon gave an order, and presently the ship was pullingout of orbit, starting on the long voyage back. By that timethe others had gone, all but Borrodale. He said to Borrodale,without turning,

 "Now go ahead and send your complaint to headquarters."

 Borrodale shook his head. "Silence can be the best requiemof all. There'll be no complaint. I'm glad now, Captain."

 "Glad?"

 "Yes," said Borrodale. "I'm glad that Earth had one truemourner, at the last."

 At the Core

 LARRY NIVEN

 I couldn't decide whether to call it a painting, a relief mural, a sculpture, or a hash; but it was the prize exhibit in the ArtSection of the Institute of Knowledge on Jinx, The Kdatlynomust have strange eyes, I thought. My own were watering.The longer I looked at "FTLSPACE," the more blurred it got.

 I'd tentatively decided that it wassupposed to look blurredwhen a set of toothy jaws clamped gently on my arm. I jumpeda foot in the air. A soft, thrilling contralto voice said, "Beo­wulf Shaeffer, you are a spendthrift."

 That voice would have made a singer's fortune. And Ithought I recognized it-but it couldn't be;that one was onWe Made It, light-years distant. I turned.

 The puppeteer had released my arm. It wentob: "Andwhat do you think of Hrodenu?"

 "He's ruining my eyes."

 "Naturally. The Kdatlyno are blind to all but radar. 'FTLSPACE' is not meant to be seen but to be touched. Runyour tongue over it."

 "My tongue? No, thanks." I tried running my hand overit. If you want to know what it felt like, hop a ship for Jinx;the thing's still there. I flatly refuse to describe the sensation.

 The puppeteer cocked its head dubiously. "I'm sure yourtongue is more sensitive. No guards are nearby."

 "Forget it. You know, you sound just like the regional president of General Products on We Made It."

 "It was he who sent me your dossier, Beowulf Shaeffer. Nodoubt we had the same English teacher, I am the regionalpresident on Jinx, as you no doubt recognized from my mane,"

 Well, not quite. The auburn mop over the brain case be­tween the two necks is supposed to show caste once you learnto discount variations of mere style. To do that, you have to

 be a puppeteer. Instead of admitting my ignorance, I asked,"Did that dossier.say I was a spendthrift?"

 "You have spent more than a million stars in the past four years."

 "And loved it."

 "Yes. You will shortly be in debt again. Have you thoughtof doing more writing? I admired your article on the neutronstar BVS-1. 'The pointy bottom of a gravity well...' 'Bluestarlight fell on me like intangible sleet...' Lovely."

 "Thanks. It paid well, too. But I'm mainly a spaceshippilot."

 "It is fortunate, our meeting here. I had thought of havingyou found. Do you wish a job?"

 Thatwas a loaded question. The last and only time I tooka job from a puppeteer, the puppeteer blackmailed me intoit, knowing it would probably kill me. It almost did. I didn'thold that against the regional president of We Made It, butto let them have another crack at me-? "I'll give you aconditional 'Maybe.' Do you have the idea I'm a professional suicide pilot?"

 "Not at all. If I show details, do you agree that the infor­mation shall be confidential?"

 "I do," I said formally, knowing it would commit me. Averbal contract is as binding as the tape it's recorded on.

 "Good. Come." He pranced toward a transfer booth.

 The transfer booth let us out somewhere in Jinx's vacuumregions. It was night. High in the sky, Sirius B was a pain­fully bright pinpoint casting vivid blue moonlight on a raggedlunar landscape. I looked up and didn't see Binary, Jinx'sbloated orange companion planet, so we must have been inthe Farside End.

 But there was something hanging over us.

 A No. 4 General Products hull is a transparent sphere athousand-odd feet in diameter. No bigger ship has been built anywhere in the known galaxy. It takes a government to buyone, and they are used for colonization projects only. But this one could never have been so used; it was all machinery. Ourtransfer booth stood between two of the landing legs, so that the swelling flank of the ship looked down on us as an owl looks down at a mouse. An access tube ran through the vac­uum from the booth to the airlock.

 I said, "Does General Products build complete spacecraftnowadays?"

 "We are thinking of branching out. But there are prob­lems."

 From the viewpoint of the puppeteer-owned company, itmust have seemed high time. General Products makes thehulls for ninety-five percent of all ships in space, mainly because nobody else knows how to build an indestructiblehull. But they'd made a bad start with this ship. The onlyroom I could see for crew, cargo, or passengers was a fewcubic yards of empty space right at the bottom, just abovethe airlock, and just big enough for a pilot.

 "You'd have a' hard time selling that," I said.

 "True. Do you notice anything else?"

 "Well..." The hardware that filled the transparent hullwas very tightly packed. The effect was as if a race of ten-mile-tall giants had striven to achieve miniaturization. I saw no sign of access tubes; hence there could be no m-spacerepairs. Four reaction motors poked their appropriately hugenostrils through the hull, angled outward from the bottom.No small attitude jets; hence, oversized gyros inside. Oth­erwise ... "Most of it looks like hyperdrive motors. But that'ssilly. Unless you've thought of a good reason for movingmoons around?"

 “At one time you were a commercial pilot for Nakamura Lines. How long was the run from Jinx to We Made It?”

 "Twelve days if nothing broke down." Just long enoughto get to know the prettiest passenger aboard, while the au­topilot did everything for me but wear my uniform.

 "Sirius to Procyon is a distance of four light-years. Ourship would make the trip in five minutes."

 "You've lost your mind."  

 "No."

 But that was almost a light-year per minute! I couldn'tvisualize it. Then suddenly I did visualize it, and my mouthfell open, for what I saw was the galaxy opening before me.We know so little beyond our own small neighborhood of thegalaxy. But with a ship like that-

 "That's goddam fast."

 "As you say. But the equipment is bulky, as you note. It cost seven billion stars to build that ship, discounting cen­turies of research, but it will only move one man. As is, theship is a failure. Shall we go inside?"

 The lifesystem was two circular rooms, one above theother, with a small airlock to one side. The lower room wasthe control room, with banks of switches and dials and blink­ing lights dominated by a huge spherical mass pointer. Theupper room was bare walls, transparent, through which Icould see air- and food-producing equipment.

 "This will be the relaxroom," said the puppeteer. "We de­cided to let the pilot decorate it himself."

 "Why me?"

 "Let me further explain the problem." The puppeteer be­gan to pace the floor. I hunkered down against the wall andwatched. Watching a puppeteer move is a pleasure. Even inJinx's gravity the deerlike body seemed weightless, the tinyhooves tapping the floor at random. "The human sphereof colonization is some thirty light-years across, is itnot?"

 "Maximum. It's not exactly a sphere-"

 "The puppeteer region is much smaller. The Kdatlynosphere is half the size of yours, and the Kzinti is fractionallylarger. These are the important space-traveling species. Wemust discount the Outsiders since they do not use ships. Some spheres coincide, naturally. Travel from one sphere to an­other is nearly nil except for ourselves, since our sphere of influence extends to all who buy our hulls. But add all these regions, and you have a region sixty light-years across. This ship could cross it in seventy-five minutes. Allow six hoursfor takeoff and six for landing, assuming no traffic snarlsnear the world of destination, and we have a ship which cango anywhere in thirteen hours but nowhere in less thantwelve, carrying one pilot and no cargo, costing seven billionstars."

 "How about exploration?"

 "We puppeteers have no taste for abstract knowledge. Andhow should we explore?" Meaning that whatever race flewthe ship would gain the advantages thereby. A puppeteer wouldn't risk his necks by flying it himself. "What we needis a great deal of money and a gathering of intelligences, todesign something whichmay go slower butmust be lessbulky. General Products (Joes not wish to spend so much onsomething that may fail. We will require the best minds of

 each sentient species and the richest investors. BeowulfShaeffer, we need to attract attention."

 "A publicity stunt?"

 "Yes. We wish to send a pilot to the center of the galaxy and back."

 "Ye.. .gods! Will it gothat fast?"

 "It would require some twenty-five days to reach the cen­ter and an equal time to-return. You can see the reasoningbehind-"

 "It's perfect. You don't need to spell it out. Why me?"

 "We wish you to make the trip and then write of it. I havea list of pilots who write. Those I have approached have beenreluctant. They say that writing on the ground is safer thantesting unknown ships. I follow their reasoning."

 "Me too."

 "Will you go?"

 "What am I offered?"

 "One hundred thousand stars for the trip. Fifty thousand to write the story, in addition to what you sell it for."

 "Sold."

 From then on, my only worry was that my new boss wouldfind out that someone had ghost-written that neutron stararticle.

 Oh, I wondered at first why General Products was willingto trust, me. The first time I worked for them I tried to stealtheir ship, for reasons which seemed good at the time. Butthe ship I now calledLong Shot really wasn't worth stealing.. Any potential buyer would know it was hot; and what goodwould it be to him?Long Shot could have explored a globularcluster; but her only other use was publicity.

 Sending her to the Core was a masterpiece of promotion.

 Look: It was twelve days from We Made It to Jinx byconventional craft, and twelve hours byLong Shot. What's the difference? You spent twelve years saving for the trip. But the Core! Ignoring refueling and reprovisioning prob­lems, my old ship could have reached the galaxy's core inthree hundred years. No known species had everseen the Core! It hid behind layer on layer of tenuous gas and dust clouds. You can find libraries of literature on those centralstars, but they all consist of generalities and educated guessesbased on observation of other galaxies, like Andromeda.

 Three centuries dropped to less than a month! There's something anyone can grasp. And with pictures!

 The lifesystem was finished in a couple of weeks. I hadthem leave the control-room walls transparent and paint therelaxroom solid blue, no windows. When they finished, I hadentertainment tapes and everything it takes to keep a mansane for seven weeks in a room the size of a large closet.

 On the last day the puppeteer and I spoke the final version of my contract. I had four months to reach the galaxy's centerand return. The outside cameras would run constantly; I wasnot to interfere with them. Jf the ship suffered a mechanical failure, I could return before reaching the center; otherwise,no. There were penalties. I took a copy of the tape to leave with a lawyer.

 "There is a thing you should know," the puppeteer saidafterward. "The direction of thrust opposes the direction ofhyperdrive."   "I don't get it."

 The puppeteer groped for words. "If you turned on thereaction motors and the hyperdrive together, the flameswould precede your ship through hyperspace."

 I got the picture then. Ass backward into the unknown.With the control room at the ship's bottom, it made sense.To a puppeteer, it made sense.

 3

 And I was off.

 I went up under two standard gees because I like my com­fort. For twelve hours I used only the reaction motors. It wouldn't do to be too deep in a gravity well when 1 used ahyperdrive, especially an experimental one. Pilots who do that never leave hyperspace. The relaxroom kept me enter­tained until the bell rang. I slipped down to the control room,netted myself down against free fall, turned off the motors,rubbed my hands briskly together, and turned on the hyper-drive.

 It wasn't quite as I'd expected.

 I couldn't see out, of course. When the hyperdrive goes on,it's like your blind spot expanding to take in all the windows,It's not just that you don't see anything; you forget thatthere's anything to see. Ifthere's a window between thekitchen control bank and your print of Dali's "Spam," youreye and mind will put the picture right next to the kitchenbank, obliterating the space between. It takes getting asedto, in fact it has driven people insane, but that wasn't what

 botheredme. I've spent thousands of man-hours in hyper-space. I kept my eye on the mass pointer.

 The mass pointer is a big transparent sphere with a num­ber of blue lines radiating from the center. The direction ofthe line is the direction of a star; its length shows the star'smass. We wouldn't need pilots if the mass pointer could be hooked into an autopilot, but it can't. Dependable as it is,accurate as it is, the mass pointer is a psionic device. It needs a mind to work it. I'd been using mass pointers for so longthat those lines were like real stars.

 A star came toward me, and I dodged around it. I thoughtthat another line that didn't pointquite straight ahead waslong enough to show dangerous mass, so I dodged. That puta blue dwarf right in front of me. I shifted fast and lookedfor a throttle. I wanted to slow down.

 Repeat,Iwanted to slow down.

 Of course there was no throttle. Part of the puppeteerresearch project would be designing a throttle. A long fuzzyline reached for me: a protosun-

 Put it this way: Imagine one of Earth's freeways. Youmust have seen pictures of them from space, a tangle of twist­ing concrete ribbons, empty and abandoned but never torndown. Some lie broken; others are covered with houses. Peo­ple use the later rubberized ones for horseback riding. Imag­ine the way one of these must have looked about six o'clockon a week night in, say, nineteen seventy. Groundcars from end to end.

 Now, let's take all those cars and remove the brakes. Fur­ther, let's put governors on the accelerators, so that the max­imum speeds are between sixty and seventy miles per hour,not all the same. Let something go wrong with all the gov­ernors at once, so that the maximum speed also becomes the minimum. You'll begin to see signs of panic.

 Eeady? Okay. Get a radar installed in your car, paint yourwindshield and windows jet black, and get out on that free­way.

 It was like that.

 It didn't seem so bad at first. The stars kept coming at me,and I kept dodging, and after a while it settled down to akind of routine. From experience I could tell at a glancewhether a star was heavy enough and close enough to wreck me. But in Nakamura Lines I'd only had to take that glanceevery six hours or so. Here I didn't dare look away. As I grew

 tired, the near-misses came closer and closer. After three hours of it I had to drop out.

 The stars had a subtly unfamiliar look. With a sudden jarI realized that I was entirely out of known space. Sirius,Antares-I'd never recognize them from here; I wasn't evensure they were visible. I shook it off and called home.

 "Long Shotcalling General Products,Long Shot call­ing-"

 "Beowulf Shaeffer?"

 "Have I ever told you what a lovely, sexy voice you have?"

 "No. Is everything going well?"

 "I'm afraid not. In fact, I'm not going to make it."

 A pause. "Why not?"

 "I can't keep dodging these stars forever. One of them'sgoing to get me if I keep on much longer. The ship's just toogoddam fast."

 "Yes. We must design a slower ship."

 "I hate to give up that good pay, but my eyes feel like peeled onions. I ache all over. I'm turning back."

 "Shall I play your contract for you?"

 "No. Why?"

 "Your only legal reason for returning is a mechanical fail­ure. Otherwise you forfeit twice your pay."

 I said, "Mechanical failure?" There was a tool box some­where in the ship, with a hammer in it....

 "I did not mention it before, since it did not seem polite,but two of the cameras are in the lifesystem. We had thought to use films of you for purposes of publicity, but-"

 "I see. Tell me one thing, just one thing. When the regionalpresident of We Made It sent you my name, did he mentionthat I'd discovered your planet has no moon?"

 "Yes, he did mention that matter. You accepted one millionstars for your silence. He naturally has a recording of thebargain."

 "I see." So that's why they'd picked Beowulf Shaeffer, well-known author. "The trip'll take longer than I thought."

 "You must pay a penalty for every extra day over fourmonths. Two thousand stars per day late."

 "Your voice has acquired an unpleasant grating sound.Good-bye."

 I went on in. Every hour I shifted to normal space for aten-minute coffee break. I dropped out for meals, and I

 dropped out for sleep. Twelve hours per ship's day I spenttraveling, and twelve trying to recover. It was a losing battle.

 By the end of day two I knew I wasn't going to make thefour-month limit. I might do it in six months, forfeiting onehundred and twenty thousand stars, leaving me almostwhere I started. Serve me right for trusting a puppeteer!

 Stars were all around me, shining through the floor andbetween the banked instruments. I sucked coffee, trying notto think. The milky way shone ghostly pale between my feet.The stars were thick now; they'd get thicker as I approachedthe Core, until finally one got me.

 An idea! And about time, too.

 The golden voice answered immediately. "Beowulf Shaef-fer?"

 "There's nobody else here, honey. Look, I've thought ofsomething. Would you send-"

 ''Is one of your instruments malfunctioning, BeowulfShaeffer?"

 "No, they all work fine, as far as they go. Look-"

 "Then what could you possibly have to say that wouldrequire my attention?"

 "Honey, now is the time to decide. Do you want revenge,or do you want your ship back?"

 A small silence. Then, "You may speak."

 "I can reach the Core much faster if I first get into one ofthe spaces between the arms. Do we know enough about thegalaxy to know where our arm ends?"

 "I will send to the Institute of Knowledge to find out."

 "Good."

 Four hours later I was dragged from a deathlike sleep by the ringing of the hyperphone. It was not the president, but some flunky, I remembered calling the puppeteer "honey"last night, tricked by my own exhaustion and that seductivevoice, and wondered if I'dhurt his puppeteer feelings. "He"might be a male; a puppeteer's is one of his littlesecrets. The flunky gave me a bearing and distance for the nearest gap between stars.

 It took me another day to get there. When the stars began to thin out, I could hardly believe it. I turned off the hyper-drive, and it was true. The stars were tens and hundreds of light-years apart. I could see part of the Core peeking in abright rim above the dim flat cloud of mixed dust and stars.

 From then on, it was better, f was safe if I glanced at themass pointer every ten minutes or so. I could forget the restbreaks, eat meals and do isometrics while watching the point­ers. For eight hours a day I slept, but during the other sixteenI moved. The gap swept toward the Core in a narrowingcurve, and I followed it.

 As a voyage of exploration the trip would have been afiasco. I saw nothing. I stayed well away from anything worth seeing. Stars and dust, anomalous wispy clusters shining inthe dark of the gap, invisible indications that might havebeen stars-my cameras picked them up from a nice safedistance, showing tiny blobs of light. In three weeks I movedalmost seventeen thousand light-years toward the Core.

 The end of those three weeks was the end of the gap.Before me was an uninteresting wash of stars backed by awall of opaque dust clouds. I still had thirteen thousand light- years to go before I reached the center of the galaxy.

 I took some pictures and moved in.

 Ten-minute breaks, mealtimes that grew longer andlonger for the rest they gave, sleep periods that left my eyesred and burning. The stars were thick and the dust wasthicker, so that the mass pointer showed a blur of blue brokenby sharp blue lines. The lines began to get less sharp. I tookbreaks every half hour-

 Three days of that.

 It was getting near lunchtime on the fourth day. I sat watching the mass pointer, noting the fluctuations in theblue blur which showed the changing density of the dustaround me. Suddenly it faded out completely. Great! Wouldn'tit be nice if the mass pointer went out on me? But the sharp " starlines were still there, ten or twenty of them pointing in all directions. I went back to steering. The clock chimed toindicate a rest period. I sighed happily and dropped into nor­mal space.

 The clock showed I had half an hour to wait for lunch, i thought about eating anyway, decided againsf it. The routine was all that kept me going. I wondered what the sky lookedlike, reflexively looked up so I wouldn't have to look downat the transparent floor. That big an expanse of hyperspaceis hard even on trained eyes. I remembered I wasn't in hy­perspace and looked down.

 For a time I jus? stared. Then, without taking my eyes offthe floor, I reached for the hyperphone,-

 "Beowulf Shaeffer?"

 "No, this is Albert Einstein. I stowed away when theLongShottook off, and I've decided to turn myself in for the re­ward."

 "Giving misinformation is an implicit violation of con­tract. Why have you called?"

 "I can see the Core;"

 "That is not a reason to call. It was implicit in your eon-tract that you would see the Core."

 "Dammit, don't you care? Don't you want to know whatit looks like?"

 "If you wish to describe it now, as a precaution againstaccident, I will switch you to a dictaphone. However, if your mission is not totally successful, we cannot use your record­ing."

 I was thinking up a really searing answer when I heardthe click. Great, my boss had hooked me into a dictaphone.I said one short sentence and hung up.

 The Core.

 Gone were the obscuring masses of dust and gas. A billionyears ago they must have been swept up for fuel by the hun­gry, crowded stars. The Core lay before me like a great jew­eled sphere. I'd expected it to be a gradual thing, a thickmass of stars thinning out into the arms. There was nothinggradual about it. A clear ball of multicolored light five or sixthousand light-years across nestled in the heart of the galaxy,sharply bounded by the last of the dust clouds. I was tenthousand four hundred light-years from the center.

 The red stars were the biggest and brightest. I could ac­tually pick some of them out as individuals. The rest was a finger painting in fluorescent green and blue. But those redstars...they would have sent Aldebaran back to kindergar­ten.

 It was all sobright. I needed the telescope to see blackbetween the stars.

 I'llshow you how bright it was.

 Is it night where you are? Step outside and look at the stars. What color are they? Antares may show red, if yournear enough; in the System, so will Mars. Sirius may ahowbluish. But all the rest are white pinpoints. Why? Because

 it'sdark. Your day vision is in color, but at night you seeblack-and-white, like a dog.

 The Core suns were bright enough for color vision.

 I'd pick a planet here! Not in the Core itself, but right outhere, with the Core on one side and on the other the dimlystarred dust clouds forming their strange convoluted curtain.Man, what a view! Imagine that flaming jeweled sphere ris­ing in the east, hundreds of times as big as Binary shows onJinx; but without the constant feeling Binary gives you, the fear that the orange world will fall on you; for the vast,twinkling Core is only starlight, lovely and harmless. I'd pickmy worldnow and stake a claim. When the puppeteers gottheir drive fixed up, I'd have the finest piece of real estatein the known universe! If I could only find a habitable planet.

 If only I could find it twice.

 Hell, I'd be lucky to find my wayhome from here. I shiftedinto hyperspace and went back to work.

 5

 An hour and fifty minutes, one lunch break and two restbreaks, and fifty light-years later, I noticed something pe­culiar in the Core,

 It was even clearer then, if not much bigger; I'd passedthrough the almost transparent wisps of the last dust cloud. Not too near the center of the sphere was a patch of white,bright enough to make the green and blue and red look dullaround it. I looked for it again at the neyt break, and it wasa little brighter. It was brighter again at the next break-

 "Beowulf Shaeffer?"

 "Yah. I-"

 "Why did you use the dictaphone to call me a cowardly two-headed monster?"

 "You were off the line. Ihad to use the dictaphone."

 "That is sensible. Yes. We puppeteers have never under­stood your attitude toward a natural caution." My boss was peeved, though you couldn't tell from his voice.

 "I'll go into that if you like, but it's not why I called."

 "Explain, please."

 "I'm all for caution. Discretion is the better part of valor,and like that. You can even be good businessmen, becauseit's easier to survive with lots of money. But you're so damnconcerned with various kinds of survival that you aren't eveninterested in something that isn't a threat. Nobody but a

 puppeteer would have turned down my offer to describe theCore."

 "You forget the Kzinti,"

 "Oh, the Kzinti." Who expects rational behavior fromKzinti? You whip them when they attack; you reluctantly decide not to exterminate them; you wait till they build uptheir strength; and when they attack, you whip 'em again.Meanwhile you sell them foodstuffs and buy their metals andemploy them where you need good games theorists. It's notas if they were a real threat. They'llalways attack before they're ready.

 "The Kzinti are carnivores. Where we are interested insurvival, carnivores are interested in meat alone. They con­quer because subject peoples can supply them with food, Theycannot do menial work. Animal husbandry is alien to them.They must have slaves or be barbarians roaming the forests for meat. Why should they be interested in what you call abstract knowledge? Why should any thinking being, if theknowledge has no chance of showing a profit? In practice,your description Of the Core would attract only an omnivore."

 "You'd make a good case if it were not for the fact that most sentient races are omnivores."

 "We have thought long and hard on that."

 Ye cats. I was going to have to think long and hard onthat.

 "Why did you call, Beowulf Shaeffer?"

 Oh, yeah, "Look, I know you don't want to know what theCore looks like, but I see something that might representpersonal danger. You have access to information I don't. MayI proceed?"

 "You may,"

 Hah! I was learning to think like a puppeteer. Was that good? I told my boss about the blazing, strangely shapedwhite patch in the Core. "When I turned the telescope en it, it nearly blinded me. Grade two sunglasses don't give anydetails at all. It's just a shapeless white patch, but so brightthat the stare m front look like black dots with colored rims,I'd like to know what's causing it."

 "It sounds very unusual," Pause. 'Is the white color uni­form? Is the brightness uniform?"

 "Just a sec." I used the scope again. "The color is, but thebrightness isn't. I see dimmer areas inside the patch, I thinkthe center is fading out."

 "Use the telescope to find a nova star. There ought to beseveral in such a large mass of stars."

 I tried it. Presently I found something: a blazing disk ofa peculiar blue-white color with a dimmer, somewhat smallerred disk half in front of it. Thathad to be a nova. In the coreof Andromeda galaxy, and in what I'd seen of our own Core,the red stars were the biggest and brightest.

 "I've found one."

 "Comment."

 A moment more and I saw what he meant. "It's the same color as the patch. Something like the same brightness, too.But what could make a patch of supernovas go off all atonce?"

 "You have studied the Core. The stars of the Core are anaverage of half a light-year apart. They are even closer nearthe center, and no dust clouds dim their brightness. When stars are that close, they shed enough light on each other toincrease materially each other's temperature. Stars burn faster and age faster in the Core."

 "I see that,"

 "Since the Core stars age faster, a much greater portion are near the supernova stage than in the arms. Also, all arehotter considering their respective ages. If a star were a fewmillennia from the supernova stage, and a supernova ex­ploded half a light-year away, estimate the probabilities."

 "They might both blow. Then the two could set off a third,and the three might take a couple more...."

 "Yes. Since a supernova lasts-on the order of one humanstandard year, the chain reaction would soon die out. Yourpatch of light must have occurred in this way."

 "That's a relief. Knowing what did it, I mean. I'll takepictures going in,"

 "As you say." Click.

 The patch kept expanding as I went in, still with no moreshape than a veil nebula, getting brighter and bigger. Ithardly seemed fair, what I was doing. The light which thepatch novas had taken fifty years to put out, I covered in an hour, moving down the beam at a speed which made theuniverse itself seem unreal. At the fourth rest period Idropped out of hyperspace, looked down through the floorwhile the cameras took their pictures, glanced away from thepatch for a moment, and found myself blinded by tangerineafterimages. I had to put on a pair of grade one sunglasses,

 out of the packet of twenty which every pilot carries for work­ing near suns during takeoff and landing.

 It made me shiver to think that the patch was stil! nearly ten thousand light-years away. Already the radiation musthave killed all life in the Core if there ever had been life there. My instruments on the hull showed radiation like a solar flare.

 At the next stop I needed grade two sunglasses. Somewhatlater, grade three. Then four. The patch became a greatbright amoeba reaching twisting tentacles of fusion fire deepinto the vitals of the Core. In hyperspace the sky was jammedbumper to bumper, so to speak, but I never thought of stop­ping. As the Core came closer, the patch grew like somethingalive, something needing ever more food. I think I knew,even then.

 Night came. The control room was a blaze of light. I sleptin the relaxroom, to the tune of the laboring temperaturecontrol. Morning, and I was off again. The radiation metersnarled its death-song, louder during each rest break. If I'dbeen planning to go outside, J would have dropped that plan. Radiation Couldn't get through a General Products hull. Nothing else can, either, except visible light.

 I spent a bad half hour trying to remember whether oneof the puppeteers' customers saw X-rays. I was afraid to callup and ask.

 The mass pointer began to show a faint blue blur. Gases thrown outward from the patch. I had to keep changing sun­glasses. .,.

 Sometime during the morning of the next day I stopped.There was no point in going farther.

 "Beowulf Shaeffer, have you become attached to the soundof my voice? I have other work than supervising your prog­ress."

 "I would like to deliver a lecture on abstract knowledge,"

 "Surely it can wait until your return."

 "The galaxy is exploding."

 There was a strange noise. Then: "Repeat, please."

 "Have I got your attention?"

 "Yes."

 "Good. I think I know the reason so many sentient races are omnivores. Interest in abstract knowledge is a symptomof pure curiosity. Curiosity must be a survival trait."

 "Must we discuss this? Very well. You may well be right.

 Others have made the same suggestion, including puppe­teers. But how has our species survived at all?"

 "You must have some substitute for curiosity. Increasedintelligence, maybe. You've been around long enough to de­velop it. Our hands can't compare with your mouths for tool-building. If a watchmaker had taste and smell in his hands,he still wouldn't have the strength of your jaws or the delicacyof those knobs around your lips. When I want to know howold a sentient race is, I watch what he uses for hands andfeet."

 "Yes. Human feet are still adapting to their task of keep­ing you erect. You propose, then, that our intelligence hasgrown sufficiently to ensure our survival without depending on your hit-or-miss method of learning everything you canfor the sheer pleasure of learning."

 "Not quite. Our method is better. If you hadn't sentme to the Core for publicity, you'd never have known aboutthis."

 "You say the galaxy is exploding?"

 "Rather, it finished exploding some nine thousand yearsago. I'm wearing grade twenty sunglasses, and it's still too bright. A third of the Core is gone already. The patchisspreading at nearly the speed of light. I don't see that any­thing can stop it until it hits the gas clouds beyond the Core,"

 There was no comment. I went on. "A lot of the inside ofthe patch has gone out, but all of the surface is new novas. And remember, the light I'm seeing is nine thousand yearsold. Now, I'm going to read you a few instruments. Radiation,two hundred and ten. Cabin temperature normal, butyou can hear the whine of the temperature control. Themass indicator shows nothing but a blur ahead. I'm turningback."

 "Radiation two hundred and ten? How far are you fromthe edge of the Core?"

 "About four thousand light-years, I think. I can see plumesof incandescent gas starting to form in the near side of the patch, moving toward galactic north and south. It remindsme of something. Aren't there pictures of exploding galaxiesin the Institute?"

 "Many. Yes, it has happened before. Beowulf Shaeffer, this is bad news. When the radiation from the Core reaches our worlds, it will sterilize them. We puppeteers will soonneed considerable amounts of money. Shall I release you fromyour contract, paying you nothing?"

 I laughed. I was too surprised even to get mad. "No,"

 "Surely you do not intend to enter the Core?"

 "No. Look, why do you-"

 "Then by the conditions of our contract, you forfeit."

 "Wrong again. I'll take pictures of these instruments.When a court sees the readings on the radiation meter andthe blue blur in the mass indicator, they'llknow wrong with them."

 "Nonsense. Under evidence drugs you will explain thereadings."

 "Sure. And the court will know you tried to get me to goright to the center of that holocaust. You know what they'llsay to that?"

 "But how can a court of law find against a recorded con­tract?"

 "The point is they'll want to. Maybe they'll decide that we're both lying and the instruments really did go haywire.Maybe they'll find a way, to say the contract was illegal. Butthey'll find against you. Want to make a side bet?"

 "No. You have won. Come back."

 6

 The Core was a lovely multicolored jewel when it disap­peared below the lens of the galaxy, I'd have liked to visit it someday, but there aren't any time machines,

 I'd penetrated nearly to the Core in something like amonth. I took my time coming home, going straight up alonggalactic north and flying above the lens where there were nostars to bother me, and still made it in two. All the way Iwondered why the puppeteer had tried to cheat me atthelast.Long Shot's publicity would have been better than ever;yet the regional president had been willing to throw it away just to leave me broke. I couldn't ask why, because nobody was answering my hyperphone. Nothing I knew about pup­peteers could tell me. I felt persecuted.

 My come-hither brought me down at the base in the Far-side End. Nobody was there. I took the transfer booth backto Sirius Mater, Jinx's biggest city, figuring to contact Gen­eral Products, turn over the ship, and pick up my pay.

 More surprises awaited me.

 1) General Products had paid one hundred and fifty thou­sand stars into my account in the Bank of Jinx. A personal

 note stated that whether or not I wrote my article was solely up to me.

 2)     General Products has disappeared. They are selling no
more spacecraft hulls. Companies with contracts have had
their penalty clauses paid off. It all happened two months
ago, simultaneously on all known worlds.

 3)     The bar I'm in is on the roof of the tallest building in
Sirius Mater, more than a mile above the streets. Even from
here I can hear the stock market crashing. It started with
the collapse of spacecraft companies with no hulls to build
ships. Hundreds of others have followed. It takes a long time
for an interstellar market to come apart at the seams, but,
as with the Core novas, I don't see anything that can stop
the chain reaction.

 4)     The secret of the indestructible General Products hull
is being advertised for sale. General Products' human rep­
resentatives will collect bids for one year, no bid to be less
than one trillion stars. Get in on the ground floor, folks.

 5)     Nobody knows anything. That's what's causing most of
the panic. It's been a month since a puppeteer was seen on
any known world. Why did they drop so suddenly out of
interstellar affairs?

 I know.

 In twenty thousand years a flood of radiation will wash over this region of space. Thirty thousand light-years mayseem a long, safe distance, but it isn't, not with this big anexplosion. I've asked. The Core explosion will make this gal­axy uninhabitable to any known form of life.

 Twenty thousand yearsis a long time. It's four times aslong as human written history. We'll all be less than dustbefore things get dangerous, and I for one am not going toworry about it.

 But the puppeteers are different. They're scared. They'regetting out right now. Paying off their penalty clauses and buying motors and other equipment to put in their inde­structible hulls will take so much money that even confis­cating my puny salary would have been a step to the good.Interstellar business can go to hell; from now on, the pup­peteers will have no time for anything but running.

 Where will they go? Well, the galaxy is surrounded by ahalo of small globular clusters. The ones near the rim mightbe safe. Or the puppeteers may even go as far as Andromeda.They have theLong Shot for exploring if they come back for

 it, and they can build more. Outside the galaxy is space emptyenough even for a puppeteer pilot, if he thinks his species isthreatened.

 It's a pity. This galaxy will be dull without puppeteers,Those two-headed monsters were not only the most depend­able faction in interstellar business; they were like water in a wasteland of more-or-less humanoids. It's too bad theyaren't brave, like us.

 But is it?

 I never heard of a puppeteer refusing to face a problem. He may merely be deciding how fast to run, but he'll neverpretend the problem isn't there. Sometime within the nexttwenty millennia we humans will have to movea. populationthat already numbers forty-three billion. How? To where?Whenshould we start thinking about this? When the glowof the Core begins to shine through the dust clouds?

 Maybe men are the cowards-at the core.

 A Pail of AirFRITZ LEIBER

 Pa had sent me out to get an extra pail of air. I'd just aboutscooped it full and most of the warmth had leaked from myfingers when I saw the thing.

 You know, at first I thought it was a young lady. Yes, abeautiful young lady's face all glowing in the dark and look­ing at me from the fifth floor of the opposite apartment, whichhereabouts is the floor just above the white blanket of frozen air. I'd never seen a live young lady before, except in the oldmagazines-Sis is just a kid and Ma is pretty sick and mis­erable-and it gave me such a start that I dropped the pail.Who wouldn't, knowing everyone on Earth was dead exceptPa and Ma and Sis and you?

 Even at that, I don't suppose I should have been surprised.We all see things now and then. Ma has some pretty bad

 ones, to judge from the way she bugs her eyes at nothing andjust screams and screams and huddles back back against theblankets hanging around the Nest. Pa says it is natural we should react like that sometimes.

 When I'd recovered the pail and could look again at theopposite apartment, I got an idea of what Ma might be feelingat those times, for I saw it wasn't a young lady at all butsimply a light-a tiny light that moved stealthily from win­dow to window, just as if one of the cruel little stars had comedown out of the airless sky to investigate why the Earth hadgone away from the Sun, and maybe to hunt down somethingto torment or terrify, now that the Earth didn't have theSun's protection.

 I tell you, the thought of it gave me the creeps, I just stoodthere shaking, and almost froze my feet and did frost myhelmet so solid on the inside that I couldn't have seen thelight even if it had come out of one of the windows to get me. Then I had the wit to go back inside.

 Pretty soon I was feeling my familiar way through thethirty or so blankets and rugs Pa has got hung around toslow down the escape of air from the Nest, and I wasn't quiteso scared. I began to hear the tick-ticking of the clocks in theNest and knew I was getting back into air, because there'sno sound outside in the vacuum, of course. But my mind wasstill crawly and uneasy as I pushed through the last blan­kets-Pa's got them faced with aluminum foil to hold in theheat-and came into the Nest.

 Let me tell you about the Nest. It's low and snug, justroom for the four of us and our things. The floor is coveredwith thick woolly rugs. Three of the sides are blankets, andthe blankets roofing it touch Pa's head. He tells me it's insidea much bigger room, but I've never seen the real walls orceiling.

 Against one of the blanket-walls is a big set of shelves,with tools and books and other stuff, and on top of it a wholerow of clocks. Pa's very fussy about keeping them wound. Hesays we must never forget time, and without a sun or moon, that would be easy to do.

 The fourth wall has blankets all over except around the fireplace, in which there is a fire that must never go out. Itkeeps us from freezing and does a lot more besides. One ofus must always watch it. Some of the clocks are alarm andwe can use them to remind us. In the early days there was

 only Ma to take turns with Pa-I think of that when she getsdifficult-but now there's me to help, and Sis too.

 It's Pa who is the chief guardian of the fire, though. Ialways think of him that way: a tall man sitting cross-legged,frowning anxiously at the fire, his lined face golden in itslight, and every so often carefully placing on it a piece of coalfrom the big heap beside it. Pa tells me there used to beguardians of the fire sometimes in the very old days-vestal virgins, he calls them-although there was unfrozen air allaround then and you didn't really need one,

 He was sitting just that way now, though he got up quickto take the pail from me and bawl me out for loitering-he'dspotted my frozen helmet right off. That roused Ma and she joined in picking on me. She's always trying to get the loadoff her feelings, Pa explains. He shut her up pretty fast. Sislet off a couple of silly squeals too.

 Yet it's that glimmery white stuff in the pail that keepsus alive. It slowly melts and vanishes and refreshes the Nestand feeds the fire. The blankets keep it from escaping toofast. Pa'd like to seal the whole place, but he can't-building's too earthquake-twisted, and besides he has to leave the chim­ney open for smoke,

 Pa says air is tiny molecules that fly away like a flash ifthere isn't something to stop them. We have to watchnot to let the air run low. Pa always keeps a big reserve supply of itib buckets behind the first blankets, along withextra coal and cans of food and other things, such as pails ofsnow to melt for water. We have to go way down to the bottomfloor for that stuff, which is a mean trip, and get it througha door to outside.

 You see, when the Earth got cold, all the water in the airfroze first and made a blanket ten feet thick or so everywhere,and then down on top of that dropped the crystals of frozen air, making another white blanket sixty or seventy feet thickmaybe.

 Of course, all the parts of the air didn't freeze and snowdown at the same time.

 First to drop out was the carbon dioxide-when you'reshoveling for water, you have to make sure you don't go toohigh and get any of that stuff mixed in, for it would put youto sleep, maybe for good, and make the fire go out. Nextthere's the nitrogen, which doesn't count one way or the other,though it's the biggest part of the blanket. On top of that and easy to get at, which is lucky for us, there's the oxygen

 that keeps us alive. Pa says we live better than kings everdid, breathing pure oxygen, but we're used to it and don'tnotice. Finally, at the very top, there's a slick of liquid helium,which is funny stuff. All of these gases in neat separate layers.Like a pussy caffay, Pa laughingly says, whatever that is.

 I was busting to tell them all about what I'd seen, and soas soon as I'd ducked out of my helmet and while I was still climbing out of my suit, I cut loose. Right away Ma got ner­vous and began making eyes at the entry-slit in the blankets and wringing her hands together-the hand where she'd lostthree fingers from frostbite inside the good one, as usual. Icould tell that Pa was annoyed at me scaring her and wanted to explain it all away quickly, yet could see I wasn't fooling.

 "And you watched this light for some time, son?" he askedwhen I finished.

 I hadn't said anything about first thinking it was a young lady's face. Somehow that part embarrassed me.

 "Long enough for it to pass five windows and go to thenext floor."

 "And it didn't look like stray electricity or crawling liquidor starlight focused by a growing crystal, or anything like that?"

 He wasn't just making up those ideas. Odd things happen in a world that's about as cold as can be, and just when youthink matter would be frozen dead, it takes on a strange new life. A slimy stuff comes crawling toward the Nest, just likean animal snuffing for heat-that's the liquid helium. Andonce, when I was little, a bolt of lightning-not even Pa couldfigure where it came from-hit the nearby steeple and crawled up and down it for weeks, until the glow finally died.

 "Not like anything I ever saw," I told him.

 He stood for a moment frowning. Then, "I'll go out with you, and you show it to me," he said.

 Ma raised a howl at the idea of being left alone, and SisJoined in, too, but Pa quieted them. We started climbing into our outside clothes-mine had been warming by the fire. Pamade them. They have plastic headpieces that were once bigdouble-duty transparent food cans, but they keep heat andair in and can replace the air for a little while, long enoughfor our trips for water and coal and food and so on.

 Ma started moaning again, "I've always known there wassomething outside there, waiting to get us. I've felt it foryears-something that's part of the cold and hates all warmthand wants to destroy the Nest. It's been watching us all this

 time, and now it's coming after us. It'll get you and then comefor me. Don't go, Harry!"

 Pa had everything on but his helmet. He knelt by thefireplace and reached in and shook the long metal rod thatgoes up the chimney and knocks off the ice that keeps tryingto clog it. Once a week he goes up on the roof to check if it'sworking all right. That's our worst trip and Pa won't let me make it alone.

 "Sis," Pa said quietly, "come watch the fire. Keep an eyeon the air, too. If it gets low or doesn't seem to be boiling fastenough, fetch another bucket from behind the blanket. Butmind your hands. Use the cloth to pick up the bucket."

 Sis quit helping Ma be frightened and came over and didas she was told. Ma quieted down pretty suddenly, thoughher eyes were still kind of wild as she watched Pa fix on hishelmet tight and pick up a pail and the two of us go out.

 Pa led the way and I took hold of his belt. It's a funnything, but when Pa's along I always want to hold on to him.Habit, I guess, and then there's no denying that this time Iwas a bit scared.

 You see, it's this way. We know that everything is deadout there. Pa heard the last radio voices fade away years ago, and had seen some of the last folks die who weren't as luckyor well-protected as us. So we knew that if there was some­thing groping around out there, it couldn't be anything hu­ man or friendly.

 Besides that, there's a feeling that comes with it alwaysbeing night,cold night. Pa says there used to be some of thatfeeling even in the old days, but then every morning the Sunwould come and chase it away. I have to take his word for that, not ever remembering the Sun as being anything morethan a star. You see, I hadn't been born when the dark starsnatched us away from the Sun, and by now it's dragged us out beyond the orbit of the planet Pluto, Pa says, and takingus farther out all the time.

 I found myself wondering whether there mightn't be some­thing on the dark star that wanted us, and if that was whyit had captured the Earth. Just then we came to the end ofthe corridor and I followed Pa out on the balcony.

 I don't know what the city looked like in the old days, butnow it's beautiful. The starlight lets you see it pretty well-there's quite a bit of light in those steady points specklingthe blackness above. (Pa says the stars used to twinkle once,but that was because there was air.) We are on a hill and the

 shimmery plain drops away from us and then flattens out,cut up into neat squares by the troughs that used to be streets.I sometimes make my mashed potatoes look like it, before Ipour on the gravy.

 Some taller buildings push up out of the feathery plain,topped by rounded caps of air crystals, like the fur hood Mawears, only whiter. On these buildings you can see the darkersquares of windows, underlined by white dashes of air crys­tals. Some of them are on a slant, for many of the buildingsare pretty badly twisted by the quakes and all the rest thathappened when the dark star captured the Earth.

 Here and there a few icicles hang, water icicles from thefirst days of the cold, other icicles of frozen air that meltedon the roofs and dripped and froze again. Sometimes one of those icicles will catch the light of a star and send it to youso brightly you think the star has swooped into the city. That was one of the things Pa had been thinking of when I told him about the light, but I had thought of it myself first andknown it wasn't so.

 He touched his helmet to mine so we could talk easier andhe asked me to point out the windows to him. But there wasn'tany light moving around inside them now, or anywhere else.To my surprise, Pa didn't bawl me out and tell me I'd beenseeing things. He looked all around quite a while after filling his pail, and just as we were going inside he whipped aroundwithout warning, as if to take some peeping thing off guard.

 I could feel it, too. The old peace was gone. There wassomething lurking out there, watching, waiting, gettingready.

 Inside, he said to me, touching helmets, "If you see some­thing like that again, son, don't tell the others. Your Ma'ssort of nervous these days and we owe her all the feeling of safety we can give her. Once-it was when your sister wasborn-I was ready to give up and die, but your Mother keptme trying Another time she kept the fire going a whole weekall by herself when I was sick. Nursed me and took care ofthe two of you, too.

 "You know that game we sometimes play, sitting in a square in the Nest, tossing a ball around? Courage is like aball, son. A person can hold it only so long, and then he's gotto toss it to someone else. When it's tossed your way, you'vegot to catch it and hold it tight-and hope there'll be someone else to toss it to when you get tired of being brave."

 His talking to me that way made me feel grown-up and

 good. But it didn't wipe away the thing outside from the backof my mind-or the fact that Pa took it seriously.

 It'shard to hide your feelings about sach a thing. Whenwe got back in the Nest and took off our outside clothes, Pa laughed about it and told them it was nothing and kidded mefor having such an imagination, but his words fell flat. Hedidn't convince Ma and Sis any more than he did me. It lookedfor a minute like we were all fumbling the courage-ball.Something had to be done, and almost before I knew whatI was going to say, I heard myself asking Pa to tell us about the old days, and how it all happened.

 He sometimes doesn't mind telling that story, and Sis and I sure like to listen to it, and he got my idea. So we were allsettled around the fire in a wink, and Ma pushed up somecans to thaw for supper, and Pa began. Before he did, though, I noticed him casually get a hammer from the shelf and layit down beside him.

 It was the same old story as always-I think I could recitethe main thread of it in my sleep-though Pa always putsin a new detail or two and keeps improving it in spots.

 He told us how the Earth had been swinging around theSun ever so steady and warm, and the people an it fixing tomake money and wars and have a good time and get power and treat each other right or wrong, when without warningthere comes charging out of space this dead star, this burned-out sun, and upsets everything.

 You know, I find it hard to believe in the way those peoplefelt, any more than I can believe in the swarming numberof them. Imagine people getting ready for the horrible sortof war they were cooking up. Wanting it even, or at leastwishing it were over so as to end their nervousness. As if allfolks didn't have to hang together and pool every bit ofwarmth just to keep alive. And how can they have hoped toend danger,any more then we can hope to end the cold?

 Sometimes I think Pa exaggerates and makes things outtoo black. He's cross with us once in a while and was probablycross with all those folks. Still some of the things I read inthe old magazines sound pretty wild. He may be right.

 The dark star, as Pa went on telling it, rushed in prettyfast and there wasn't much time to get ready. At the begin­ning they tried to keep it a secret from most people, but thenthe truth came out, what with the earthquakes and floods-imagine, oceans ofunfrozen water!-and people seeing starsblotted out by something on a clear night. First off they

 thought it would hit the Sun, and then they thought it wouldhit the Earth. There was even the start of a rush to get to aplace called China, because people thought the star would hiton the other side. But then they found it wasn't going to hiteither side, but was going to come very close to the Earth.

 Most of the other planets were on the other side of the Sunand didn't get involved. The Sun and the newcomer foughtover the Earth for a little while-pulling it this way and that,like two dogs growling over a bone, Pa described it this time-and then the newcomer won and carried us off. The Sun gota consolation prize, though. At the last minute he managedto hold on to the Moon.

 That was the time of the monster earthquakes and floods,twenty times worse than anything before. It was also the .,time of the Big Jerk, as Pa calls it, when all Earth got yankedsuddenly, just as Pa has done to me once or twice, grabbing me by the collar to do it, when I've been sitting too far fromthe fire.

 You see, the dark star was going through space faster thanthe Sun, and in the opposite direction, and it had to wrenchthe world considerably in order to take it away.

 The Big Jerk didn't last long. It was over as soon as theEarth was settled down in its new orbit around the dark star.But it was pretty terrible while it lasted. Pa says that allsorts of cliffs and buildings toppled, oceans slopped over,swamps and sandy deserts gave great sliding surges thatburied nearby lands. Earth was almost jerked out of its at­mosphere blanket and the air got so thin in spots that peoplekeeled over and fainted-though of course, at the same time they were getting knocked down by the Big Jerk and maybetheir bones broke or skulls cracked.

 We've often asked Pa how people acted during that time, whether they were scared or brave or crazy or stunned, or allfour, but he's sort of leery of the subject, and he was again tonight. He says he was mostly too busy to notice.

 You see, Pa and some scientist friends of his had figuredout part of what was going to happen-they'd known we'dget captured and our air would freeze-and they'd been work­ing like mad to fix up a place with airtight walls and doors, and insulation against the cold, and big supplies of food and fuel and water and bottled air. But the place got smashed inthe last earthquakes and all Pa's friends were killed then and in the Big Jerk. So he had to start over and throw the

 Nest together quick without any advantages, just using any stuff he could lay his hands on.

 I guess he's telling pretty much the truth when he sayshe didn't have any time to keep an eye on how other folksbehaved, either then or in the Big Freeze that followed- followed very quick, you know, both because the dark star was pulling us away very fast and because Earth's rotation had been slowed in the tug-of-war, so that the nights wereten old nights long.

 Still, I've got an idea of some of the things that happened from the frozen folk Fve seen, a few of them in other roomsin our building, others clustered around the furnaces in thebasements where we go for coal.

 In one of the rooms, an old man sits stiff m a chair, withan arm and a leg in splints. In another, a man and womanare huddled together in a bed with heaps of covers over them.You can just see their heads peeking out, close together. Andm another a beautiful young lady is sitting with a pile ofwraps huddled around her, looking hopefully toward the door,as if waiting for someone who never came back with warmthand food. They're all still and stiff as statues, of course, but lust like life.

 Pa showed them to me once in quick winks of his flashlight,when he still had a fair supply of batteries aad could afford to waste a little light. They scared me pretty bad and made my heart pound, especially the young lady.

 Now, with Pa telling his story for the umpteenth time totake our minds off another scare, I got to thinking of the frozen folk again. All of a sudden I got an idea that scared me worse than anything yet. You see, I'd just rememberedthe face I'd thought I'd seen in the window. I'd forgotten aboutthat on account of trying to hide it from the others.

 What, I asked myself, if the frozen folk were coming to life? What if they were like the liquid helium that gota newlease on life and started crawling toward the heat just whenyou thought its molecules ought to freeze solid forever? Or like the electricity that moves endlessly when it's just aboutas cold as that? What if the ever-growing cold, with the tem­perature creeping down the last few degrees to the last zero,had mysteriously wakened the frozen folk to life-not warm­blooded life, but something icy and horrible?

 That was a worse idea than the one about something com­ing down from the dark star to get us.

 Or maybe, I thought, both ideas might be true. Something

 coming down from the dark star and making the frozen folk move, using them to do its work. That would fit with both things I'd seen-the beautiful young lady and the moving,starlike light.

 The frozen folk with minds from the dark star behind their unwinkling eyes, creeping, crawling, snuffing their way, fol­lowing the heat to the Nest.

 I tell you, that thought gave me a very bad turn and Iwanted very badly to tell the others my fears, but I remem­bered what Pa had said and clenched my teeth and didn'tspeak.

 We were all sitting very still. Even the fire was burningsilently. There was just the sound of Pa's voice and the clocks.

 And then, from beyond the blankets, I thought I heard atiny noise. My skin tightened all over me.

 Pa was telling about the early years in the Nest and hadcome to the place where he philosophizes.

 "So I asked myself then," he said, "what's the use of goingon? What's the use of dragging it out for a few years? Whyprolong a doomed existence of hard work and cold and lone­liness? The human race is done. The Earth is done. Why notgive up, I asked myself-and all of a sudden I got the answer."

 Again I heard the noise, louder this time, a kind of un­certain shuffling tread, coming closer. I couldn't breathe.

 "Life's always been a business of working hard and fight­ing the cold," Pa was saying. "The Earth's always been alonely place, millions of miles from the next planet. And nomatter how long the human race might have lived, the endwould have come some night. Those things don't matter.What matters is that life is good. It has a lovely texture, likesome rich cloth or fur, or the petals of flowers-you've seenpictures of those, but I can't describe how they feel-or the fire's glow. It makes everything else worthwhile. And that'sas true for the last man as the first."

 And still the steps kept shuffling closer. It seemed to methat the inmost blanket trembled and bulged a little. Just asif they were burned into my imagination, I kept seeing thosepeering, frozen eyes.

 "So right then and there," Pa went on, and now I couldtell that he heard the steps, too, and was talking loud so wemaybe wouldn't hear them, "right then and there I told myselfthat I was going on as if we had all eternity ahead of us. I'dhave children and teach them all I could. I'd get them to readbooks. I'd plan for the future, try to enlarge and seal the Nest.

 I'd do what I could to keep everything beautiful and growing. I'dkeep alive my feeling of wonder even at the cold and the darkand the distant stars."

 But then the blanket actually did move and lift. And there

 was a bright light somewhere behind it. Pa's voice stopped

 and his eyes turned to the widening slit and his hand went

 out until it touched and gripped the handle of the hammer

 beside him.

 In through the blanket stepped the beautiful young lady.

 She stood there looking at us the strangest way, and she

 carried something bright and unwinking in her hand. And

 two other faces peered over her shoulders-men's faces, white

 and staring.

 Well, my heart couldn't have been stopped for more than

 four or five beats before I realized she was wearing a suit and

 helmet like Pa's homemade ones, only fancier, and that the

 men were, too-and that the frozen folk certainly wouldn't

 be wearing those. Also, I noticed that the bright thing in her

 hand was just a kind of flashlight.

 The silence kept on while I swallowed hard a couple oftimes, and after that there was all sorts of jabbering and commotion.

 They were simply people, you see. We hadn't been the only ones to survive; we'd just thought so, for natural enough reasons. These three people had survived, and quite a few others with them. And when we found outhow they'd sur­vived, Pa let out the biggest whoop of joy.

 They were from Los Alamos and they were getting their heat and power from atomic energy. Just using the uraniumand plutonium intended for bombs, they had enough to go on for thousands of years. They had a regular little airtight city, withairlocks and all. They even generated electric light andgrew plants and animals by it. (At this Pa let out a secondwhoop, waking Ma from her faint.)

 But if we were flabbergasted at them, they were double-flabbergasted at us.

 One of the men kept saying, "But it's impossible, I tell you. You can't maintain an air supply without hermetic seal-ing. It's simply impossible."

 That was after he had got his helmet off and was using our air. Meanwhile, the young lady kept looking around at us as if we were saints, and telling us we'd done something amazing, and suddenly she broke down and cried.

 They'd been scouting around for survivors, but thev never

 expected to find any in a place like this. They had rocketships at Los Alamos and plenty of chemical fuel. As for liquidoxygen, all you had to do was go out and shovel the air blanketat the top level. So after they'd got things going smoothly atLos Alamos, which had taken years, they'd decided to makesome trips to likely places where there might be other sur­vivors. No good trying long-distance radio signals, of course,since there was no atmosphere to carry them around thecurve of the Earth.

 Well, they'd found other colonies at Argonne and Brook-haven and way around the world at Harwell and Tanna Tuva.And now they'd been giving our city a look, not really ex­pecting to find anything. But they had an instrument thatnoticed the faintest heat waves and it had told them therewas something warm down here, so they'd landed to inves­tigate. Of course we hadn't heard them land, since there wasno air to carry the sound, and they'd had to investigate aroundquite a while before finding us. Their instruments had giventhem a wrong steer and they'd wasted some time in the build­ing across the street.

 By now, all five adults were talking like sixty. Pa wasdemonstrating to the men how he worked the fire and got ridof the ice in the chimney and all that. Ma had perked upwonderfully and was showing the young lady her cooking andsewing stuff, and even asking about how the women dressedat Los Alamos. The strangers marveled at everything andpraised it to the skies. I could tell from the way they wrinkled their noses that they found the Nest a bit smelly, but they never mentioned that at all and just asked bushels of ques­tions.

 In fact, there was so much talking and excitement that Paforgot about things, and it wasn't until they were all gettinggroggy that he looked around and found the air had all boiledaway in the pail. He got another bucket of air quick frombehind the blankets. Of course that started them all laughing and jabbering again. The newcomers even got a little drunk. They weren't used to so much oxygen.

 Funny thing, though-I didn't do much talking at all andSis hung on to Ma all the time and hid her face when anybodylooked at her. I felt pretty uncomfortable and disturbed my­self, even about the young lady. Glimpsing her outside there,I'd had all sorts of mushy thoughts, but now I was just em­barrassed and scared of her, even though she tried to be niceas anything to me.

 I sort of wished they'd all quit crowding the Nest and let us be alone and get our feelings straightened out.

 And when the newcomers began to talk about our all goingto Los Alamos, as if that were taken for granted, I could see that something of the same feeling struck Pa and Ma, too,"Pa got very silent all of a sudden and Ma kept telling the young lady, "But I wouldn't know how to act there and I haven't any clothes."

 The strangers were puzzled like anything at first, but thenthey got the idea. As Pa kept saying, "It just doesn't seemright to let this fire go out."

 Well, the strangers are gone, but they're coming back. Ithasn't been decided yet just what will happen. Maybe the Nest will be kept up as what one of the strangers called a"survival school." Or maybe we will join the pioneers whoare going to try to establish a new colony at the uranium mines at Great Slave Lake or in the Congo.

 Of course, now that the strangers are gone, I've been think­ing a lot about Los Alamos and those other tremendous col­onies. I have a hankering to see them for myself.

 You ask me, Pa wants to see them, too. He's been gettingpretty thoughtful, watching Ma and Sis perk up.

 "It's different, now that we know others are alive," heexplains to me. "Your mother doesn't feel so hopeless artymore. Neither do I, for that matter, not having to carry thewhole responsibility for keeping the human race going, so tospeak It scares a person."

 I looked around at the blanket walls and the fire and the pails of air boiling away and Ma and Sis sleeping in thewarmth and the flickering light.

 "It's not going to be easy to leave the Nest," I said, wantingto cry, kind of. "It's so small and there's just the four of us.I get scared at the idea of big places and a lot of strangers."

 He nodded and put another piece of coal on the fire. Thenhe looked at the little pile and grinned suddenly and put a couple of handfuls on, just as if it was one of our birthdays or Christmas.

 "You'll quickly get over that feeling son," he said. "Thetrouble with the world was that it kept getting smaller andsmaller, till it ended with just the Nest. Now it'll be good tohave a real huge world again, the way it was in the begin­ning."

 I guess he's right. You think the beautiful young lady willwait for me till I grow up? I'll be twenty in only ten years.

 King of the HillCHAD OLIVER

 She floated there in the great nothing, still warm and softand blue-green if you could eyeball her from a few thousandmiles out, still kissed under blankets of clouds.

 Mama Earth, Getting old now, tired, her blankets soiledwith her own secretions, her body bruised and torn by abillion forgotten passions.

 Like many a mother before her, she had given birth to a monster. Me was not old, not as planets measure time, andthere had been other children. But he was old enough. He had taken over.

 His name?

 You know it: there are no surprises left. Man. Big Daddyof the primates. The ape that walks like a chicken. Homosap. Ah, the tool-maker, flapper of tongues, builder of fires,sex fiend, dreamer, destroyer, creator of garbage...

 You know me, Al.

 Mirror, mirror, on the wall-

 Ant is the name, anthill is the game.

 There were many men, too many men. They have names.

 Try this one on for size: Sam Gregg. Don't like it? Rings no bells? Not elegant enough? Wrong ethnic affiliation?

 Few among the manswarm, if any, cared for Sam Gregg.One or two, possibly, gave a damn about his name. A billionor so knew his name.

 Mostly, they hated his guts-and envied him.

 He was there, Sam Gregg, big as life and twice as ugly.

 He stuck out.

 A rock in the sandpile.

 They were after him again.

 Sam Gregg felt the pressure. There had beena time when

 he had thrived on it; the adrenaline had flowed and the juicesbubbled. Sure, and there had been a time when dinosaurs had walked the earth. Sam had been born in the year thatmen had first walked on the moon. (It had tickled him, when he was old enough to savor it. A man with the unlikely name of Armstrong, no less. And his faithful sidekick, Buzz. Andgood old Mike holding the fort, Jesus.) That made him nearlya century old. His doctors were good, the best. It was nomiracle to live a hundred years, not these days. But he wasn'ta kid anymore, as he demonstrated occasionally with Lois.

 The attacks were not particularly subtle, but they werecivilized. That meant that nobody called you a son of a bitchto your face, and the assassins carried statistics and plati-tudes instead of knives and strangling cords.

 Item.A bill had been introduced in Washington by goodold Senator Raleigh, millionaire defender of the poor. Strippedof its stumbling oratorical flourishes, it argued that underseadevelopment was now routine and therefore that there shouldbe no tax dodges for phony risk capital investment. Thatlittle arrow was aimed straight at one of Sam's companies-at several of them, in fact, although the somewhat dim-witted Raleigh probably did not know that. Sam .could beat the bill,but it would cost him money. That annoyed him. He had anexpensive hobby.

 Item.Sam retained a covey of bright boys whose only jobit was to keep his name out of the communications media.They weren't entirely successful; your name is not known to a billion people on a word-of-mouth basis. Still, he had notbeen subjected to one of those full-scale, no-holds-barred, dy­namic, daring personal close-ups for nearly a year now. Onewas coming up, on Worldwide. The mystery man-revealed!The richest man in the world-exposed! The hermit-trappedby fearless reporters! Sam was not amused. The earth wassick, blotched by hungry and desperate people from pole toshining pole. There had never been an uglier joke than pin­ning man's future on birth control. A sick world needs atarget for its anger. Sam's only hope was to be inconspicuous.He had failed in that, and it would get him in the end. Still,he only needed a little more time,,,

 Item.The U.N. delegate from the Arctic Republic hadcharged that Arctic citizens of Eskimo descent were being passed over for high administrative positions in franchises licensed to operate in the Republic. "We must not and willnot allow," he said, "the well-known technical abilities of oar

 people to serve as a pretext for modern-day colonial exploi­tation." The accusation was so much rancid blubber, of course;Sam happened to like Eskimos as well as he liked anybody,and in any event he was always very careful about suchthings. No matter. There would be a hearing, facts wouldhave to be tortured by the computers, stories would have tobe planted, money would be spent. The root of all evil pro-duced a popular shrub.

 There were other items, most of them routine. Sam did not deal with them himself, and had not done so for fiftyyears. ("Mr. Gregg never does anythingpersonally," as one aide had put it in a famous interview.) Sam routed the prob­lems down to subordinates; that was what they were for.Nevertheless, he kept in touch. A ruler who does not knowwhat is going on in his empire can expect the early arrivalof the goon squad that escorts him into oblivion. There werethe usual appeals to support Worthy Causes, to contribute to Charity, to help out Old Friends. Sam denied them allwithout a qualm and without doing anything; his lieutenantshad their orders. A penny saved...

 Sam was not really worried; at worst he was harassed, which was the chronic complaint of executives.They werenot on to him yet. There was no slightest hint of a leak whereit counted. Ifthat one ever hit the air cleaner there would be a stink they could smell in the moon labs.

 Still, he felt the pressure. He was human, at least in hisown estimation. There was a classic cure for pressure, knownto students of language as getting away from it all. It wasa cure that was no longer possible for the vast majority ofonce-human beings, for the simple reason that there wasnowhere to go.

 ("To what do you attribute your long and successful life,Mr. Gregg?'" "Well, I pension off my wives so that I alwayshave a young one, and I see to it that she talks very little.I drink a lot of good booze, but I never get drunk. I don't eat meat. I count my money when I get depressed. If I feel tense,I knock about the estate until I feel better. I try to break atleast three laws every day. I owe it all to being a completely evil man.")

 Sam Gregg could take the cure, and he did.

 He did not have to leave his own land, of course.Samnever left his Estate. (Well, hardly ever.)He took the private tube down from his suite in the tower

 and stepped outside. That was the way he thought of it, butit was not precisely true. There was a miniature life-support; pod that arched over a thousand acres of his property. It wasa high price to pay for clean air, but it was the only way. Sam needed it and so did the animals.

 There were two laws that he broke every day. In a worldso strangled by countless tons of human meat that land percapita was measured in square feet, Sam Gregg owned morethan a thousandacres. Moreover, he did nothing useful withthat supremely illegal land. He keptanimals on it. Even dogs and cats had been outlawed for a quarter of a century, andwhat passed for meat was grown in factory vats. When people are starving, wasting food on pets is a criminal act, (Whosays so? Why, people do.) Most of the zoos were gone now,and parks and forests and meadows were things of the past.

 Sam took a deep breath, drinking in the air. It was justright, and not completely artificial either. Cool it was, andfragrant with living smells: trees and wet-green grass andwater that glided over rocks and earth that was soft andthick.

 This was all that was left, a fact that Sam fully appreci­ated.

 This was the world as it once had been, lost now andforever.

 Man had come, mighty man. Oh, he was smart, he was clever. He had turned the seas into cesspools, the air into sludge, the mountains into shrieking cities. Someone hadonce said that one chimpanzee was no chimpanzee. It was true; they were social animals. But how about ten thousandchimpanzees caged in a square mile? That was no chimpanzeealso-that was crazy meat on a fanny farm.

 Oh, man was clever. He raped a world until he could notlive with it, and then he screamed for help.

 Don't call me, AI. Ill call you.

 Sam shook his head. It was no good thinking about it. Hecould not ride to the rescue, not with all of his billions. Hehad no great admiration for his fellow men, and it would notmatter if he had.

 There was only one thing left to try.                           

  Sam tried to close his mind to it. He had to stay alive a

 little longer. He had to relax, value, enjoy-                        

 He walked along an unpaved trail, very likely the last oneleft on the planet. He breathed clean air, he felt the warmth of the sun glowing through the pod, he absorbed...

 There were squirrels chattering in the trees, rabbits busy at rabbit-business in the brush. He saw a deer, a beautifulbuck with moss on his horns; the buck ran when he spotted Sam. He knew who the enemy was. He saw a thin raccoon, a female that stared at him from behind her bandit's mask.She had three young ones with her and they were bold, butMama herded them up into an oak and out of danger. He could see the three little masks peering down at him from the branches.

 The trail wound along a stream of cold, fast water. Sam watched the dark olive shadows lurking in the pools. Trout,of course. Sam drew the line at bass and carp,

 He came out of the trees and into a field of tall grass.There were yellow flowers and insects buzzed in the air. Hesensed the closeness of shapes and forms, but he could notsee them in the breeze-swept grass. There was life here, anddeath, and life again.

 But not for long.

 He turned and retraced his steps. He felt a little better.

 The raccoons were still in the oak.

 Sam went back inside. Back to the salt mine.

 He worked hard until dinner.

 "What was the exact hour?" Lois asked him, absentlystroking one of her remarkable legs. (She had two of them.)

 "I don't remember," Sam said. "I was very young."

 "Come on, Sam. I'm not stupid. Youcan't tell me that withall the resources of your mysterious enterprises you can't findout the exact time."

 "I am telling you. I don't know." Sam looked at her, whichwas always pleasant in a tense sort of way. Lois was sensual but there was no softness in her. She had a lacquered surfacestretched like a drumhead over taut springs. She alwayslooked perfect, but even her casual clothes were somehow formal. She never forgot herself. She was a challenge, whichwas fine once in a while. Sam was old enough to decline mostchallenges without dishonor.

 Lois did not have to remind Sam that she had a brain.Sam never madethat mistake. Her little reference to "mys­terious enterprises" was an effective threat. At thirty, shehad climbed the highest pinnacle on her scale of values: shewas the wife of the richest man in the world. She didn't wanta settlement. She wanted it all. Sam had no children.

 Bright, yes. Cunning, yes. Skilled, certainly. Faithful with

 her body, yes-Lois took no needless risks. But that fine-boned head enclosed a brain that was all output; not muchof significance ever wentin. The hard violet eyes looked outfrom jelly that had been molded in Neolithic times.

 She would have made a dandy witch.

 She spent her days puttering with expensive clothing andobscure cosmetics. She had a library of real books, thus prov­ing her intellectual capacity. They were all about reincar­nation and astrology. She considered herself something of anexpert with horoscopes. A pun had frequently occurred to Sam in this connection, but he had refrained. He was not a cruel man.

 "I want to do it for you," she «aid. "You have decisions tomake. It would help. Really, Sam."

 She was quite sincere, like all fanatics. It was a gift she could give him, and that was important to her. It was anancient problem for women like Lois: what do you give to aman who has everything? The gag presents get pretty thinvery quickly, and Sam was not a man who was easily con­vulsed.

 He sipped his drink, enjoying it. He always drank Scotch;the labs could create nothing better. "Well," he said, "Ihaven't a clue about the minute of my birth. I'd just as soon forget my birthday."

 Lois was patient. "It would be so simple to find out."

 "But I don't give a damn."

 "Igivea damn. What about me? It's a small thing. I knowthe day, of course. But if the moons of Saturn were in theright position..."

 Sam raised his eyebrows and took a large swallow ofScotch before he answered. "They are always in the right position," he said carefully, 'That's the way moons are."

 "Oh, Sam." She did not cry; she had learned some things,

 Sam Gregg stood up to refill his glass. He did not like tohave obtrusive robots around the house. Self-reliance and allthat.

 He was not unaware of himself. He did not look his age.He was a tall, angular man. There was still strength in him.His hair was gray, not white. His craggy face was lined but there was no flab on him. His brown eyes were sharp, likedirty ice,

 Sam sometimes thought of himself as a vampire in one ofthe still-popular epics. ("Ah, my dear, velcome to Castle Mor-dar. A moment while I adjust my dentures.") Splendid-looking

 chap, distinguished even. But then, suddinkly, at the worstpossible moment, he dissolves into a puff of primeval dust...

 "Let's go beddy-bye," Sam said, draining his glass. "MaybeI can remember."

 "I'll help you," Lois said, reporting for duty.

 "You'll have to," Sam agreed.

 Sam worked very hard the next few weeks. He even foundtime to check the hour and the minute of his birth. He was being very careful indeed, trying to think of everything.

 Lois was delighted. She retreated to her mystic stewpottconsulted her illustrated charts, talked it over with several dead Indians, and informed Sam that he was thinking about a long, long journey.

 Sam didn't explode into laughter.

 His work was difficult because so much of it involved wait­ing. There were many programs to consider, all of them setin motion years ago. They had to mesh perfectly. They alldepended on the work of other men. And they all had to bemasked.

 It wasn't easy. How, for instance, do you hide a couple of spaceships? Particularly when they keep taking off and land­ing with all the stealth of trumpeting elephants?

 ("Spaceship? I don't see any spaceship. Do you see a space­ship?")

 Answer: You don't hide them. You account for them. Forall practical purposes, Sam owned the space station that or­bited the Earth. He controlled it through a mosaic of inter­locking companies, domestic and foreign. It was only naturalfor him to operate a few shuttle ships. A man has a right to keep his finger in his own pie.

 Ownedthe space station, Daddy?

 Yes, Junior. Listen, my son, and you shall hear...

 The great space dream had been a bust. A colossal fizzle.A thumping anticlimax.

 The trails blazed by the space pioneers led-quite liter­ally-Nowhere.

 Fortunately or otherwise, Mighty Man could not createthe solar system in his own image. The solar system was onehell of a place, and not just on Pluto. There were no conve­niently verdant worlds. There were just rocks and craters,heat and cold, lifeless dust and frozen chemicals.

 There were other suns, other planets. Big deal. There wereno handy space warps, no faster-than-light drives. Un-

 manned survey ships took a very long time to report, andtheir news produced no dancing in the streets: rocks, craters,desolation. Who would spend a lifetime to visit Nothing?

 Would you? (Naw, I'd rather go see Grandma.)

 Scientific bases had been established on Luna, and theysurvived. They survived with enormous expense, with highlytrained personnel, with iron discipline. Even the scientificteams had to be replaced at short intervals.

 Radiation, you know. Puts funny kinks in the old chro­mosomes.

 The Mars Colony of half a century ago, widely advertisedas a solution to the population crisis, was a solution only inthe grim sense of a Final Solution. Even with the life-supportpods-Sam had lost a fortune on the early models, but hehad learned a few things-it was no go. Five thousand humanbeings had gone to Mars to start the New Life. (A drop in the bucket, to be sure. But there was much talk about Be­ginnings, and Heroic Ancestors, and First Steps.) A few ofthem had gotten back. Most had died or gone mad or both.Some of them were still there, although this was not gen­erally known. They -were no longer human.

 The problem was that it was perfectly possible to set upa scientific base on Mars, or even a military base if there hadbeen any need for one. But soldiers on Mars are a joke, andappropriations committees had long since stopped playing the old game:Can You Top This? Scientists could do littleon Mars that they could not do on Luna. And people-plain,ordinary people, the kind that swarmed the Earth andscratched for a living, the kind that had to go-could notexist on Mars.

 And so?

 And so, kiddies, what was left of the space program wastaken over by what was referred to as the Private Sector ofthe Economy. Got your decoder badges ready? It works outto S-a-m G-r-e-g-g. Governments could not continue to pourbillions into space when there was noearthly reason for doingso. But with existing hardware and accumulated expertiseit was not prohibitively expensive for Sam Gregg to keep afew things going. There was the matter of motive, of course.Sam Gregg had one, and he made money besides.

 There were other projects to conceal, but they were easierthan spaceships. Genetics research? Well, cancer was still akiller and everyone wanted to live forever. Such work wasdownright humanitarian, and therefore admirable. Ecolog-

 ical studies? The whole wretched planet was fouled by itsown ecology-a solutionhad to be found. (There was no so­lution at this late date, but so what? It was a Good Thing.Everyone said so.) Computers, robots, cybernetics? Certainlytheywere beyond reproach. Hadn't they ushered in theGolden Age? Well, hadn't they?

 Sam Gregg had his faults-ask anyone-but wishfulthinking was not among them. Heknew that he could succeedif he just had time. He could succeed if they didn't get him first. He could succeed because he had the resources andbecause the problem was essentially one of technology. Nomatter how complex they are, technological problems can besolved unless they involve flat impossibilities. You can builda suspension bridge, send a man to Mars or wherever, con­struct cities beneath the sea.

 There are other problems, human problems. How do youbuild a bridge between people? How do you, send a betterman to Mars? How do you construct an anthill city that isnot a bughouse? Money will not solve those problems. Rhet­oric will not solve them. Technology will not solve them.

 Therefore, Sam did not fool with them. He used them forprotective coloration, but he did not kid himself.

 He stuck to the art of the possible.

 Oh yes, he had a dream.

 There was justice in it, of a sort. But human beings carenothing for justice. They look out for Number One.

 Number One?

 Sam permitted himself a brief, cold smile.

 They would tear him apart if they knew, all those billionsof Number Ones...

 A day came when all the bits and pieces fell into place.The data came back, coded across the empty hundreds of millions of miles. The columns added up. The light turnedgreen.

 Sam was exultant, in a quiet sort of way. He had expectedit to work, of course. He had checked it all out countlesstimes. But that was theory, and Sam was a skeptic abouttheories.

 This was fact.

 It was ready. Not perfect, no-but that too had been an­ticipated.

 Ain't science wunnerful?

 He could not stay inside, not when he was this close. He

 had to get outside, taste what was left of freedom. At timeslike these, it was not enough to know that it was there. Hehad tosee it.

 He walked on the Estate.

 Lois joined him, which was a pain in the clavicle but Samdid not allow her presence to destroy his mood. Lois had on one of her cunning Outdoor Suits. She always professed toadore what she called Nature, but she walked as thoughevery blade of grass were poison ivy.

 (Poison ivy had been extinct for decades, Lois would soonfollow suit.)

 "It's so peaceful," Lois said. She usually said that here.

 Rather to his own surprise, Sam answered her. He wantedto talk to somebody, to celebrate. Failing that, he talked toLois. "No," he said. "Not really. It only seems peaceful be­cause we are observers, not part of it. And itis controlled,to some extent."

 Lois looked at him sharply. It had been one of his longerspeeches.

 "See that cedar?" Sam pointed to it, knowing that she didnot know a cedar from a cottonwood. "Tough little tree. It'llgrow in poor soil, it doesn't take much water. See how theroots come up near the surface? It's brittle, though. Won't last long. That oak is crowding it, and it's got a century or two to play with. See that little willow-there, the droopyone? It needs too much water and the drainage is wrong. It'll never make it. Am I boring you?"

 "No," Lois said truthfully. She was too amazed to be bored.

 "See the bunny rabbit?" Sam's voice lapsed into parody."See bunny run? He'd better run. Lots of things eat bunnyrabbits. Hawks, bobcats, wolves. Snakes eat little bun­nies-"

 "Oh, Sam."

 As if to prove his point, a beagle hound stuck his wet noseout of the brush. His white-tipped tail wagged tentatively.His liquid eyes were pools of adoration, (Beagles were orig­ inally bred as hunters. Remember?)

 Sam turned his back on the dog, "Man's best friend. The supreme opportunist. He figured the odds twenty thousandyears ago and threw in with us. K-9, Secret Agent. Con. Fink.Surplus now. Dear old pal."

 "I don't understand you sometimes," Lois said with rareperception.

 Idon't understand them, either,Sam thought.Animals,

 not women. Little Forest Friends Nobody understands them.We were too busy. There wasn't even a decent field study ofthe chimpanzee until around 1930. Seventy years later there were no chimpanzees. We didn't bother with the animals that were not like men; who cared? We learned exactly nothing about kudus and bears, coons and possums, badgers and buf­falo. Too late now. They are gone or going, and so is theirworld.

 Sam Gregg was not a sentimental man. He was a realist.Still, the facts bothered him. It was hard not to know. He would never know, and that was that. There was no way.

 They walked along the trail together. (Arm in arm, lovelycouple, backbone of empire.) Sam was a little nervous. It hadbeen a long fight and-as they used to say-victory was athand.

 He felt a little like God and a lot like an old man.

 From the branches of a gnarled oak, a masked mother andthree small bandits watched them pass.

 There were ancient raccoon thoughts in the air.

 You are ready.

 So do it. Don't wobble.

 Sam did it.

 Sound dramatic?

 It was (in the very long run) and it wasn't (here and now). An extremely well-balanced, insulated, innocuous conveyorleft the main lab and hissed gently to the spaceport. A large gray metallic box was loaded into a shuttle ship and lockedinto place. The box was ten feet square, and it was heavy.It could have been much smaller and lighter-about the sizeof a jigger glass-except for the refrigeration units, the elec­tronic circuits, the separation cubicles, and the protectivelayers.

 The shuttle lifted to the space station. Strictly routine.

 The gray cube of metal was transferred very gingerly to a larger ship. She (that was surely the proper pronoun) wasa special ship, a swimmer of deep space. She was crammedwith expensive gear. Say, a billion dollars' worth. Maybemore.

 She took off. She was completely automated, controlled bycomputers, powered by atomics.

 There were no men on board.

 The ship was never corning back.

 Sam?

 He stayed home.

 There was nowhere for him to go.

 Remember?

 It is curious how a small gesture will offend some people.

 There was no more capital punishment, unless living onearth was it, but good men and true were willing to makean exception in Sam's case.

 "So you sunk twenty billion into it over a ten-year period,"his chief lawyer said. He said it the same way he might haveasked, "So you think you're a kumquat, eh?"

 "Give or take a few million. Of course, some of the basic research goes back more than ten years. If you figure all thatin, it might go to twenty-two billion. Maybe twenty-three."

 "Never mind that." The lawyer groaned. He really did.

 Lois was not happy and developed a case of severe fri­gidity. She was not only married to a man confronting bank­ruptcy, but she was also the wife of a Master Criminal. Itdoes imperil one's social position.

 (There was no way to keep it quiet, naturally, Sam hadknown that. Too many people were involved.)

 They had a great time, the venom-spewers: senators and editorialists, presidents and kings, cops and commissions,professors and assorted hotshots. All the Good People.

 Sam had. to put it mildly, violated a public trust. (Trans­lation: he hadn't spent his money on whatthey wanted.)

 He was guilty of a crime against humanity. (Judge and jury, definer of crime? Humanity. All heart.)

 It did not matter in the least that twenty billion dollars(or twenty-two, or twenty-three, or a hundred) could not havesaved the earth. Earth was finished, smothered by her mostillustrious spawn. It would take a few years yet, while shegasped for breath and filled the bedpan. But she was through.

 Man had never cared overmuch for facts.

 He believed what he wanted to believe.

 ("Things may be bad, but they are getting better. All wehave to do is like be relevant, you know? Enforce the Law.Consult the swami Have a hearing. Salvation through ar­ chitecture. When the going gets tough the tough get going.All problems have solutions.")

 There was one other thing that made Sam's sin inexcus­able.

 You see, animals have no votes.

 The defense?

 It was clear, simple, correct, and beyond dispute. It wastherefore doomed.

 ("We'll give him a fair trial, then hang him.")

 Way down deep where convictions solidify, Big Man hadexpected to meet his counterpart on other worlds. ("Ah,Earthling, you surprise I speak your language so good.") He had failed. He had found only barren rocks at the end of theroad.

 From this, he had drawn a characteristically modest con­clusion.

 Man, he decided, was alone in the accessible universe.

 This was a slight error. There were primitive men whowould not have made it, but there were no more primitivemen.

 The plain truth was that it wasEarth that was uniqueand alone. Earth had produced life. Not just self-styled Num­ber One, not just Superprimate. No. He was a late arrival, the final guest.

 ("All these goodies just forme!")

 Alone? Man?

 Well, not quite.

 There were a million differentspecies of insects. (Get thespray-gun, Henry.) Twenty thousand kinds of fish. (I got one,I got one!) Nine thousand types of birds. (You can still seea stuffed owl in a museum.) Fifteen thousand species of mam­mals. (You take this arrow, see, and fit the string into thenotch...)

 Alone? Sure, except for the kangaroos and bandicoots,shrews and skunks, bats and elephants, armadillos and rab­bits, pigs and foxes, raccoons and whales, beavers and lions,moose and mice, oryx and otter and opossum-

 Oh well,them.

 Yes.

 They too had come from the earth. Incredible, each ofthem. Important? Only if you happened to think that theonly known life in the universe was important.

 Man didn't think so. Not him.

 Not the old perfected end-product of evolution.

 He didn't kill them all, of course. He hadn't been aroundthat long. The dinosaurs had managed to become extinctwithout his help. There were others.

 He did pretty well, though. He could be efficient, give himthat.

 He started early. Remember the ground sloth, the mam-moth, the mastodon? You don't? Odd.

 He kept at it. He was remarkably objective about it, really.He murdered his own kin as readily as the others. The orang had gone down the tube when Sam was a boy, the gorilla and the chimp and the gibbon a little later.

 Sorry about that, gang.

 In time, he got them all. It was better than in the old days.He took no risks, dug no traps, fired no guns. He simplycrowded them out. When there were billions upon billions ofnaked apes stacked in layers over the earth, there was noroom for anything else.

 Goodbye, Old Paint,

 So long. Rover.

 Farewell, Kitty-cat,

 Nothing personal, you understand.

 All in the name of humanity. What higher motive canthere be?

 This is a defense?

 What in hell did Sam do?

 In hell, he did this:

 Sam Gregg decided that mankind could not be saved. Notshouldnot (although Sam, it must be confessed, did not getall choked up at the thought of human flesh) butcould not,It was too late, too late when Sam was born. Man had poi­ soned his world and there were no fresh Earths,

 Man could not survive on other planets, not without dras­tic genetic modifications.

 And man would not change, not voluntarily.

 After all, he was perfect, wasn't he?

 That left the animals. Earth's other children, the onespushed aside. The dumb ones. The losers. The powerless.

 You might call it the art of the possible.

 Did they matter? If they were the only life in the universe?Who knew? Who decided?

 Well, there was Sam, A nut, probably. Still, he could playGod as well as the next man. He had the money.

 Pick a world, then. Not Mars. Too close, and there werestill those ex-human beings running around there. Don't want to interfere withthem.

 Sam chose Titan, the sixth moon of Saturn. It was plenty big enough; it had a diameter of 3650 miles. It had an at­mosphere of sorts, mostly methane. He liked the name.

 Besides, think of the view.

 It was beyond human engineering skill to convert Titan into a replica of Mother Earth in her better days. Tough, butthat's the way the spheroid rebounds.

 However, with atomic power generated on Titan a greatdeal could be done. It was, in fact, titanic.

 The life-support pods-enormous energy shields-made itpossible to create pockets in which breathable air could beborn. It just required heat and water and chemical triggersand doctored plants-

 A few little things.

 A bit of the old technological razzle-dazzle.

 Men could not live there, even under the pods. Neithercould the animals that had once roamed the earth.

 Sam's animals were different, though. He cut them to fit.That was one thing about genetics. When you knew enough about it, you couldmake alterations. Not many, perhaps. Butenough.

 Getting the picture?

 Sam did not line the critters up two by two and load theminto the Ark. (Noah, indeed.) He could not save them all.Some were totally gone, some were too delicate, some wereoutside the range of Sam's compassion. (Who needs a millionkinds of bugs?) He did what he could, within the time he had.

 He sent sex cells, sperm and ova, one hundred sets foreach species. (Was that what was in the box? Yes, Junior.)Animals learn some things, some more than others, but most of what they do is born into them. Instinct, if you like. Therewas a staggering amount of information in that little box.

 The problem was to get it out.

 Parents have their uses, sometimes.

 But robots will do, if you build them right. You can builda long, long program into a computer. You can stockpile foodfor a few years.

 So-get the joint ready. Then bring down the ship andreseal the pods. Activate-the mechanisms. Fertilize the eggsSubdivide the zygotes. Put out the incubators. Pill the pens.

 And turn 'em loose.

 Look out, world.

 That was what Sam Gregg did with his money.

 They didn't actually execute him, the good people of Earth.There was not even a formal trial. They just confiscated what was left of his money and put him away in a Nice Place withthe other crazies.

 It would be pleasant to report that Sam died happy and

 that his dust was peaceful in its urn. In fact, Sam was sorryto go and he was even a little bitter.

 If he could have known somehow, he might-or mightnot-have been more pleased.

 Millions of lonely miles from the dead earth, she floatedthere in the great nothing. Beneath the shimmering podsthat would last for thousands of years, a part of her was coolrather than cold, softer than the naked rocks, flashed withgreen.

 Saturn hovered near the horizon, white and frozen andmoonlike.

 The ancient lifeways acted out their tiny dramas, strangeunder an alien sky. They had changed little, most of them.

 There was one exception,

 It might have been the radiation.

 Then again, the raccoon had always been a clever animal.He had adroit hands, and he could use them. He had alerteyes, a quick intelligence. He could learn things, and on oc­casion he could pass on what he knew.

 Within ten generations, he had fashioned a crude choppingtool out of flaked stone.

 Within twenty, he had built a fire.

 That beat man's record by a considerable margin, and the point was not lost on those who watched.

 A short time later, the dog showed up, out in the shadowscast by the firelight. He whined. He thumped his shaggy tail.He oozed friendship.

 The raccoons ignored him for a few nights. They huddledtogether, dimply proud of what they had done. They thoughtit over.

 Eventually, one of the raccoons threw him a bloody bone,and the dog came in.

 Don't like the ending?

 A trifle stark?

 Is there no way we can communicate with them from out of the past? Can't we say something, a few words, now that we are finished?

 Ah, man. Ever the wishful thinker.

 Still talking.

 Sam had tried. He was human; he made the gesture.

 There was a small plaque still visible on the outside of the

 silent ship that had brought them here. It was traditional inspaceflights, but Sam had done it anyhow.

 It could not be read, of course.

 It could not be deciphered, ever.

 But it was there.

 It said the only words that had seemed appropriate to Sam:

 Good luck, old friends.

 4

 HUMANITY DESTROYED

 Earth might maintain its physical structure reasonably in­tact and still become uninhabitable in a "Catastrophe of the Fourth Class."

 Of course, the least stable portion of the Earth isits crust, which is divided into half a dozen large plates and a numberof smaller ones. These move against each other, crushingtogether or pulling apart at the joints, or One slipping underthe other-prevented from destroying us only by the extremeslowness of the process. And yet for drama's sake, we canimagine the changes becoming more rapid ("The New At­lantis" by Ursula K. Le Guin),

 Closer to reality-is the fact that over the last million years,our planet has been undergoing periodic ice ages. It seemsalmost certain that there will be additional ice ages and that the glaciers will come grinding down again in some tens of thousands of years. What if the next ice age is a particularlybad one? And what will be left to bear testimony to the ex­istence of humanity ("History Lesson" by Arthur C. Clarke)?

 Nor may it be inanimate changes that will destroy hu­manity. It may be other life forms. To be sure, human beings have established their dominion over the Earth fas they weredirected to do in the first chapter of Genesis) but other life forms may evolve and grow more intelligent; or life formsmay come across the void of space ("Seeds of the Dusk" by Raymond Z. Gallun).

 The difficulty might be not with anything intelligent butwith our great enemy, the pathogenic microorganism. The greatest catastrophe humanity ever suffered was the BlackDeath in the fourteenth century. As late as the mid-1970s,"Legionnaire's disease" put a fright into us. What else mighthappen ("Dark Benediction" by Walter M. Miller, Jr.)?

 The New AtlantisURSULA K. LE GUIN

 Coming back from my Wilderness Week I sat by an odd sortof man in the bus. For a long time we didn't talk; I wasmending stockings and he was reading. Then the bus broke down a few miles outside Gresham. Boiler trouble, the wayit generally is when the driver insists on trying to go overthirty. It was a Supersonic Superscenic Deluxe Longdistancecoal-burner, with Home Comfort, that means a toilet, and the seats were pretty comfortable, at least those that hadn't yetworked loose from their bolts, so everybody waited inside the bus; besides, it was raining. We began talking, the way peopledo when there's a breakdown and a wait. He held up his pamphlet and tapped it-he was a dry-looking man with aschoolteacherish way of using his hands-and said, "This is interesting. I've been reading that a new continent is rising from the depths of the sea."

 The blue stockings were hopeless. You have to have some­thing besides holes to darn onto. "Which sea?"

 "They're not sure yet. Most specialists think the Atlantic.But there's evidence it may be happening in the Pacific, too."

 "Won't the oceans get a little crowded?" I said, not takingit seriously. I was a bit snappish, because of the breakdownand because those blue stockings had been good warm ones.

 He tapped the pamphlet again and shook his head, quiteserious. "No," he said. "The old continents are sinking, tomake room for the new. You can see that that is happening."

 You certainly can. Manhattan Island is now under elevenfeet of water at low tide, and there are oyster beds in Ghir-ardelli Square,

 "I thought that was because the oceans are rising frompolar melt."

 He shook his head again. "That is a factor. Due to the

 greenhouse effect of pollution, indeed Antarctica may becomeinhabitable. But climatic factors will not explain the emerg­ence of the new-or, possibly, very old-continents in theAtlantic and Pacific." He went on explaining about conti­nental drift, but I liked the idea of inhabiting Antarctica anddaydreamed about it for a while. I thought of it as very empty,very quiet, all white and blue, with a faint golden glow north­ward from the unrising sun behind the long peak of MountErebus. There were a few people there; they were very quiet, too, and wore white tie and tails. Some of them carried oboesand violas. Southward the white land went up in a long si­lence toward the Pole.

 Just the opposite, in fact, of the Mount Hood WildernessArea. It had been a tiresome vacation: The other women inthe dormitory were all right, but it was macaroni for break­fast, and there were so many organized sports. I had lookedforward to the hike up to the National Forest Preserve, thelargest forest left in the United States, but the trees didn't look at all the way they do in the postcards and brochuresand Federal Beautification Bureau advertisements. They were spindly, and they all had little signs on saying which union they had been planted by. There were actually a lot more green picnic tables and cement Men's and Women'sthan there were trees. There was an electrified fence allaround the forest to keep out unauthorized persons. The forest ranger talked about mountain jays, "bold little robbers," hesaid, "who will come and snatch the sandwich from your veryhand," but I didn't see any, Perhaps because that was theweekly Watch Those Surplus Calories! Day for all the women,and so we didn't have any sandwiches. If I'd seen a mountainjay I might have snatched the sandwich from his very hand,who knows. Anyhow it was an exhausting week, and I wishedI'd stayed home and practiced, even though I'd have lost a week's pay because staying home and practicing the viola doesn't count as planned implementation of recreational lei­ sure as defined by the Federal Union of Unions.

 When I came back from my Antarctican expedition, theman was reading again, and I got a look at his pamphlet; andthat was the odd part of it. The pamphlet was called "In­creasing Efficiency in Public Accountant Training Schools,"and I could see from the one paragraph I got a glance at thatthere was nothing about new continents emerging from the ocean depths in it-nothing at all.

 Then we had to get out and walk on into Gresham, because

 they had decided that the best thing for us all to do was get onto the Greater Portland Area Rapid Public Transit Lines,since there had been so many breakdowns that the charterbus company didn't have any more buses to send out to pickus up. The walk was wet, and rather dull, except when wepassed the Cold Mountain Commune. They have a wallaround it to keep out unauthorized persons, and a big neonsign out front saying COLD MOUNTAIN COMMUNE and there were some people in authentic jeans and ponchos bythe highway selling macrame belts and sandcast candies andsoybean bread to the tourists. In Gresham, I took the 4:40 GPARPTL Superjet Flyer train to Burnside and East 230th,and then walked to 217th and got the bus to the GoldschmidtOverpass, and transferred to the shuttlebus, but it had boiler trouble, so I didn't reach the downtown transfer point untilten after eight, and the buses go on a once-an-hour scheduleat 8:00, so I got a meatless hamburger at the Longhorn Inch-Thick Steak House Dinerette and caught the nine o'clock busand got home about ten. When I let myself into the apartmentI flipped the switch to turn on the lights, but there stillweren't any. There had been a power outage in West Portlandfor three weeks. So I went feeling about for the candles in the dark, and it was a minute or so before I noticed thatsomebody was lying on my bed.

 I panicked, and tried again to turn the lights on.

 It was a man, lying there in a long thin heap. I thoughta burglar had got in somehow while I was away and died. I opened the door so I could get out quick or at least my yellscould be heard, and then I managed not to shake long enoughto strike a match, and lighted the candle, and came a littlecloser to the bed.

 The light disturbed him. He made a sort of snorting in histhroat and turned his head. I saw it was a stranger, but Iknew his eyebrows, then the breadth of his closed eyelids,then I saw my husband.

 He woke up while I was standing there over him with thecandle in my hand. He laughed and said still half-asleep,"Ah, Psyche! From the regions which are holy land."

 Neither of us made much fuss. It was unexpected, but itdid seem so natural for him to be there, after all, much more natural than for him not be there, and he was too tired to bevery emotional. We lay there together in the dark, and heexplained that they had released him from the RehabilitationCamp early because he had injured his back in an accidentin the gravel quarry, and they were afraid it might get worse.

 If he died there it wouldn't be good publicity abroad, sincethere have been some nasty rumors about deaths from illness inthe Rehabilitation Camps and the Federal Medical As­sociation Hospitals, and there are scientists abroad who have heard of Simon, since somebody published his proof of Gold-bach's Hypothesis in Peking, So they let him out early, witheight dollars in his pocket, which is what he had in his pocketwhen they arrested him, which made it, of course, fair. He had walked and hitched home from Coeur D'Alene, Idaho,with a couple of days in jail in Walla Walla for being caughthitchhiking. He almost fell asleep telling me this, and when he had told me, he did fall asleep. He needed a change ofclothes and a bath but I didn't want to wake him. Besides,I was tired, too. We lay side by side and his head was on my arm. I don't suppose that I have ever been so happy. No; was it happiness? Something wider and darker, more like knowl­edge, more like the night: joy.

 It was dark for so long, so very long. We were all blind.And there was the cold, a vast, unmoving, heavy cold.We could not move at all. We did not move. We did notspeak. Our mouths were closed, pressed shut by the cold and by the weight. Our eyes were pressed shut. Our limbs were held still. Our minds were held still. For how long?There was no length of time; how long is death? Andis one dead only after living, or before life as well? Cer­tainly we thought, if we thought anything, that we weredead; but if we had ever been alive, we had forgotten it.

 There was a change. It must have been the pressurethat changed first, although we did not know it. Theeyelids are sensitive to touch. They must have been wearyof being shut. When the pressure upon them weakeneda little, they opened. But there was no way for ustoknowthat. It was too cold for us to feel anything. There wasnothing to be seen. There was black.

 But then-"'then," for the event created time, created before and after, near and far, now and then-"then"there was the light. One light. One small, strange lightthat passed slowly, at what distance we could not tell.A small, greenish white, slightly blurred point of ra­diance, passing.

 Our eyes were certainly open, "then," for we saw it. We saw the moment. The moment in a point of light. Whether in darkness or in the field of all light, the mo-

 ment is small, and moves, but not quickly. And "then"it is gone.

 It did not occur to us that there might be anothermoment. There was no reason to assume that there mightbe more than one. One was marvel enough: that in allthe field of the dark, in the cold, heavy, dense, moveless,timeless, placeless, boundless black, there should have occurred, once, a small slightly blurred, moving light!Time need be created only once, we thought.

 But we were mistaken. The difference between one and more than one is all the difference in the world. Indeed, that difference is the world.

 The light returned.

 The same light, or another one? There was no telling.

 But, "this time," we wondered about the light: Wasit small and near to us, or large and far away? Againthere was no telling; but there was something about the way it moved, a trace of hesitation, a tentative quality, that did not seem proper to anything large and remote.The stars, for instance. We began to remember the stars.

 The stars had never hesitated.

 Perhaps the noble certainty of their gait had been amere effect of distance. Perhaps in fact they had hurtled wildly, enormous furnace-fragments of a primal bombthrown through the cosmic dark; but time and distance soften all agony. If the universe, as seems likely, beganwith an act of destruction, the "Stars we had used to seetold no tales of it. They had been implacably serene.

 The planets, however... We began to remember theplanets. They had suffered certain changes both of ap­pearance and of course. At certain times of the year Marswould reverse its direction and go backward through thestars. Venus had been brighter and less bright as shewent through her phases of crescent, full, and wane.Mercury had shuddered like a skidding drop of rain onthe sky flushed with daybreak. The light we now watchedhad that erratic, trembling quality. We saw it, unmis­takably, change direction and go backward. It then grew smaller and fainter; blinked-an eclipse?-and slowly disappeared.

 Slowly, but not slowly enough for a planet.

 Then-the third "then!"-arrived the indubitable andpositive Wonder of the World, the Magic Trick, watch

 now, watch, you will not believe your eyes, mama, mama,look what I can do-

 Seven lights in a row, proceeding fairly rapidly, with a darting movement, from left to right. Proceeding lessrapidly from right to left, two dimmer, greenish lights.Two-lights halt, blink, reverse course, proceed hastilyand in a wavering manner from left to right. Seven-lights increase speed, and catch up. Two-lights flashdesperately, flicker, and are gone.

 Seven-lights hang still for some while, then mergegradually into one streak, veering away, and little bylittle vanish into the immensity of the dark.

 But in the dark now are growing other lights, many

  of them: lamps, dots, rows, scintillations-some near at

 hand, some far. Like the stars, yes, but not stars. It is

 not the great Existences we are seeing, but only the little

 lives.

 In the morning Simon told me something about the Camp,but not until after he had had me check the apartment forbugs. I thought at first he had been given behavior mod and gone paranoid. We never had been infested. And I'd beenliving alone for a year and a half; surely they didn't want tohear me talking to myself? But he said, "They may have beenexpecting me to come here."

 "But they let you go free!"

 He just lay there and laughed at me. So I checked every­where we could think of. I didn't find any bugs, but it did lookas if somebody had gone through the bureau drawers while I was away in the Wilderness. Simon's papers were all atMax's, so that didn't matter. I made tea on the Primus, and washed and shaved Simon with the extra hot water in thekettle-he had a thick beard and wanted to get rid of it be­cause of the lice he had brought from Camp-and while we were doing that he told me about the Camp. In fact he told me very little, but not much was necessary.

 He had lost about 20 pounds. As he only weighed 140 tostart with, this left little to go on with. His knees and wrist bones stuck out like rocks under the skin. His feet were allswollen and chewed-looking from the Camp boots; he hadn't dared take the boots off, the last three days of walking, be­cause he was afraid he wouldn't be able to get them back on. When he had to move or sit up so I could wash him, he shuthis eyes.

 "Am I really here?" he asked. "Am I here?"

 "Yes," I said. "You are here. What I don't understand ishow you got here."

 "Oh, it wasn't bad so long as I kept moving. All you needis to know where you're going-to have someplace to go. Youknow, some of the people in Camp, if they'd let them go, theywouldn't have had that. They couldn't have gone anywhere.Keeping moving was the main thing. See, my back's all seizedup, now."

 When he had to get up to go to the bathroom he movedlike a ninety-year-old. He couldn't stand straight, but was allbent out of shape, and shuffled. I helped him put on cleanclothes. When he lay down on the bed again, a sound of paincame out of him, like tearing thick paper. I went around the room putting things away. He asked me to come sit by himand said I was going to drown him if I went on crying. "You'llsubmerge the entire North American continent," he said. Ican't remember what he said, but he made me laugh finally.It is hard to remember things Simon says, and hard not to laugh when he says them. This is not merely the partialityof affection: He makes everybody laugh. I doubt that he in­tends to. It is just that a mathematician's mind works dif­ ferently from other people's. Then when they laugh, thatpleases him.

 It was strange, and it is strange, to be thinking about"him," the man I have known for ten years, the same man,while "he" lay there changed out of recognition, a differentman. It is enough to make you understand why most lan­guages have a word like "soul." There are various degrees of death, and time spares us none of them. Yet something en­dures, for which a word is needed.

 I said what I had not been able to say for a year and ahalf: "I was afraid they'd brainwash you."

 He said, "Behavior mod is expensive. Even just the drugs.They save it mostly for the VIPs. But I'm afraid they got a notion I might be important after all. I got questioned a lotthe last couple of months. About my 'foreign contacts.'" He snorted. "The stuff that got published abroad, I suppose. SoI want to be careful and make sure it's just a Camp againnext time, and not a Federal Hospital."

 "Simon, were they... are they cruel, or just righteous?"

 He did not answer for a while. He did not want to answer.He knew what I was asking. He knew by what thread hangshope, the sword, above our heads.

 "Some of them..." he said at last, mumbling.

 Some of them had been cruel. Some of them had enjoyedtheir work. You cannot blame everything on society,

 "Prisoners, as well as guards," he said.

 You cannot blame everything on the enemy.

 "Some of them, Belle," he said with energy, touching my hand-"some of them, there were men like gold there-"

 The thread is tough; you cannot cut it with one stroke.

 "What have you been playing?" he asked.

 "Forrest, Schubert."

 "With the quartet?"

 "Trio, now. Janet went to Oakland with a new lover."

 "Ah, poor Max."

 "It's just as well, really. She isn't a good pianist."

 I make Simon laugh, too, though I don't intend to. Wetalked until it was past time for me to go to work. My shift since the Full Employment Act last year is ten to two. I aman inspector in a recycled paper bag factory. I have never rejected a bag yet; the electronic inspector catches all thedefective ones first. It is a rather depressing job. But it's onlyfour hours a day, and it takes more time than that to gothrough all the lines and physical and mental examinations,and fill out all the forms, and talk to all the welfare counselors and inspectors every week in order to qualify as Unemployed,and then line up every day for the ration stamps and the dole. Simon thought I ought to go to work as usual. I tried to, butI couldn't. He had felt very hot to the touch when I kissedhim goed-bye. I went instead and got a black-market doctor. A girl at the factory had recommended her, for an abortion,if I ever wanted one without going through the regulation two years of sex-depressant drugs the fed-meds make you take when they give you an abortion. She was a jeweler'sassistant in a shop on Alder Street, and the girl said she wasconvenient because if you didn't have enough cash you couldleave something in pawn at the jeweler's as payment. Nobodyever does have enough cash, and of course credit cards aren'tworth much on the black market.

 The doctor was willing to come at once, so we rode homeon the bus together. She gathered very soon that Simon andI were married, and it was funny to see her look at us andsmile like a cat. Some people love illegality for its own sake.Men, more often than women. It's men who make laws, and enforce them, and break them, and think the whole perfor­mance is wonderful. Most women would rather just ignore

 them. You could see that this woman, like a man, actuallyenjoyed breaking them. That may have been what put herinto an illegal business in the first place, a preference for theshady side. But there was more to it than that. No doubtshe'd wanted to be a doctor, too; and the Federal Medical Association doesn't admit women into the medical schools.She probably got her training as some other doctor's privatepupil, under the counter. Very much as Simon learned math­ematics, since the universities don't teach much but BusinessAdministration and Advertising and Media Skills any more.However she learned it, she seemed to know her stuff. Shefixed up a kind of homemade traction device for Simon veryhandily and informed him that if he did much more walkingfor two months he'd be crippled the rest of his life, but if hebehaved himself he'd just be more or less lame. It isn't the kind of thing you'd expect to be grateful for being told, but we both were. Leaving, she gave me a bottle of about twohundred plain white pills, unlabeled. "Aspirin," she said."He'll be in a good deal of pain off and on for weeks."

 I looked at the bottle. I had never seen aspirin before, onlythe Super-Buffered Pane-Gon and the Triple-Power N-L-G-Zic and the Extra-Strength Apansprin with the miracle in­gredient more doctors recommend, which the fed-meds al­ways give you prescriptions for, to be filled at your FMA-approved private enterprise friendly drugstore at the low,low prices established by the Pure Food and Drug Admin­istration in order to inspire competitive research.

 "Aspirin," the doctor repeated. "The miracle ingredientmore doctors recommend." She cat-grinned again. I think sheliked us because we were living in sin. That bottle of black-market aspirin was probably worth more than the old Navajobracelet I pawned for her fee.

 I went out again to register Simon as 'temporarily domi­ciled at my address and to apply for Temporary Unemploy­ment Compensation ration stamps for him. They, only givethem to you for two weeks and you have to come every day;but to register him as Temporarily Disabled meant gettingthe signatures of two fed-meds, and I thought I'd rather putthat off for a while. It took three hours to go through the lines and get the forms he would have to fill out, and toanswer the 'crats' questions about why he wasn't there inperson. They smelled something fishy. Of course it's hard forthem to prove that two people are married and aren't just adultering if you move now and then and your friends help

 out by sometimes registering one of you as living at their address; but they had all the back files on both of us and it was obvious that we had been around each other for a sus­piciously long time. The State really does make things aw­fully hard for itself. It must have been simpler to enforce thelaws back when marriage was legal and adultery was what got you into trouble. They only had to catch you once. ButI'll bet people broke the law just as often then as they do now.

 The lantern-creatures came close enough at last thatwe could see not only their light, but their bodies in. theillumination of their light. They were not pretty. Theywere dark colored, most often a dark red, and they wereall mouth. They ate one another whole. Lightlight all swallowed together in the vaster mouth of thedarkness. They moved slowly, for nothing, however small and hungry, could move fast under that weight,in that cold. Their eyes, round with fear, were neverclosed. Their bodies were tiny and bony behind the gap­ing jaws. They wore queer, ugly decorations on their lipsand skulls: fringes, serrated wattles, featherlike fronds, gauds, bangles, lures. Poor little sheep of the deep pas­tures! Poor ragged, hunch-jawed dwarfs squeezed to thebone by the weight of the darkness, chilled to the boneby the cold of the darkness, tiny monsters burning withbright hunger, who brought us bock to life!

 Occasionally, in the wan, sparse illumination of oneof the lantern-creatures, we caught a momentary glimpseof other, large, unmoving shapes: the barest suggestion,off in the distance, not of a wall, nothing so solid and certain as a wall, but of a surface, an angle... Was itthere?

 Or something would glitter, faint, far off, far down.There was no use trying to make out what it might be.Probably it was only a fleck of sediment, mud or mica, disturbed by a struggle between the lantern-creatures,flickering like a bit of diamond dust as it rose and settledslowly. In any case, we could not move to go see whatit was. We had not even the cold, narrow freedom of thelantern-creatures. We were immobilized, borne down,still shadows among the half-guessed shadow walls.Were we there?

 The lantern-creatures showed no awareness of us.They passed before us, among us, perhaps even through

 us-it was impossible to be sure. They were not afraid, or curious.

 Once something a little larger than a hand camecrawling near, and for a moment we saw quite distinctlythe clean angle where the foot of a wall rose from thepavement, in the glow cast by the crawling creature,which was covered with a foliage of plumes, each plumedotted with many tiny, bluish paints of light. We sawthe pavement beneath the creature and the wall besideit, heartbreaking in its exact, clear linearity, its oppo­sition to all that was fluid, random, vast, and void. We saw the creature's claws, slowly reaching out and re­tracting like small stiff fingers, touch the wall. Its plum­age of light quivering, it dragged itself along and van­ished behind the corner of the wall.

 So we knew that the wall was there; and that it wasan outer wall, a housefront, perhaps, or the side of oneof the towers of the city.

 We remembered the towers. We remembered the city.We had forgotten it. We had forgotten who we were; butwe remembered the city, now.

 When I got home, the FBI had already been there. The computer at the police precinct where I registered Simon'saddress must have flashed it right over to the computer atthe FBI building. They had questioned Simon for about anhour, mostly about what he had been doing during the twelvedays it took him to get from the Camp to Portland. I supposethey thought he had flown to Peking or something. Havinga police record in Walla Walla for hitchhiking helped him establish his story. He told me that one of them had gone tothe bathroom. Sure enough I found a bug stuck on the top ofthe bathroom door frame. I left it, as we figured it's really better to leave it when you know you have one, than to takeit off and then never be sure they haven't planted anotherone you don't know about. As Simon said, if we felt we hadto say something unpatriotic we could always flush the toiletat the same time.

 I have a battery radio-there are so many work stoppagesbecause of power failures, and days the water has to be boiled,and so on, that you really have to have a radio to save wastingtime and dying of typhoid-and he turned it on while I was making supper on the Primus. The six o'clock All-AmericanBroadcasting Company news announcer announced that

 peace was at hand in Uruguay, the president's confidentialaide having been seen to smile at a passing blonde as he left the 613th day of the secret negotiations in a villa outside Katmandu. The war in Liberia was going well; the enemysaid they had shot down seventeen American planes but thePentagon said we had shot down twenty-two enemy planes,and the capital city-I forget its name, but it hasn't been inhabitable for seven years anyway-was on the verge ofbeing recaptured by the forces of freedom. The police action in Arizona was also successful. The Neo-Birch insurgents inPhoenix cauld not hold out much longer against the massedmight of the American army and air force, since their un­ derground supply of small tactical nukes from the Weath­ermen in Los Angeles had been cut off. Then there was an advertisement for Ped-Cred cards, and a commercial for the Supreme Court: "Take your legal troubles to the Nine WiseMen!" Then there was something about why tariffs had gone up, and a report from the stock market, which had just closedat over two thousand, and a commercial for U.S. Governmentcanned water, with a catchy little tune: "Don't be sorry whenyou drink/It's not as healthy as you think/Don't you thinkyou really ought to/Drink coo-ool, puu-uure U.S.G. water?"-with three sopranos in close harmony on the last line. Then, just as the battery began to give out and his voice was dyingaway into a faraway tiny whisper, the announcer seemed to be saying something about a new continent emerging.

 "What was that?"

 "I didn't hear," Simon said, lying with his eyes shut andhis face pale and sweaty. I gave him two aspirins before weate. He ate little, and fell asleep while I was washing thedishes in the bathroom. I had been going to practice, but aviola is fairly wakeful in a one-room apartment. I read fora while instead. It was a best seller Janet had given me whenshe left. She thought it was very good, but then she likes Franz Liszt too. I don't read much since the libraries wereclosed down, it's too hard to get books; all you can buy is best sellers. I don't remember the title of this one, the cover justsaid "Ninety Million Copies in Print!!!" It was about small­ town sex life in the last century, the dear old 1970s whenthere weren't any problems and life was so simple and nos­ talgic. The author squeezed all the naughty thrills he couldout of the fact that all the main characters were married. I looked at the end and saw that all the married couples shoteach other after all their children became schizophrenic hook-

 ers, except for one brave pair that divorced and then leaptinto bed together with a clear-eyed pair of government-em­ployed lovers for eight pages of healthy group sex as abrighter future dawned. I went to bed then, too. Simon washot, but sleeping quietly. His breathing was like the soundof soft waves far away, and I went out to the dark sea on thesound of them.

 I used to go out to the dark sea, often, as a child, fallingasleep. I had almost forgotten it with my waking mind. As a child all I had to do was stretch out and think, "the darksea ... the dark sea..."and soon enough I'd be there, in the great depths, rocking. But after I grew up it only happenedrarely, as a great gift. To know the abyss of the darkness andnot to fear it, to entrust oneself to it and whatever may arise from it-what greater gift?

 Wewatched the tiny lights come and go around us,and doing so, we gained a sense of space and of direc­tion-near and far, at least, and higher and lower. Itwas that sense of space that allowed us to became aware of the currents. Space was no longer entirely still aroundus, suppressed by the enormous pressure of its ownweight. Very dimly we were aware that the cold darknessmoved, slowly, softly, pressing against us a little for a long time, then ceasing, inavast oscillation. The emptydarkness flowed slowly along our unmoving unseen bod­ies; along them, past them; perhaps through them; we could not tell.

 Where did they come from, those dim, slow, vast tides?What pressure or attraction stirred the deeps to theseslow drifting movements? We could not understand that;we could only feel their touch against us, but in straining our sense to guess their origin or end, we became awareof something else: something out there in the darknessof the great currents: sounds. We listened. We heard.

 So our sense of space sharpened and localized to a sense of place. For sound is local, as sight is not. Soundis delimited by silence; and it does not rise out of thesilence unless it is fairly close, both in space and in time. Though we stand where once the singer stood we cannot hear the voice singing; the-years have carried it off ontheir tides, submerged it. Sound is a fragile thing, atremor, as delicate as life itself. We may see the stars, but we cannot hear them. Even were the hollowness of

 outer space an atmosphere, an ether that transmitted the waves of sound, we could not hear the stars; they are too far away. At most if we listened we might hear our ownsun, all the mighty, roiling, exploding storm of its burn­ing, as a whisper at the edge of hearing.

 A sea wave laps one's feet: It is the shock wave of avolcanic eruption on the far side of the world. But onehears nothing.

 A red light flickers on the horizon: It is the reflectionin smoke of a city on the distant mainland, burning. But one hears nothing.

 Only on the slopes of the volcano? in the suburbs ofthe city, does one begin to hear the deep thunder, andthe high voices crying.

 Thus, when we became aware that we were hearing, we were sure that the sounds we heard were fairly closeto us. And yet we may have been quite wrong. For wewere, in a strange place, a deep place. Sound travels fastand far in the deep places, and the silence there is perfect, letting the least noise be heard for hundreds of miles.

 And these were not small noises. The lights were tiny, but the sounds were vast: not loud, but very large. Oftenthey were below the range of hearing, long slow vibra­tions rather than sounds, The first we heard seemed to us to rise up through the currents from beneath us im­mense groans, sighs felt along the bone, a rumbling, a deep uneasy whispering.

 Later, certain sounds came down to us from above, or borne along the endless levels of the darkness, andthese were stranger yet, for they were music. A huge,calling, yearning music from far away in the darkness,calling not to us.Where are you? I am here.

 Not to us.

 They were the voices of the great souls, the great lives,the lonely ones, the voyagers. Calling. Not often an­swered.Where are you? Where have you gone?

 But the bones, the keels and girders of white boneson icy isles of the South, the shores of bones did notreply.

 Nor could we reply. But we listened, and the tearsrose in our eyes, salt, not so salt as the oceans, the world-girdling deep bereaved currents, the abandoned road­ways of the great lives; not so salt, but warmer.

 Iam here. Where have you gone?

 No answer.

 Only the whispering thunder from below.But we knew now, though we could not answer, weknew because we heard, because we felt, because we wept,we knew that we were; and we remembered other voices.

 Max came the next night. I sat on the toilet lid to practice,with the bathroom door shut. The FBI men on the other endof the bug got a solid half hour of scales and doublestops, andthen a quite good performance of the Hindemith unaccom­panied viola sonata. The bathroom being very small and allhard surfaces, the noise I made was really tremendous. Nota good sound, far too much echo, but the sheer volume wascontagious, and I played louder as I went on. The man upabove knocked on his floor once; but if I have to listen to theweekly All-American Olympic Games at full blast every Sun­ day morning from his TV set, then he has to accept Paul Hindemith coming up out of his toilet now and then.

 When I got tired I put a wad of cotton over the bug, andcame out of the bathroom half-deaf. Simon and Max were onfire. Burning, unconsumed. Simon was scribbling formulaein traction, and Max was pumping his elbows up and down the way he does, like a boxer, and saying "The e - lec - tron emis - sion..." through his npse, with his eyes narrowed, andhis mind evidently going light-years per second faster than his tongue, because he kept beginning over and saying "Thee - lec - tron emis - sion..." and pumping his elbows.

 Intellectuals at work are very strange to look at. Asstrange as artists. I never could understand how an audience can sit there andlook at a fiddler rolling his eyes and bitinghis tongue, or a horn player collecting spit, or a pianist like a black cat strapped to an electrified bench, as if what theysaw had anything to do with the music.

 I damped the fires with a quart of black-market beer-thelegal kind is better, but I never have enough ration stampsfor beer; I'm not thirsty enough to go without eating-andgradually Max and Simon cooled down. Max would havestayed talking all night, but I drove him out because Simonwas looking tired.

 I put a new battery in the radio and left it playing in the bathroom, and blew out the candle and lay and talked withSimon; he was too excited to sleep. He said that Max hadsolved the problems that were bothering them before Simonwas sent to Camp, and had had fitted Simon's equations to

 (as Simon put it) the bare facts, which means they have

 achieved "direct energy conversion." Ten or twelve people

 have worked on it at different times since Simon published

 thetheoretical part of it when he was twenty-two. The phy­sicist Ann Jones had pointed out right away that the simplest practical application of the theory would be to builda "suntap," a device for collecting and storing solar energy, onlymuch cheaper and better than the U.S.G. Sola-Heetas thatsome rich people have on their houses. And it would havebeen simple only they kept hitting the same snag. Now Maxhas got around the snag.

 I said that Simon published the theory, but that is inac­curate. Of course he's never been able to publish any of hispapers, in print; he's not a federal employee and doesn't have a government clearance. But it did get circulated in what thescientists and poets call Sammy's-dot, that is, just hand­written or hectographed. It's an old joke that the FBI arrestseverybody with purple fingers, because they have either beenhectographing Sammy's-dots, or they have impetigo.

 Anyhow, Simon was on top of the mountain that night.His true joy is in the pure math; but he had been workingwith Clara and Max and the others in this effort to mater­ialize the theory for ten years, and a taste of material victoryis a good thing, once in a lifetime.

 I asked him to explain what the sun tap would mean tothe masses, with me as a representative mass. He explainedthat it means we can tap solar energy for power, using adevice that's easier to build than ajar battery. The efficiency and storage capacity are such that about ten minutes of sun­light will power an apartment complex like ours, heat andlights and elevators and all, for twenty-four hours; and no pollution, particulate, thermal, or radioactive. "There isn'tany danger of using up the sun?" I asked. He took it soberly-it was a stupid question, but after all not so long ago people thought there wasn't any danger of using up the earth-andsaid no, because we wouldn't be pulling out energy, as we didwhen we mined and lumbered and split atoms, but just using the energy that comes to us anyhow: as the plants, the treesand grass and rosebushes, always have done. "You could callit Flower Power," he said. He was high, high up on the moun­tain, ski-jumping in the sunlight.

 "The State owns us," he said, "because the corporativeState has a monopoly on power sources, and there's notenough power to go around. But now, anybody could build

 a generator on their roof that would furnish enough powerto light a city."

 I looked out the window at the dark city.

 "We could completely decentralize industry and agricul­ture. Technology could serve life instead of serving capital.We could each run our own life. Power is power!... The Stateis a machine. We could unplug the machine, now. Powercorrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. But that's true only when there's a price on power. When groups can keepthe power to themselves; when they can use physical power-to in order to exert spiritual power-over; when might makes right. But if power is free? If everybody is equally mighty?Then everybody's got to finda better way of showing thathe's right..."

 "That's what Mr. Nobel thought when he invented dy­namite," I said. "Peace on earth."

 He slid down the sunlit slope a couple of thousand feetand stopped beside me in a spray of snow, smiling. "Skull atthe banquet," he said, "finger writing on the wall. Be still!Look, don't you see the sun shining on the Pentagon, all theroofs are off, the sun shines at last into the corridors ofpower...And they shrivel up, they wither away. The green grass grows through the carpets of the Oval Room, theHotLine is disconnected for nonpayment of the bill. The firstthing we'll dois build an electrified fence outside the elec­trified fence around the White House. The inner one preventsunauthorized persons from getting in. The outer one willprevent authorized persons from getting out..."

 Of course he was bitter. Not many people come out ofprison sweet.

 But it was cruel, to be shown this great hope, and to know-that there was no hope for it. He did know that. He knew itright along. He knew that there was no mountain, that hewas skiing on the wind.

 The tiny lights of the lantern-creatures died out oneby one, sank away. The distant lonely voices were silent.The cold, slow currents flowed, vacant, only shaken fromtime to time by a shifting in the abyss.

 It was dark again, and no voice spoke. All dark,dumb, cold.

 Then the sun rose.

 It was not like the dawns we had begun to remember:the change, manifold and subtle, in the smell and touch

 of the air; the hush that, instead of sleeping, wakes, holdsstill, and waits; the appearance of objects, looking gray,vague, and new, as if just created-distant mountainsagainst the eastern sky, one's own hands, the hoary grass full of dew and shadow, the fold in the gdge of a curtainhanging by the window-and then, before one is quitesure that one is indeed seeing again, that the light hasreturned, that day is breaking, the first, abrupt, sweetstammer of a waking bird. And after that the chorus, voice by voice: This is my nest , this is my tree, this is my egg, this is my day, this ig my Life, here I am, hereI am, hurray for me! I'm here!-No, it wasn't like thatat all, this dawn. It was completely silent, and it wasblue.

 In the dawns that we had begun to remember, onedid not become aware of the light itself, but of the sep­arate objects touched by the light, the things, the world. They were there, visible again, as if visibility were theirown property, not a gift from the rising sun,

 In this,dawn, there was nothing but the light itself.Indeed there was not even light, we would have said, butonly color: blue.

 There was no compass bearing to it. It was notbrighter in the east. There was no east or west. Therewas only up and down, below and above. Below wasdark. The blue light came from above. Brightness fell.Beneath, where the shaking thunder had stilled, thebrightness died away through violet into blindness.

 We, arising, watched light fall.

 In a way it was more like an ethereal snowfall thanlike a sunrise. The light seemed to be in discrete parti­cles, infinitesimal flecks, slowly descending, faint, faint­er than flecks of fine snow on a dark night, and tinier; but blue. A soft, penetrating blue tending to the violet,the color of the shadows in an iceberg, the color of astreak of sky between gray clouds on a winter afternoon before snow: faint in intensity but vivid in hue: the colorof the remote, the color of the cold, the color farthest fromthe sun.

 On Saturday night they held a scientific congress in ourroom. Clara andMax came, of course, and the engineer Phil Drum and three others who had worked on the sun tap. PhilDrum was very pleased with himself because he had actually

 built one of the things, a solar cell, and brought it along. Idon't think it had occurred to either Max or Simon to buildone. Once they knew it could be done they were satisfied and wanted to get on with something else. But Phil unwrappedhis baby with a lot of flourish, and people made remarks like, "Mr. Watson, will you come here a minute," and "Hey, Wil­bur, you're off the ground!" and "I say, nasty mould you'vegot there, Alec, why don't you throw it out?" and "Ugh, ugh, burns, burns, wow, ow," the latter from Max, who does look a little pre-Mousterian. Phil explained that he had exposed the cell for one minute at four in the afternoon up in Wash­ington Park during a light rain. The lights were back on on the West Side since Thursday, so we could test it withoutbeing conspicuous.

 We turned off the lights, after Phil had wired the table-lamp cord to the cell. He turned on the lamp switch. The bulbcame on, about twice as bright as before, at its full fortywatts-city power of course was never full strength. We all looked at it. It was a dime-store table lamp with a metallizedgold base and a white plasticloth shade.

 "Brighter than a thousand suns," Simon murmured fromthe bed.

 "Could it be," said Clara Edmonds, "that we physicistshave known sin-and have come out the other side?"

 "It really wouldn't be any good at all for making bombswith," Max said dreamily.

 "Bombs," Phil Drum said with scorn. "Bombs are obsolete.Don't you realize that we could move a mountain with thiskind of power? I mean pick up Mount Hood, move it, and setit down. We could thaw Antarctica, we could freeze the Congo. We could sink a continent. Give me a fulcrum andI'll move the world. Well, Archimedes, you've got your ful­ crum. The sun."

 "Christ," Simon said, "the radio, Belle!"

 The bathroom door was shut and I had put cotton over thebug, but he was right; if they were going to go ahead at thisrate there had better be some added static. And though Iliked watching their faces in the clear light of the lamp-they all had good, interesting faces, well worn, like the han­dles of wooden tools or the rocks in a running stream-I didnot much want to listen to them talk tonight. Not becauseI wasn't a scientist, that made no difference. And not becauseI disagreed or disapproved or disbelieved anything they said.Only because it grieved me terribly, their talking. Because

 they couldn't rejoice aloud over a job done and a discovery made, but had to hide there and whisper about it. Because they couldn't go out into the sun.

 I went into the bathroom with my viola and sat on the toilet lid and did a long set of sautille exercises. Then I tried towork at the Forrest trio, but it was too assertive. I played the solo part fromHarold in Italy, which is beautiful, but it wasn't quite the right mood either. They were still going strong in the other room. I began to improvise.

 After a few minutes in E-minor the light over the shavingmirror began to flicker and dim; then it died. Another outage,The table lamp in the other room did not go out, being con­nected with the sun, not with the twenty-three atomic fissionplants that power the Greater Portland Area. Within twoseconds somebody had switched it off, too, so that weshouldn't be the only window in the West Hills left alight;and I could hear them rooting for candles and rattlingmatches. I went on improvising in the dark. Without light, when you couldn't see all the hard shiny surfaces of things, the sound seemed softer and less muddled. I went on, and it began to shape up. All the laws of harmonics sang together when the bow came down. The strings of the viola were the c ords of my own voice, tightened by sorrow, tuned to the pitch of joy. The melody created itself out of air and energy, itraised up the valleys, and the mountains and hills were made low, and the crooked straight, and the rough places plain.And the music went out to the dark sea and sang in thedarkness, over the abyss.

 When I came out they wereall sitting there and none of them was talking. Max had been crying. I could see little candle flames in the tears around his eyes. Simon lay flat on the bed in the shadows, his eyes closed, Phil Drum sat hunched over, holding the solar cell in his hands.

 I loosened the pegs, put the bow and the viola in the case,and cleared my throat. It was embarrassing. I finally said,I'm sorry."

 One of the women spoke: Rose Abramski, a private student. of Simon's, a big shy woman who could hardly speak at allunless it was in mathematical symbols. "I saw it," she said.I saw it. I saw the white towers, and the water streamingdown their sides, and running back down to the sea. And thesunlight shining in the streets, after ten thousand years ofdarkness."

 "I heard them," Simon said, very low, from the shadow. "I heard their voices."

 "Oh, Christ! Stop it!" Max cried out, and got up and went blundering out into the unlit hall, without his coat. We heardhim running down the stairs.

 "Phil," said Simon, lying there, "could we raise up the white towers, with our lever and our fulcrum?"

 After a long silence Phil Drum answered, "We have the•power to do it."

 "What else do we need?" Simon said. "What else do weneed, besides power?"

 Nobody answered him.

 The blue changed. It became brighter, lighter, andat the same time thicker: impure. The ethereal lumi­nosity of blue-violet turned to turquoise, intense andopaque. Still we could not have said that everything wasnow turquoise-colored, for there were still no things. There was nothing, except the color of turquoise.

 The change continued. The opacity became veinedand thinned. The dense, solid color began to appeartranslucent, transparent. Then it seemed as if we werein the heart of a sacred jade, or the brilliant crystal ofa sapphire or an emerald.

 As at the inner structure of a crystal, there was nomotion. But there was something else, now, to see. It wasas if we saw the motionless, elegant inward structureof the molecules of a precious stone. Planes and anglesappeared about us, shadowless and clear in that even,glowing, blue-green light.

 These were the walls and towers of the city, the streets,the windows, the gates.

 We knew them, but we did not recognize them. Wedid not dare to recognize them. It had been so long. And it was so strange. We had used to dream, when we livedin this city. We had lain down, nights, in the roomsbehind the windows, and slept, and dreamed. We hadall dreamed of the ocean, of the deep sea. Were we notdreaming now?

 Sometimes the thunder and tremor deep below usrolled again, but it was faint now, far away; as far awayas our memory of the thunder and the tremor and thefire and the towers falling, long ago. Neither the soundnor the memory frightened us. We knew them.

 The sapphire light brightened overhead to green, al­most green-gold. We looked up. The tops of the highesttowers were hard to see, glowing in the radiance of light. The streets and doorways were darker, more dearly de­fined.

 In one of those long, jewel-dark streets something was moving-something not composed of planes and angles,but of curves and arcs. We all turned to look at it, slowly,wondering as we did so at the slow ease of our ownmotion, our freedom. Sinuous, with a beautiful flowing, gathering, rolling movement, now rapid and now ten­tative, the thing drifted across the street from a blank garden wall to the recess of a door. There, in the darkblue shadow, it was hard to see for a while. We watched.A pale blue curve appeared at the top of the doorway. A second followed, and a third. The moving thing clungor hovered there, above the door, like a swaying knot ofsilvery cords or a boneless hand, one arched finger point­ing carelessly to something above the lintel of the door, something like itself, but motionless-acarving. A carv­ing in jade light. A carving in stone.

 Delicately and easily the long curving tentacle fol­lowed the curves of the carved figure, the eight petal-limbs, the round eyes. Did it recognize its image?

 The living one swung suddenly, gathered its curvesin a loose knot, and darted away down the street, swiftand sinuous. Behind it a faint cloud of darker blue hungfor a minute and dispersed, revealing again the carvedfigure above the door: the sea-flower, the cuttlefish,quick, great-eyed, graceful, evasive, the cherished sign, carved on a thousand walls, worked into the design ofcornices, pavements, handles, lids of jewel boxes, can­opies, tapestries, tabletops, gateways.

 Down another street, about the level of the first-floorwindows, came a flickering drift of hundreds of motesof silver. With a single motion all turned toward thecross street, and glittered off into the dark blue shadows.

 There were shadows, now.

 We looked up, up from the flight of silverfish, up fromthe streets where the jade-green currents flowed and theblue shadows fell. We moved and looked up, yearning,to the high towers of our city. They stood, the fallentowers. They glowed in the ever-brightening radiance,not blue or blue-green, up there, but gold. Far above

 them lay a vast, circular, trembling brightness: the sun'slight on the surface of the sea.

 We are here. When we break through the bright circleinto life, the water will break and stream white downthe white sides, of the towers, and run down the steep streets back into the sea. The water will glitter in darkhair, on the eyelids of dark eyes, and dry to a thin whitefilm of salt.

 We are here.

 Whose voice? Who called to us?

 He was with me for twelve days. On January 28th the'crats came from the Bureau of Health, Education and Wel­fare and said that since he was receiving UnemploymentCompensation while suffering from an untreated illness, the government must look after him and restore him to health,because health is the inalienable right of the citizens of ademocracy. He refused to sign the consent forms, so the chief health officer signed them. He refused to get up, so two ofthe policemen pulled him up off the bed. He started to try tofight them. The chief health officer pulled his gun and said that if he continued to struggle he would shoot him for re­sisting welfare, and arrest me for conspiracy to defraud thegovernment. The man who was holding my arms behind myback said they could always arrest me for unreported preg­nancy with intent to form a nuclear family. At that Simon stopped trying to get free. It was really all he was trying todo, not to fight them, just to get his arms free. He looked at me, and they took him out.

 He is in the federal hospital in Salem. I have not beenable to find out whether he is in the regular hospital or the mental wards.

 It was on'the radio again yesterday, about the rising land masses in the South Atlantic and the Western Pacific. At Max's the other night I saw a TV special explaining about geophysical stresses and subsidence and faults. The U.S.Geodetic Service is doing a lot of advertising around town,the most common one is a big billboard that says IT'S NOT OUR FAULT! with a picture of a beaver pointing to a sche­matic map that shows how even if Oregon has a major earth­quake and subsidence as California did last month, it willnot affect Portland, or only the western suburbs perhaps. Thenews also said that they plan to halt the tidal waves in Flor­ida by dropping nuclear bombs where Miami was. Then they

 will reattach Florida to the mainland with landfill. They are already advertising real estate for housing developments on the landfill. The president is staying at the Mile High WhiteHouse in Aspen, Colorado. I don't think it will do him muchgood. Houseboats down on the Willamette are selling for$500,000. There are no trains or buses running south fromPortland, because all the highways were badly damaged bythe tremors and landslides last week, so I will have to seeif I can get to Salem on foot. I still have the rucksack I boughtfor the Mount Hood Wilderness Week. I got some dry limabeans and raisins with my Federal Pair Share Super ValueGreen Stamp minimal ration book for February-it took thewhole book-and Phil Drum made me a tiny camp stove powered with the solar cell. I didn't want to take the Primus, it's too bulky, and I did want to be able to carry the viola.Max gave me a half pint of brandy. When the brandy is goneI expect I will stuff this notebook into the bottle and put the cap on tight and leave it on a hillside somewhere betweenhere and Salem. I like to think of it being lifted up little faylittle by the water, and rocking, and going out to the darksea.

 Where are you?

 We are here. Where have you gone?

 History LessonARTHUR C. CLARKE

 No one could remember when the tribe had begunits longjourney. The land of great rolling plains that had been itsfirst home was now no more than a half-forgotten dream.

 For many years Shann and his people had been fleeingthrough a country of low hills and sparkling lakes, and now

 the mountains lay ahead. This summer they must cross themto the southern lands. There was little time to lose. The whiteterror that had come down from the Poles, grinding conti­nents to dust and freezing the very air before it, was lessthan a day's march behind.

 Shann wondered if the glaciers could climb the mountainsahead, and within his heart he dared to kindle a little flameof hope. This might prove a barrier against which even theremorseless ice would batter in vain. In the southern landsof which the legends spoke, his people might find refuge at last.

 It took weeks to discover a pass through which the tribe and the animals could travel. When midsummer came, theyhad camped in a lonely valley where the air was thin andthe stars shone with a brilliance no one had ever seen before.

 The summer was waning when Shann took his two sonsand went ahead to explore the way. For three days theyclimbed, and for three nights slept as best they could on thefreezing rocks. And on the fourth morning there was nothingahead but a gentle rise to a cairn of gray stones built by othertravelers, centuries ago.

 Shann felt himself trembling, and not with cold, as theywalked toward the little pyramid of stones. His sons had fallen behind. No one spoke, for too much was at stake. Inalittle while they would know if all their hopes had beenbetrayed.

 To east and west, the wall of mountains curved away asif embracing the land beneath. Below lay endless miles ofundulating plain, with a great river swinging across it intremendous loops. It was a fertile land; one in which the tribecould raise crops knowing that there would be no need to fleebefore the harvest came.

 Then Shann lifted his eyes to the south, and saw the doom of all his hopes. For there at the edge of the world glimmeredthat deadly light he had seen so often to the north-the glintof ice below the horizon.

 There was no way forward. Through all the years of flight,the glaciers from the south had been advancing to meet them.Soon they would be crushed beneath the moving walls ofice....

 Southern glaciers did not reach the mountains until ageneration later. In that last summer the sons of Shann car­ried the sacred treasures of the tribe to the lonely cairn over-

 looking the plain. The ice that had once gleamed below the horizon was now almost at their feet. By spring it would besplintering against the mountain walls.

 No one understood the treasures now. They were from a
past too distant for the understanding of any man alive. Their
origins were lost in the mists that surrounded the Golden
Age, and how they had come at last into the possession        of

 this wandering tribe was a story that now would never betold. For it was the story of a civilization that had passedbeyond recall.

 Once, all these pitiful relics had been treasured for somegood reason, and now they had become sacred though theirmeaning had long been lost. The print in the old books hadfaded centuries ago though much of the lettering was still visible-if there had been any to read it. But many gener­ations had passed since anyone had had a use for a set of seven-figure logarithms, an atlas of the world, and the scoreof Sibelius' Seventh Symphony, printed, according to the fly­leaf, by H. K. Chu and Sons, at the City of Pekin in the year2371A.D.

 The old books were placed reverently in the little cryptthat had been made to receive them. There followed a motleycollection of fragments-gold and platinum coins, a broken telephoto lens, a watch, a cold light lamp, a microphone, thecutter from an electric shaver, some midget radio tubes, theflotsam that had been left behind when the great tide ofcivilization had ebbed forever.

 All these treasures were carefully stowed away in theirresting place. Then came three more relics, the most sacredof all because the least understood.

 The first was a strangely shaped piece of metal, showingthe coloration of intense heat. It was, in its way, the mostpathetic of all these symbols from the past, for it told of man'sgreatest achievement and of the future he might have known.The mahogany stand on which it was mounted bore a silverplate with the inscription:

 Auxiliary Igniter from Starboard Jet

 Spaceship "Morning Star"

 Earth-Moon, A.D. 1985

 Next followed another miracle of the ancient science-asphere of transparent plastic with strangely shaped piecesof metal embedded in it. At its centre was a tiny capsule of

 synthetic radio-element, surrounded by the converting screensthat shifted its radiation far down the spectrum. As long asthe material remained active, the sphere would be a tinyradio transmitter, broadcasting power in all directions. Onlya few of these spheres had ever been made. They had beendesigned as perpetual beacons to mark the orbits of the as­teroids. But man had never reached the asteroids and thebeacons had never been used.

 Last of all was a flat, circular tin, wide in comparison withits depth. It was heavily sealed, and rattled when shaken.The tribal lore predicted that disaster would follow if it wereever opened, and no one knew that it held one of the greatworks of art of nearly a thousand years before.

 The work was finished. The two men rolled the stonesback into place and slowly began to descend the mountain­side. Even to the last, man had given some thought to thefuture and had tried to preserve something for posterity.

 That winter the great waves of ice began their first assaulton the mountains, attacking from north and south. The foot­hills were overwhelmed in the first onslaught, and the gla­ciers ground them into dust. But the mountains stood firm,and when the summer came the ice retreated for a while.

 So, winter after winter, the battle continued, and the roarof the avalanches, the grinding of rock and the explosions ofsplintering ice filled the air with tumult. No war of man'shad been fiercer than this, and even man's battles had not quite engulfed the globe as this had done.

 At last the tidal waves of ice began to subside and to creep slowly down the flanks of the mountains they had never quitesubdued. The valleys and passes were still firmly in theirgrip. It was stalemate. The glaciers had met their match, buttheir defeat was too late to be of any use to man.

 So the centuries passed, and presently there happenedsomething that must occur once at least in the history ofevery world in the universe, no matter how remote and lonelyit may be.

 The ship from Venus came five thousand years too late,but its crew knew nothing of this. While still many millionsof miles away, the telescopes had seen the great shroud ofice that made Earth the most brilliant object in the sky next to the sun itself.

 Here and there the dazzling sheet was marred by blackspecks that revealed the presence of almost buried moun-

 tains. That was all. The rolling oceans, the plains And forests, the deserts and lakes-all that had been the world of man was sealed beneath the ice, perhaps forever.

 The ship closed in to Earth and established an orbit lessthan a thousand miles away. For five days it circled the planet, while cameras recorded all that was left to see anda hundred instruments gathered information that would give the Venusian scientists many years of work.

 An actual landing was not intended. There seemed little purpose in it. But on the sixth day the picture changed. A panoramic monitor, driven to the limit of its amplification,detected the dying radiation of the five-thousand-year-oldbeacon. Through all the centuries, it had been sending out i ts signals with ever-failing strength as its radioactive heartsteadily weakened.

 The monitor locked on the beacon frequency. In the controlroom, a bell clamored for attention, A little later, the Ven­usian ship broke free from its orbit and slanted down towardEarth, toward a range of mountains that still towered proudlyabove the ice, and to a cairn of gray stones that the yearshad scarcely touched....

 The great disc of the sun blazed fiercely in a sky no longerveiled with mist, for the clouds that had once hidden Venushad now completely gone. Whatever force had caused thechange in the sun's radiation had doomed one civilization,but had given birth to another. Less than five thousand yearsbefore, the half-savage people of Venus had seen Sun andstars for the first time. Just as the science of Earth had begun with astronomy, so had that of Venus, and on the warm, rich world that man had never seen progress had been incrediblyrapid.

 Perhaps the Venusians had been lucky. They never knew the Dark Age that held man enchained for a thousand years. They missed the long detour into chemistry and mechanicsbut came at once to the more fundamental laws of radiationphysics. In the time that man had taken to progress from the , Pyramids to the rocket-propelled spaceship, the Venusians had passed from the discovery of agriculture to anti-gravityitself-the ultimate secret that man had never learned.

 The warm ocean that still bore most of the young planet'slife rolled its breakers languidly against the sandy shore. Sonew was this continent that the very sands were coarse andgritty. There had not yet been time enough for the sea towear them smooth.

 The scientists lay half in the water, their beautiful rep­tilian bodies gleaming in the sunlight. The greatest mindsof Venus had gathered on this shore from all the islands ofthe planet. What they were going to hear they did not yetknow, except that it concerned the Third World and the mys­terious race that had peopled it before the coming of the ice.

 The Historian was standing on the land, for the instru­ments he wished to use had no love of water. By his side wasa large machine which attracted many curious glances fromhis colleagues. It was clearly concerned with optics, for a lenssystem projected from it toward a screen of white materiala dozen yards away.

 The Historian began to speak. Briefly he recapitulatedwhat little had been discovered concerning the Third Planetand its people.

 He mentioned the centuries of fruitless research that hadfailed to interpret a single word of the writings of Earth. Theplanet had been inhabited by a race of great technical ability.That, at least, was proved by the few pieces of machinerythat had been found in the cairn upon the mountain.

 "We do not know why so advanced a civilization came toan end," he observed. "Almost certainly, it had sufficientknowledge to survive an Ice Age. There must have been somefactor of which we know nothing. Possibly disease or racialdegeneration may have been responsible. It has even beensuggested that the tribal conflicts endemic to our own speciesin prehistoric times may have continued on the Third Planet after the coming of technology.

 "Some philosophers maintain that knowledge of machin­ery does not necessarily imply a high degree of civilization, and it is theoretically possible to have wars in a society pos­sessing mechanical power, flight, and even radio. Such aconception is alien to our thoughts, but we must admit itspossibility. It would certainly account for the downfall of the lost race.

 "It has always been assumed that we should never know anything of the physical form of the creatures who lived onPlanet Three. For centuries our artists have been depicting scenes from the history of the dead world, peopling it withall manner of fantastic beings. Most of these creations have resembled us more or less closely, though it has often beenpointed out that becausewe are reptiles it does not followthat all intelligent life must necessarily be reptilian,

 "We now know the answer to one of the most baffling

 problems of history. At last, after a hundred years of research,

 we      have discovered the exact form and nature of the ruling
life on the Third Planet,"

 There was a murmur of astonishment from the assembledscientists. Some were so taken aback that they disappeared for a while into the comfort of the ocean, as all Venusians were apt to do in moments of stress. The Historian waited until his colleagues reemerged into the element they so dis-liked. He himself was quite comfortable, thanks to the tinysprays that were continually playing over his body. With their help he could live on land for many hours before havingto return to the ocean.

 The excitement slowly subsided and the lecturer contin­ued.

 "One of the most puzzling of the objects found on PlanetThree was a flat metal container holding a great length oftransparent plastic material, perforated at the edges andwould tightly into a spool. This transparent tape at first seemed quite featureless, but an examination with the newsubelectronic microscope has shown that this is not the case.Along the surface of the material, invisible to our eyes butperfectly clear under the correct radiation, are literally thou­sands of tiny picture It is believed that they were imprinted on the material by some chemical means, and have fadedwith the passage of time.

 "These pictures apparently form a record of life as it wason the Third Planet at the height of its civilization. They arenot independent. Consecutive pictures are almot identical,differing only in the detail of movement. The purpose of sucha record is obvious. It is only necessary to project the scenes in rapid succession to give an illusion of continuous move­ment. We have made a machine to do this, and Ihave herean exact reproduction of the picture sequence.

 "The scenes you are now going to witness take us backmany thousands of years, to the great days of our sisterplanet. They show a complex civilization, many of whoseactivities we can only dimly understand. Life seems to have been very violent and energetic, and much that you will seeis quite baffling.

 "It is clear that the Third Planet was inhabited by a num­ber of different species, none of them reptilian. That is a blowto our pride, but the conclusion is inescapable. The dominanttype of life appears to have been a two-armed biped. It walkedupright and covered its bodv with some flexible material,

 possibly for protection against the cold, since even before theIce Age the planet was at a much lower temperature thanour own world. But I will not try your patience any further.You will now see the record of which I have been speaking."

 A brilliant light flashed from the projector. There was agentle whirring, and on the screen appeared hundreds of strange beings moving rather jerkily to and fro. The pictureexpanded to embrace one of the creatures, and the scientists,could see that the Historian's description had been correct.

 The creature possessed two eyes, set rather close together,but the other facial adornments were a little obscure. Therewas a large orifice in the lower portion of the head that was continually opening and closing. Possibly it had somethingto do with the creature's breathing.

 The scientists watched spellbound as the strange being became involved in a series of fantastic adventures. Therewas an incredibly violent conflict with another, slightly dif­ferent creature. It seemed certain that they must both bekilled, but when it was all over neither seemed any the worse.

 Then came a furious drive over miles of country in a four-wheeled mechanical device which was capable of extraordi­nary feats of locomotion. The ride ended in a city packed withother vehicles moving in all directions at breath-takingspeeds. No one was surprised to see two of the machines meetheadon with devastating results.

 After that, events became even more complicated. It was now quite obvious that it would take many years of researchto analyze and understand all that was happening. It wasalso clear that the record was a work of art, somewhat styl­ized, rather than an exact reproduction of life as it actuallyhad been on the Third Planet.

 Most of the scientists felt themselves completely dazedwhen the sequence of pictures came to an end. There was afinal flurry of motion, in which the creature that had beenthe center of interest became involved in some tremendous but incomprehensible catastrophe. The picture contracted toa circle, centered on the creature's head.

 The last scene of all was an expanded view of its face,obviously expressing some powerful emotion. But whetherit was rage, grief, defiance, resignation or some other feelingcould not be guessed. The picture vanished. For a moment some lettering appeared on the screen, then it was all over.

 For several minutes there was complete, silence, save the lapping of the waves upon the sand. The scientists were too

 stunned to speak. The fleeting glimpse of Earth's civilization had had a shattering effect on their minds. Then little groupsbegan to start talking together, first in whispers and thenmore and more loudly as the implications of what they hadseen became clearer. Presently the Historian called for at­tention and addressed the meeting again.

 "We are now planning," he said, "a vast program of re­search to extract all available knowledge from this record. Thousands of copies are being made for distribution to all -workers. You will appreciate the problems involved. The psy­chologists in particular have an immense task confrontingthem.

 "But I do not doubt that we shall succeed. In another
generation, who can say what we may not have learned of
this wonderful race? Before we leave, let us look again at our
remote cousins, whose wisdom may have surpassed        our own

 but of whom so little has survived."

 Once more the final picture flashed on the screen, mo­tionless this time, for the projector had been stopped. Withsomething like awe, the scientists gazed at the still figure from the past, while in turn the little biped stared back atthem with its characteristic expression of arrogant bad tem­per.

 For the rest of time it would symbolize the human race.The psychologists of Venus would analyze its actions andwatch its every movement until they could reconstruct itsmind. Thousands of books would be written about it. Intricatephilosophies would be contrived to account for its behavior.

 But all this labor, all this research, would be utterly invain. Perhaps the proud and lonely figure on the screen wassmiling sardonically at the scientists who were starting ontheir age-long fruitless quest.

 Its secret would be safe as long as the universe endured,for no one now would ever read the lost language of Earth. Millions of times in the ages to come those last few wordswould flash across the screen, and none could ever guess theirmeaning:

 A Walt Disney Production

 Seeds of the DuskRAYMOND Z. GALLUN

 Itwas a spore, microscopic in size. Its hard shell-resistantto the utter dryness of interplanetary space-harbored a tiny bit of plant protoplasm. That protoplasm, chilled almost toabsolute zero, possessed no vital pulsation now-only a grimpotentiality, a savage capacity for revival, that was a chal­lenge to Fate itself.

 For years the spore had been drifting and bobbing errat­ically between the paths of Earth and Mars, along with bil­lions of other spores of the same kind. Now the gravity of theSun drew it a few million miles closer to Earth's orbit, now powerful magnetic radiations from solar vortices forced it back toward the world of its origin.

 It seemed entirely a plaything of chance. And, of course, up to a point it was. But back of its erratic, unconsciouswanderings, there was intelligence that had done its best totake advantage of the law of averages.

 The desire for rebirth and survival was the dominant urge of this intelligence. For this was during the latter days, when Earth itself was showing definite signs of senility, and Marswas near as deadas the Moon.

 Strange, intricate spore-pods, conceived as a man mightconceive a new invention, but put into concrete form by a process of minutely exact growth control, had burst explo­sively toward a black, spacial sky. In dusty clouds the sporeshad been hurled upward into the vacuum thinness that hadonce been an extensive atmosphere. Most of them had, of course, dropped back to the red, arid soil; but a comparativefew, buffeted by feeble air currents, and measured numeri­cally in billions, had found their way from the utterly tenuous upper reaches of Mars' gaseous envelope into the empty ether of the void.

 With elements of a conscious purpose added, the thing thatwas taking place was a demonstration of the ancient Ar-rhenius Spore Theory, which, countless ages ago, had ex­plained the propagation of life from world to world.

 The huge, wonderful parent growths were left behind, tocontinue a hopeless fight for survival on a burnt-out world. During succeeding summer seasons they would hurl morespores into the interplanetary abyss. But soon they them­selves would be only brown, mummied relics-one with theother relics of Mars; the gray, carven monoliths; the strange, hemispherical dwellings, dotted with openings arranged likethe cells ofa honeycomb. Habitations of an intelligent animal folk, long perished, who had never had use for halls or rooms,as such things are known to men on Earth.

 The era of utter death would come to Mars, when nothingwould move on its surface except the shadows shifting acrossdusty deserts, and the molecules of sand and rock vibratingwith a little warmth from the hot, though shrunken Sun.Death-complete death! But the growths which were the lastcivilized beings of Mars had not originated there. Once theyhad been on the satellites of Jupiter, too. And before that-well, perhaps even the race memory of their kind had lost therecord of those dim, distant ages. Always they had waitedtheir chance, and when the time came-when a world wasphysically suited for their development-they had acted,

 A single spore was enough to supply the desired footholdon a planet. Almost inevitably-since chance is, in funda­mentals, a mathematical element depending on time andnumbers and repetition-that single spore reached the upperatmosphere of Earth,

 For months, it bobbed erratically in tenuous, electrifiedgases. It might have been shot into space again. Upward and downward it wandered; but with gravity to tug at its insig­nificant mass, probability favored its ultimate descent to theharsh surface.

 It found a resting place, at last, in a frozen desert gully.Around the gully were fantastic, sugar-loaf mounds. Near-bywas one thin, ruined spire of blue porcelain-an empty re­minder of a gentler era, long gone.

 The location thus given to it seemed hardly favorable inits aspect. For this was the northern hemisphere, locked now in the grip of a deadly winter. The air, depleted through theages, as was the planet's water supply, was arid and thin.

 The temperature, though not as rigorous and deadening asthat of interplanetary space, ranged far below zero. Mars inthis age was near dead; Earth was a dying world.

 But perhaps this condition, in itself, was almost favorable.The spore belonged to a kind of life developed to meet thechallenge of a generally much less friendly environment thanthat of even this later-day Earth.

 There was snow in that desert gully-maybe a quarter-inch depth of it. The rays of the Sun-white and dwarfedafter so many eons of converting its substance into energy- did not melt any of that snow even at noon. But this did notmatter. The life principle within the spore detected favorableconditions for its germination, just as, in spring, the vitalprinciple of Earthly seeds had done for almost incalculableages.

 By a process parallel to that of simple fermentation, a tinyamount of heat was generated within the spore. A few crystalsof snow around it turned to moisture, a minute quantity ofwhich the alien speck of life absorbed. Roots finer than spi-derweb grew, groping int& the snow. At night they were fro­zen solid, but during the day they resumed their brave ac­tivity.

 The spore expanded, but did not burst. For its shell wasa protecting armor which must be made to increase in sizegradually without rupture. Within it, intricate chemical pro­cesses were taking place. Chlorophyl there was absorbingsunshine and carbon dioxide and water. Starch and cellulose and free oxygen were being produced.

 So far, these processes were quite like those of commonterrestrial flora. But there were differences. For one thing,the oxygen was not liberated to float in the atmosphere. Ithad been ages since such lavish waste had been possible onMars, whose thin air had contained but a small quantity ofoxygen in its triatomic form, ozone, even when Earth wasyoung.

 The alien thing stored its oxygen, compressing the gas intothe tiny compartments in its hard, porous, outer shell. The reason was simple. Oxygen, combining with starch in a slow,fermentive combustion, could produce heat to ward off thecold that would otherwise stop growth.

 The spore had become a plant now. First, it was no biggerthan a pinhead. Then it increased its size to the dimensionsof a small marble, its fuzzy, green-brown shape firmly an-

 chored to the soil itself by its long, fibrous roots. Like anyterrestrial growth, it was an intricate chemical laboratory,where transformations took place that were not easy to com­prehend completely.

 And now, perhaps, the thing was beginning to feel the firstglimmerings of a consciousness, like a human child risingout of the blurred, unremembering fog of birth. Strange, oilynodules, scattered throughout its tissues, connected by meansof a complex network of delicate, white threads, which hadthe functions of a nervous system, were developing and grow­ing-giving to the sporeplant from Mars the equivalent of abrain. Here was a sentient vegetable in the formative stage.

 A sentient vegetable? Without intelligence it is likely thatthe ancestors of this nameless invader from across the voidwould long ago have lost their battle for survival.

 What senses were given to this strange mind, by meansof which it could be aware of its environment? Undoubtedlyit possessed faculties of sense that could detect things in away that was as far beyond ordinary human conception asvision is to those individuals who have been born blind. But in a more simpler manner it must have been able to feel heatand cold and to hear sounds, the latter perhaps by the sen­sitivity of its fine, cilialike spines. And certainly it could seein a way comparable to that of a man.

 For, scattered over the round body of the plant, and imbed­ded deep in horny hollows in its shell, were little organs,lensed with a clear vegetable substance. These organs wereeyes, developed, perhaps, from far more primitive light-sen­ sitive cells, such as many forms of terrestrial flora possess.

 But during those early months, the spore plant saw littlethat could be interpreted as a threat, swiftly to be fulfilled. Winter ruled, and the native life of this desolate region wasat a standstill.

 There was little motion except that of keen, cutting winds,shifting dust, and occasional gusts of fine, dry snow. Thewhite, shrunken Sun rose in the east, to creep with protracted slowness across the sky, shedding but the barest trace of warmth. Night came, beautiful and purple and mysterious,yet bleak as the crystalline spirit of an easy death.

 Through the ages, Earth's rate of rotation had been muchdecreased by the tidal drag of Solar and Lunar gravities. Theattraction of the Moon was now much increased, since thesatellite was nearer to Terra than it had been in former times.

 Because of the decreased rate of rotation, the days and nightswere correspondingly lengthened.

 All the world around the spore plant was a realm of bleak,unpeopled desolation. Only once, while the winter lasted, didanything happen to break the stark monotony. One evening,at moonrise, a slender metal car flew across the sky with thespeed of a bullet. A thin propelling streamer of fire trailedin its wake, and the pale moonglow was reflected from itsprow. A shrill, mechanical scream made the rarefied atmo­sphere vibrate, as the craft approached to a point above thedesert gully, passed, and hurtled away, to leave behind it only a startling silence and an aching memory.

 For the spore plant did remember. Doubtless there was atouch of fear in that memory, for fear is a universal emotion,closely connected with the law of self-preservation, which isengrained in the texture of all life, regardless of its natureor origin.

 Men. Or rather, the cold, cruel, cunning little beings whowere the children of men. The Itorloo, they called themselves.The invader could not have known their form as yet, or thename of the creatures from which they were descended. Butit could guess something of their powers from the flying ma­chine they had built. Inherited memory must have played a part in giving the queer thing from across the void this dimcomprehension. On other worlds its ancestors had encoun­tered animal folk possessing a similar science. And the sporeplant was surely aware that here on Earth thebuilders ofthis speeding craft were its most deadly enemies.

 The Itorloo, however, inhabiting their vast underground cities, had no knowledge that their planet had received analient visitation-one which might have deadly potentiali­ties. And in this failure to know, the little spore plant, hiddenin a gully where no Itorloo foot had been set in a thousandyears, was safe.

 Now there was nothing for it to do but grow and prepare to reproduce its kind, to be watchful for lesser enemies, andto develop its own peculiar powers.

 It is not to be supposed that it must always lack, by itsvery nature, an understanding of physics and chemistry andbiological science. It possessed no test tubes, or delicate in­struments, as such things were understood by men. But itwas gifted with something-call it an introspective sense-which enabled it to study in minute detail every single chem-

 ical and physical process that went on within its own sub­stance. It could feel not only the juices coursing sluggishly through its tissues, but it could feel, too, in a kind of atomicpattern, the change of water and carbon dioxide into starchand free oxygen.

 Gift a man with the same power that the invader's kindhad acquired, perhaps by eons of practice and directed will-that of feeling vividly even the division of cells, and the na­ture of the protoplasm in his own tissues-and it is not hardto believe that he would soon delve out even the ultimatesecret of life. And in the secret of life there must be involvedalmost every conceivable phase of practical science.

 The spore plant proceeded with its marvelous self-educa­tion, part of which must have been only recalling to mind theintricate impressions of inherited memories.

 Meanwhile it studied carefully its bleak surroundings,prompted not only by fear, but by curiosity as well. To workeffectively, it needed understanding of its environment. In­telligence it possessed beyond question; still it was hamperedby many limitations. It was a plant, and plants have not ananimal's capacity for quick action, either of offense or defense.Here, forever, the entity from across the void was at a vastdisadvantage, in this place of pitiless competition. In spiteof all its powers, it might now have easily been destroyed.

 The delicate, ruined tower of blue porcelain, looming up

 from the brink of the gully.The invader, scrutinizing it

 carefully for hours and days, soon knew every chink and crackand fanciful arabesque on its visible side. It was only a ruin,beautiful and mysterious alike by sunshine and moonlight,and when adorned with a fine sifting of snow. But the invader,lost on a strange world, could not be sure of its harmless-ness.

 Close to the tower were those rude, high, sugar-loafmounds, betraying a sinister cast. They were of hard-packedearth, dotted with many tiny openings. But in the cold, aridwinter, there was no sign of life about them now.

 All through those long, arctic months, the spore plant con­tinued to develop, and to grow toward the reproductive stage.And it was making preparations too-combining the knowl­edge acquired by its observations with keen guesswork, andwith a science apart from the manual fabrication of metal and other substances,

 A milder season came at last. The Sun's rays were a littlewarmer now. Some of the snow melted, moistening the groundenough to germinate Earthly seeds. Shoots sprang up, soonto develop leaves and grotesque, devilish-looking flowers.

 In the mounds beside the blue tower a slow awakeningtook place. Millions of little, hard, reddish bodies became animated once more, ready to battle grim Nature for suste­nance. The ages had done little to the ants, except to increasetheir fierceness and cunning. Almost any organic substancescould serve them as food, and their tastes showed but littlediscrimination between one dainty and another. And it wasinevitable, of course, but presently they should find the spore plant.

 Nor were they the letter's only enemies, even in this desertregion. Of the others, Kaw and his black-feathered brood werethe most potent makers of trouble. Not because they wouldattempt active offense themselves, but because they wereable to spread news far and wide.

 Kaw wheeled alone now, high in the sunlight, his ebon wings outstretched, his cruel, observant little eyes studyingthe desolate terrain below. Buried in the sand, away from the cold, he and his mate and their companions had sleptthrough the winter. Now Kaw was fiercely hungry. He could eat ants if he had to, but there should be better food availableat this time of year.

 Once, his keen eyes spied gray movement far below. Asif his poised and graceful flight was altered by the release of a trigger, Kaw dived plummet-like and silent toward theground.

 His attack was more simple and direct than usual. But itwas successful. His reward was a large, long-tailed rodent, as clever as himself. The creature uttered squeaks of terroras meaningful as human cries for help. In a moment, however,Kaw split its intelligently rounded cranium with a deter­mined blow from his strong, pointed beak. Bloody brains weredevoured with indelicate gusto, to be followed swiftly by theless tasty flesh of the victim. If Kaw had ever heard of tablemanners, he didn't bother with them. Kaw was intenselypractical.

 His crop full, Kaw was now free to exercise the mischie­vous curiosity which he had inherited from his ancient fore-

 bears. They who had, in the long-gone time when Earth wasyoung, uprooted many a young corn shoot, and had yammeredderisively from distant treetops when any irate farmer hadgone after them with a gun.

 With a clownish skip of his black, scaly feet, and a show-offish swerve of his dusty ebon wings, Kaw took to the aironce more. Upward he soared, his white-lidded eyes directedagain toward the ground, seeking something interesting tooccupy his attention and energies.

 Thus, presently, he saw a brownish puff that looked likesmoke or dust in the gully beside the ruined blue tower at the pinnacle of which he and his mate were wont to buildtheir nest in summer. Sound came then-adull, ringing pop.The dusty cloud expanded swiftly upward, widening and thin­ning until its opacity was dissipated into the clearness of theatmosphere.

 Kaw was really startled. That this was so was evinced bythe fact that he did not voice his harsh, rasping cry, as hewould have done had a lesser occurrence caught his attention.He turned back at first, and began to retreat, his mind rec­ognizing only one possibility in what had occurred. Only theItorloo, the Children of Men, as far as he knew, could produceexplosions like that. And the Itorloo were cruel and danger­ous.

 However, Kaw did not go far in his withdrawal. Pres­ently-since there were no further alarming developments-he was circling back toward the source of the cloud and thenoise. But for many minutes he kept what he considered asafe distance, the while he tried to determine the nature of the strange, bulging, grayish-green thing down there in thegully.

 A closer approach, he decided finally, was best made fromthe ground. And so he descended, alighting several hundredyards distant from the narrow pocket in the desert.

 Thence he proceeded to walk cautiously forward, takingadvantage of the cover of the rocks and dunes, his feathersgleaming with a dusty rainbow sheen, his large head bobbingwith the motion of his advance like any fowl's. His mannerwas part laughably ludicrous, part scared, and part deter­mined.

 And then, peering from behind a large boulder, he sawwhat he had come to see. It was a bulging, slightly flattenedsphere, perhaps a yard across. Prom it projected flat, oval

 things of a gray-green color, like the leaves of a cactus. Andfrom these, in turn, grew clublike protuberances of a hard,horny texture-spore-pods. One of them was blasted open,doubtless by the pressure of gas accumulated within it. Thesespore-pods were probably not as complexly or powerfully de­signed as those used by the parent growths on Mars, for theywere intended for a simpler purpose. The entire plant bristledwith sharp spines, and was furred with slender hairs, gleam­ing like little silver wires.

 Around the growth, thousands of ant bodies lay dead, andfrom its vicinity other thousands of living were retreating. Kaw eyed these evidences critically, guessing with wits askeen as those of a man of old their sinister significance. Heknew, too, that presently other spore-pods would burst withloud, disturbing noises.

 Kaw felt a twinge of dread. Evolution, working througha process of natural selection-and, in these times of hardshipand pitiless competition, putting a premium on intelligence-had given to his kind a brain power far transcending that ofhis ancestors. He could observe, and could interpret his ob­servations with the same practical comprehension which aprimitive human being might display. But, like those prim­itives, he had developed, too, a capacity to feel superstitiousawe.

 That gray-green thing of mystery had a fantastic castwhich failed to identify it with-well-with naturalness.Kaw was no botanist, certainly; still he could recognize the object as a plant of some kind. But those little, bright, eye-lenses suggested an unimaginable scrutiny. And those spines, silvery in sheen, suggested ghoulish animation, the existenceof which Kaw could sense as a nameless and menacingunease.

 He could guess, then, or imagine-or even know, per­haps-that here was an intruder who might well make itself felt with far-reaching consequences in the future. Kaw was aware of the simple fact that most of the vegetation he was acquainted with grew from seeds or the equivalent. And hewas capable of concluding that this flattened spheroid repro­duced itself in a manner not markedly unfamiliar. That is,if one was to accept the evidence of the spore-pods. Billionsof spores, scattering with the wind! What would be the result?

 Kaw would not have been so troubled, were it not for thosecrumpled thousands of ant bodies, and the enigma of their

 death. It was clear that the ants had come to feed on theinvader-butthey had perished. How? By some virulent plantpoison, perhaps?

 The conclusions which intelligence provides can producefear where fear would otherwise be impossible. Kaw's impulsewas to seek safety in instant departure, but horror and cu­riosity fascinated him. Another deeper, more reasoned urge commanded him. When a man smells smoke in his house atnight, he does not run away; he investigates. And so it waswith Kaw.

 He hopped forward cautiously toward the invader. A footfrom its rough, curving side he halted. There, warily, as ifabout to attack a poisonous lizard, he steeled himself. Lightlyand swiftly his beak shot forward. It touched the tip of asharp spine.

 The result left Kaw dazed. It was as though he had receiveda stunning blow on the head, A tingling, constricting sen­sation shot through his body, and he was down, flopping inthe dust.

 Electricity. Kaw had never heard of such a thing. Elec­tricity generated chemically in the form of the invader, bya process analogous to that by which, in dim antiquity, it had been generated in the bodies of electric eels and other similarcreatures.

 However, there was a broad difference here between the subject and the analogy. Electric eels had never understood the nature of their power, for they were as unresponsible forit as they were unresponsible for the shape of the flesh inwhich they had been cast. The spore plant, on the other hand,comprehended minutely. Its electric organs had been min­utely preplanned and conceived before one living cell of theirstructure had been caused to grow on another. And theseorgans were not inherited, but were designed to meet themore immediate needs of self-protection. During the winter,the invader, studying its surroundings, had guessed well.

 Slowly Kaw's brain cleared. He heard an ominous buzzing,and knew that it issued from the plant. But what he did notknow was that, like the electric organs, the thing's vocalequipment was invented for possible use in its new environ­ment. For days, since the coming of spring, the invader had been listening to sounds of various kinds, and had recognizedtheir importance on Earth.

 Now Kaw had but one thought, and that was to get away.Still dazed and groggy, he leaped into the air. From behind

 him, in his hurried departure, he heard a dull plop. Morebillions of spores, mixing with the wind, to be borne far andwide.

 But now, out of his excitement, Kaw drew a reasoned andfairly definite purpose. He had a fair idea of what he wasgoing to do, even though the course of action he had in mindmight involve him with the greatest of his enemies. Yet,when it came to a choice, he would take the known in pref­erence to the unknown.

 He soared upward toward the bright blue of the heavens.The porcelain tower, the ant hills, and the low mounds whichmarked the entrances to the rodent colonies slipped swiftly behind. As if the whole drab landscape were made to move on an endless belt.

 Kaw was looking for his mate, and for the thirty-odd, black-winged individuals who formed his tribe. Singly andin small groups, he contacted and collected them. Loud, rau­cous cries, each with a definite verbal meaning, were ex­changed. Menace was on the Earth-bizarre, nameless men­ace. Excitement grew to fever pitch.

 Dusk, beautiful and soft and forbidding, found the birdclan assembled in a chamber high-placed in a tremendousedifice many miles from where Kaw had made his discovery.The building belonged to the same gentle culture which hadproduced the blue porcelain tower. The floor of the chamberwas doubtless richly mosaicked. But these were relics of de­parted splendor now thickly masked with dust and filth.

 From the walls, however, painted landscapes of etherealbeauty, and the faces of a happy humankind of long agopeeped through the gathering shadows. They were likeghosts, a little awed at what had happened to the world towhich they had once belonged. Those gentle folk had dweltin a kindlier climate which was now stripped forever fromthe face of the Earth. And they had been wiped out by crea­tures who were human too, but of a different, crueler race.

 Through delicately carven screens of pierced marble, far up on the sides of the chamber's vast, brooding rotunda, the fading light of day gleamed, like a rose glow through thelacework of fairies.

 But this palace of old, dedicated to laughter and fun and luxury, and to the soaring dreams of the fine arts, was nowonly a chill, dusty gathering place for a clan of black-winged,gruesome harpies.

 They chuckled and chattered and cawed, like the crows ofdead eras. But these sounds, echoing eerily beneath cloisteredarches, dim and abhorrent in the advancing gloom of night,differed from that antique yammering. It constituted real,intelligent conversation.

 Kaw, perched high on a fancifully wrought railing ofbronze, green with the patina of age, urged his companionswith loud cries, and with soft, pleading notes, In his own way,he had some of the qualities of a master orator. But, as allthrough an afternoon of similar arguing, he was getting no­where. His tribe was afraid. And so it was becoming moreand more apparent that he must undertake his mission alone.Even Teka, his mate, would not accompany him.

 At last Kaw ruffled his neck feathers, and shook his head violently in an avian gesture of disgust. He leaped from hisperch and shot through a glassless window with an angry scream that was like the curse of a black ghoul.

 It was the first time that he had ever undertaken a longjourney at night. But in his own judgment, necessity wassuch that no delay could be tolerated.

 The stars were sharp and clear, the air chill and frosty.The ground was dotted sparsely with faint glimmerings fromthe chimneys of the crude furnaces which, during the coldernights of spring and fall, warmed the underground rodentcolonies.

 After a time the Moon rose, huge and yellow, like the eyeof a monster. In that bloom and silence, Kaw found it easyto feel the creeping and imperceptible, yet avalanching,growth of horror. He could not be sure, of course, that he wasright in his guess that the mission he had undertaken was grimly important. But his savage intuition was keen.

 The Itorloo-the Children of Men-he must see them, andtell them what he knew. Kaw was aware that the Itorioo hadno love for any but themselves. But they were more powerfulthan the winds and the movements of the Sun and Moonthemselves. They would find a swift means to defeat the silentdanger.

 And so, till the gray dawn, Kaw flew on and on, coveringmany hundreds of miles, until he saw a low dome of metal,capping a hill. The soft half-light of early morning sharpenedits outlines to those of a beautiful, ebon silhouette, peacefuland yet forbidding. Beneath it, as Kaw knew, was a shaftleading down to the wondrous underworld of the Itorloo, as intriguing to his mind as a shadowland of magic.

 Fear tightened its constricting web around Kaw's heart-but retreat was something that must not be. There was too much at stake ever to permit a moment of hesitation.

 Kaw swung into a wider arc, circling the dome. His longwings, delicately poised for a soaring glide, did not flap now,but dipped and rose to capture and make use of the liftingpower of every vagrant wisp of breeze. And from his lungs,issued a loud, raucous cry.

 "Itorloo!" he screamed. "Itorloo!"

 The word, except for its odd, parrot-like intonation, was pronounced in an entirely human manner. Kaw, in commonwith his crow ancestors, possessed an aptitude for mimicryof the speech of men.

 Tensely he waited for a sign, as he swung lower and nearerto the dome.

 3

 Zar felt irritable. He did not like the lonely surface vigiland the routine astronomical checkings that constituted his duty. All night he'd sat there at his desk with signal lights winking around him, helping surface watchers at the otherstations check the position of a new meteor swarm by meansof crossing beams of probe rays.

 Angles, distances, numbers! Zar was disgusted. Why didn'tthe construction crews hurry? The whole race could have beenmoved to Venus long ago, and might just as well have been.For as far as Zar could see, there was no real reason to retaina hold on the burnt-out Earth. The native Venusians shouldhave been crushed a century back. There wasn't any reasonwhy this pleasant task shouldn't have been accomplishedthen-no reason except stupid, official inertia!

 The sound of a shrill bird cry, throbbing from the pickupdiaphragm on the wall, did not add any sweetening potionto Zar's humor. At first he paid no attention; but the insistent screaming of the name of his kind-"Itorloo! Itorloo!"-atlength aroused him to angry action.

 His broad, withered face, brown and hideous and goblin-like, twisted itself into an ugly grimace. He bounded up fromhis chair, and seized a small, pistol-like weapon.

 A moment later he was out on the sandy slopes of the hill,looking up at the black shape that swooped and dartedtimidly, close to his head. On impulse Zar raised his weapon,no thought of compassion in his mind.

 But Raw screamed again: "Itorloo! Loaaah!"

 In Zar's language, "Loaaah!" meant "Danger!" very em­phatically, Zar's hand, bent on execution, was stayed for themoment at least. His shrewd little eyes narrowed, and fromhis lips there issued yammering sounds which constituted anunderstandable travesty of the speech of Kaw's kind.

 "Speak your own tongue, creature!" he ordered sharply, "I can understand!"

 Still swooping and darting nervously, Kaw screamed forthhis story, describing in quaint manner the thing he had seen,employing comparisons such as any primitive savage woulduse. In this way the invader was like a boulder, in that wayit was like a thorn cactus, and in other ways it resembledthe instruments of death which the Itorioo employed. In allways it was strange, and unlike anything ever seen before.

 And Zar Listened with fresh and calculated attention, get­ting from this bird creature the information he required tolocate the strange miracle. Kaw was accurate and clearenough in giving his directions.

 Zar might have forgotten his inherent ruthlessness where his feathered informer was concerned, had not Kaw becomea trifle too insistent in his exhortations to action. He lingeredtoo long and screamed too loudly.

 Irritated, Zar raised his weapon. Kaw swept away at once, but there was no chance for him to get out of range. Invisibleenergy shot toward him. Black feathers were torn loose, andfloated aflame in the morning breeze. Kaw gave a shrillshriek of agony and reproach. Erratically he wavered to theground.

 Zar did not even glance toward him, but retraced his wayleisurely into the surface dome. An hour later, however, hav­ing received permission from his superiors, he had journeyedacross those hundreds of miles to the gully beside the blueporcelain tower. And there he bent over the form of the in­vader. Zar was somewhat awed. He had never been to Mars.For two hundred thousand years or more, no creature fromEarth had ever visited that planet. The Itorloo were too prac­tical to attempt such a useless venture, and their more recentpredecessors had lacked some of the adventurous incentiverequired for so great and hazardous a journey.

 But Zar had perused old records, belonging to an era half a million years gone by. He knew that this gray-green thingwas at least like the flora of ancient Mars. Into his mind,

 matter-of-fact for the most part, came the glimmerings ofamighty romance, accentuating within him a consciousness of nameless dread, and of grand interplanetary distances.

 Spines. Bulging, hard-shelled, pulpy leaves that storedoxygen under pressure. Chlorophyl that absorbed sunshineand made starch, just as in an ordinary Earthly plant. Only the ehlorophyl of this growth was beneath a thick, translu­cent shell, which altered the quality of the light it could reflect. That was why astronomers in the pre-interplanetaryera had doubted the existence of vegetation on Mars. Greenplants of Terra, when photographed with infrared light, looked silvery, like things of frost. But-because of theirshells-Martian vegetation could not betray its presence inthe same manner.

 Zar shuddered, though the morning air was not chill byhis standards. The little gleaming orbs of the invader seemed to scrutinize him critically and coldly, and with a vast wis­dom. Zar saw the shattered spore-pods, knowing that their contents now floated in the air, like dust-floated and set­tled-presenting a subtle menace whose tool was the unex­pected, and against which-because of the myriad numbersof the widely scattered spores-only the most drastic methodscould prevail.

 Belatedly, then, anger came. Zar drew a knife from hisbelt. Half in fury and half in experiment, he struck the in­vader, chipping off a piece of its shell. He felt a sharp electric shock, though by no means strong enough to kill a creature of his size. From the wound he made in the plant, oxygensizzled softly. But the invader offered no further defense. Forthe present it had reached the end of its resources.

 Zar bounded back. His devilish little weapon flamed then,for a full two minutes. When he finally released pressure onits trigger, there was only a great, smouldering, glowing holein the ground where the ghoulish thing from across spacehad stood.

 Such was Zar's and the entire Itorloo race's answer to theintruder. Swift destruction! Zar chuckled wickedly. And therewere ways to rid Earth of the treacherous menace of the plantintelligences of Mars entirely, even though they would taketime.

 Besides there was Venus, the world of promise. Soon halfof the Itorloo race would be transported there. The otherscertainly could be accommodated if it became necessary.

 *    *    *

 Necessary? Zar laughed. He must be getting jittery. Whathad the Itorloo to fear from those inert, vegetable things?Now he aimed his weapon toward the blue tower, andsqueezed the trigger. Weakened tiles crumbled and fell down with a hollow, desolate rattle that seemed to mock Zar's ruth-lessness.

 Suddenly he felt sheepish. To every intelligent being thereis a finer side that prompts and criticizes. And for a momentZar saw himself and his people a little more as they reallywere.

 Unlike the lesser creatures, the Children of Men had notadvanced very much mentally. The ups and downs of historyhad not favored them. War had reversed the benefits of nat­ural selection, destroying those individuals of the species bestsuited to carry it on to greater glory. Zar knew this, andperhaps his senseless assault upon the ruined building wasbut a subconscious gesture of resentment toward the peopleof long ago who had been kinder and wiser and happier.

 Zar regretted his recent act of destroying the spore plant.It should have been preserved for study. But now-well-what was done could not be changed.

 He entered his swift, gleaming rocket car. When he closedits cabin door behind him, it seemed that he was shuttingout a horde of mocking, menacing ghosts.

 In a short while he was back at the surface station. Re­lieved there of his duty by another little brown man, he de­scended the huge cylindrical shaft which dropped a mile tothe region that was like the realm of the Cyclops. Thrummingsounds, winking lights, shrill shouts of the workers, blastsof incandescent flame, and the colossal majesty ofgigantic machines, toiling tirelessly.

 In a vast, pillared plaza the keels of spaceships were beinglaid-spaceships for the migration and the conquest. In per­haps a year-a brief enough time for so enormous a task- they would soar away from Earth, armed to the teeth. There would be thousands of the craft then, for all over the world,in dozens of similar underground places, they were in process of construction.

 Zar's vague fears were dissipated in thoughts of conquest to come. The Venus folk annihilated in withering clouds offlame. The glory of the Itorloo carried on and on-

 Kaw was not dead. That this was so was almost a miracle,made possible, perhaps, by a savage, indomitable will to live.In his small bird body there was a fierce, burning courage that compensated for many of his faults.

 For hours he lay there on the desert sand, a pathetic and crumpled bundle of tattered feathers, motionless except forhis labored breathing, and the blinking of his hate-filled eyes. Blood dripped slowly from the hideous, seared wound on hisbreast, and his whole body ached with a vast, dull anguish.

 Toward sundown, however, he managed to hobble and flut­ter forward a few rods. Here he buried himself shallowly inthe sand, where his chilled body would be protected from thenocturnal cold.

 For three days he remained thus interred. He was tooweak and sick to leave his burrow. Bitterness toward Zar andthe other cruel Itorloo, he did not feel. Kaw had lived toolong in this harsh region to expect favors. But a black furystormed within him, nevertheless-a black fury as agonizingas physical pain. He wanted revenge. No, he needed revengeas much as he needed the breath of life. He did not know that Itorloo plans directed against the intruding spores from Marswere already under way, and that-as a by-product-theywould destroy his own kind, and all primitive life on the surface of the Earth.

 Kaw left his hiding place on the fourth- day. Luck favoredhim, for he found a bit of carrion-part of the dead body ofan antelopelike creature.

 Somehow, through succeeding weeks and days, he man­aged to keep alive. The mending of his injured flesh was slowindeed, for the burnt wound was unclean. But he startedtoward home, hopping along at first, then flying a little, ahundred yards at a time, Tedium and pain were endless. But the fiendish light of what must seem forever fruitless hatred, never faded in those wicked, white-lidded eyes. Frequently Kaw's long, black beak snapped in a vicious expression ofboundless determination.

 Weeks of long days become a month, and then two months.Starved to a black-clad skeleton, and hopeless of ever beingfit to hunt again, Kaw tottered into a deep gorge one evening.Utterly spent, he sank to the ground here, his brain far too

 weary to take note of any subtle unusualness which the deep­ening shadows half masked.

 He scarcely saw the rounded things scattered here. Hadhe noticed them, his blurred vision would have named themsmall boulders and nothing more. Fury, directed at the Itor-loo, had made him almost forget the spore plants. He did notknow that this was to be a place of magic, Chance and thevagrant winds had made it so.Ahundred spores, out of manymillions, had lodged here. Conditions had been just right fortheir swift development. It was warm, but not too warm. Andthere was moisture too. Distantly Kaw heard the trickle ofwater. He wanted to get to it, but his feebleness preventedhim.

 He must have slept, then, for a long time, It seemed thathe awoke at the sound of an odd buzzing, which may have possessed hypnotic properties. He felt as weak and stiff asbefore, but he was soothed and peaceful now, in spite of histhirst and hunger.

 He looked about. The gorge was deep and shadowy. A stilltwilight pervaded it, though sunshine gilded its bulging, ir­regular lips far above. These details he took in in a moment.

 He looked, then, at the grotesque shapes around him-things which, in the deeper darkness, he had thought to be only boulders. But now he saw that they were spore plants,rough, eerie, brooding, with their little, lensed light-sensitiveorgans agleam.

 The excitement of terror seized him, and he wanted to flee,as from a deadly enemy. But this urge did not last long. Thehypnotic buzz, which issued from the diaphragmic vocal or­gans of the plants, soothed and soothed and soothed, untilKaw felt very relaxed.

 There were dead ants around him, doubtless the victimsof electrocution. Since no better food was within reach, Kaw hopped here and there, eating greedily.

 After that he hobbled to the brackish spring that drippedfrom the wall, and drank. Next he dropped to the ground, his fresh drowsiness characterized by sleepy mutterings abouthimself, his people, and the all-wise Itorloo, And it seemed,presently, that the buzzing of the invaders changed in char­acter at last, seeming to repeat his own mutterings clumsily,like a child learning to talk.

 "Kaw! Itorloo!" And other words and phrases belongingto the speech of the crow clans.

 It was the beginning of things miraculous and wonderfulfor Kaw, the black-feathered rascal. Many suns rose and set,but somehow he felt no urge to wander farther toward his home region. He did not know the Lethean fascination ofsimple hypnotism. True, he sallied afield farther and farther,as his increasing strength permitted. He hunted now, eatingbugs and beetles for the most part. But always he returnedto the gorge, there to listen to the weird growths, buzzing,chattering, speaking to him in his own tongue. In them thereseemed somehow to be a vague suggestion of the benignanceof some strange, universal justice, in spite of their horror.

 And night and day, rocket cars, streamlined and gleaming,swept over the desert. Now and then beams of energy were unleashed from them, whipping the sand into hot flame, de­stroying the invading spore plants that had struck root hereand there. Only the law of chance kept them away from thegorge, as doubtless it allowed them to miss other hidingplaces of alien life. For the wilderness was wide.

 But this phase of the Itorloo battle against the invadingspore plants was only a makeshift preliminary, intended tokeep the intruders in check. Only the Itorloo themselvesknew about the generators now being constructed far un­derground-generators which, with unseen emanations, couldwipe out every speck of living protoplasm on the exposedcrust of the planet. Theirs was a monumental task, and aslow one. But they meant to be rid, once and for all, of the subtle threat which had come perhaps to challenge their do­minion of the Earth. Kaw and his kind, the rodents, the ants, and all the other simple People of the Dusk of Terra's Great­ness, were seemingly doomed.

 Kaw's hatred of the Children of Men was undimmed, morejustly than he was aware. Thus it was easy for him to listenwhen he was commanded: "Get an Itorloo! Bring him here!Alone! On foot!"

 Zar was the logical individual to produce, for he was thenearest, the most readily available. But summer was almostgone before Kaw encountered the right opportunity, thoughhe watched with care at all times.

 Evening, with Venus and the Moon glowing softly in the sky. Kaw was perched on a hilltop, close to the great surface dome, watching as he had often watched before. Out of itscylindrical hangar, Zar's flier darted, and then swung in aslow arc. Presently it headed at a leisurely pace into the

 northwest. For once its direction was right, and it was nottraveling too fast for Kaw to keep pace with it. Clearly its pilot was engaged in a rambling pleasure jaunt, which hadno definite objective,

 Kaw, pleased and excited, fell in behind at a safe distance.There he remained until the craft was near the gorge. Nowthere was danger, but if things were done right-

 He flapped his wings violently to catch up with his me­chanical quarry. He screamed loudly: "Itorloo! Itorloo! De­scend! Descend! I am Kaw, who informed you of the unknownslong ago! I would show you more! More! More!" All this inahrill, avian chatterings.

 Kaw's trickery was naively simple. But Zar heard, abovethe noise of his rocket blasts. Suspicion? He felt it, of course.There was no creature in this era who accepted such an in­vitation without question. Yet he was well armed. In his ownjudgment he should be quite safe. Curiosity led him on.

 He shut off his rocket motors, and uttered the bird jargon,questioning irritably: "Where? What is it, black trickster?"

 Kaw skittered about defensively. "Descend!'" he repeated. "Descend to the ground. The thing that bears you cannot takeyou where we must go!"

 The argument continued for some little time, primitivewith matching curiosity and suspicion.

 And meanwhile, in the gloomy gorge cut in vague geologictimes by some gushing stream, entities waited patiently. Sapflowed in their tissues, as in the tissues of any other vege­tation, but the fine hairs on their forms detected sounds, andtheir light-sensitive cells served as eyes. Within their formswere organs equivalent to human nerve and brain. They did not use tools or metals, but worked in another way, dictated by their vast disadvantages when compared to animal in­telligences. Yet they had their advantages, too.

 Now they waited, dim as bulking shadows. They detectedthe excited cries of Kaw, who was their instrument. Andperhaps they grew a little more tense, like a hunter ina blind, when he hears the quacking of ducks through afog.

 There was a grating of pebbles and a little brown man,clad in a silvery tunic, stepped cautiously into view. Therewas a weapon clutched in his slender hand. He paused, asif suddenly awed and fearful. But no opportunity to retreat

 was given him.

 *   *   *

 A spore-pod exploded with a loud plop in the confined space. A mass of living dust filled the gorge, like a dense,opaque cloud, choking, blinding. Zar squeezed the trigger of his weapon impulsively. Several of the invaders were blastedout of existence. Stones clattered down from where theunaimed beam of energy struck the wall.

 Panic seized the little man, causing him to take one stran­gling breath. In a few moments he was down, writhing help­less on the ground. Choked by the finely divided stuff, hisconsciousness seemed to drop into a black hole of infinity.He, Zar, seemed about to pay for his misdeeds. With a mad fury he heard the derisive screams of Kaw, who had trickedhim. But he could not curse in return, and presently histhoughts vanished away to nothing.

 Awareness of being alive came back to him very slowlyand painfully. At first he felt as though he had pneumonia- fever, suffocation, utter vagueness of mind. Had the spores germinated within his lungs, he would surely have died. But they did not, there; conditions, were too moist and warm forthem. Gradually he coughed them up.

 He felt cold with a bitter, aching chill, for the weather hadchanged with the lateness of the season. Fine snow sifted down into the gorge from clouds that were thin and pearly and sun-gilded. Each tiny crystal of ice glittered with athousand prismatic hues as it slowly descended. And the si­lence was deathly, bearing a burden of almost tangible des­olation. In that burden there seemed to crowd all the antique history of a world-history whose grand movement shadedgradually toward stark, eternal death.

 Zar wanted to flee this awful place that had become like part of another planet. He jerked his body as if to scramblefeebly to his feet. He found then that he was restrained bycordlike tendrils, hard as horn, and warm with a faint, fer-mentive, animal-like heat. Like the beat of a nameless pulse,tiny shocks of electricity tingled his flesh in a regular rhythm.

 It was clear to Zar that while he had been inert the tendrilshad fastened themselves slowly around him, in a way that was half like the closing of an ancient Venus Flytrap, car­nivorous plant of old, and half like the simple creeping of a vine on a wall.

 Those constricting bonds were tightening now. Zar couldfeel the tiny thorns with which they were equipped biting into his flesh. He screamed in horror and pain. His criesechoed hollowly in the cold gorge. The snow, slowly sifting,

 and the silence, both seemed to mock-by their calm, pitilesslack of concern-the plight in which he found himself.

 And then a voice, chattering faintly in the languageof Kaw the Crow: "Be still. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace.Peace-"

 Gradually the sleepy tone quieted Zar, even though hewas aware that whatever the invaders might do to him couldbring him no good.

 Plants with voices. Almost human voices! Some sort oftympanic organs, hidden, perhaps, in some of those pulpyleaves, Zar judged. From the records of the old explanationsof Mars, he knew a little about these intruders, and theirscheme of life. Organs, with the functions of mechanical con­trivances, conceived and grown as they were needed! An alienscience, adapted to the abilities and limitations of vegetativeintelligences-intelligences that had never controlled the mining and smelting and shaping of metal!

 Zar, tight in the clutch of those weird monstrosities, re­alized some of their power. Strangely it did not affect thehypnotic calm that wrapped him.

 Mars. These wondrous people of the dusk of worlds hadsurvived all animal life on the Red Planet. They had spannedMars in a vast, irregularly formed network, growing along dry river beds, and the arms of vanished seas. They had notbeen mere individuals, for they had cooperated to form acivilization of a weird, bizarre sort. Great, hollow roots, buriedbeneath the ground, had drawn water from melting polarsnows. Those roots had been like water conduits. A rhythmicpulsation within them had pumped the water across thou­sands of miles of desert, providing each plant along the waywith moisture, even on that dying and almost dehydratedworld. The canals of Mars! Yes, a great irrigation system, agreat engineering feat-but out of the scope of Itorloo meth­ods entirely.

 And through the Jiving texture of those immense joiningroots, too, had doubtless flown the impulses of thoughts andcommands-the essence of leadership and security. Evennow, when Mars was. all but dead, its final civilization muststill be trying to fight on.

 Strange, wonderful times those old explorers had seen.Cold sunlight on bizarre ruins, left by extinct animal folk. Thin air and arctic weather, worse than that of Earth in thepresent age. Death everywhere, except for those vegetative

 beings grouped in immense, spiny, ribbonlike stretches. Dimshapes at night under hurtling Phobos, the nearer moon, andDeimos, her leisurely sister. Zar did not know just how it hadhappened, but he had heard that only a few of those humanadventurers had escaped from the people of Mars with theirlives.

 Zar's thought rambled on in a detached way that was oddfor him. Perhaps Nature had a plan that she used over andover again. On Terra the great reptiles of the Mesozoic periodhad died out to be replaced by mammals. Men and the Chil­dren of Men had become supreme at last.

 Succession after succession, according to some well-or­dered scheme? In the desolate quiet of falling snow, temperedonly by the muted murmur of the frigid wind, it was easy forZar to fall prey to such a concept, particularly since he washeld powerless in the grasp of the invaders. Tendrils, thorny, stinging tendrils, which must have been grown purposely to receive an Itorloo captive! Zar could realize, then, a little ofthe fantastic introspective sense which gave these beings a direct contact with the physical secrets of their forms. Andin consequence a knowledge of chemistry and biology that was clearer than anything that an Itorloo might be expectedto attain along similar lines.

 Zar wanted to shriek, but his awe and his weakness stran­gled him beyond more than the utterance of a gasping sigh.

 Then the mighty spirit of his kind reasserted itself. Zarwas aware that most probably he himself would presentlyperish; but the Itorloo, his kind, his real concern, could neverlose! Not with all the mighty forces at their command! Tosuppose that they could be defeated by the sluggish intruderswas against reason! In a matter of months-when the prep­arations for the vast purification process had been com­pleted-Earth would be free of those intruders once more,Zar's brown face contracted into a leer of defiance that hada touch of real greatness. Brutality, force, cunning, and thecapacity for quick action-those were the tools of the Itorloo,but they had strength too. Zar was no fool-no short-sightedindividual who leaps to hasty, optimistic conclusions-but ina contest between the Itorloo and the invaders there couldbe but a single outcome by any standard within Zar's reach.

 In this belief, he was comforted, and his luck, presently,after long hours of suffering, seemed far better than he had

 any reason to hope for. The hard, thorny tendrils unques­tionably were relaxing from about him a very little. He couldnot guess why, and in consequence he suspected subtletreachery, But he could find no reason to suppose that some hidden motive was responsible.

 All his avid energies were concentrated, now, on escape.He concluded that perhaps the cold had forced the slightvegetable relaxation, and he proceeded to make the best pos­sible use of his chances. Some time daring the night hisstraining hands reached the hilt of his knife. Not long after­ward Zar clutched his blast gun.

 Zar limped stiffly to his flier, cursing luridly; while behindhim in the gorge, red firelight flickered, and wisps of smokelanced into the frigid wind.

 Zar wished that Kaw was somewhere in sight, to receivehis wrath too. The ebon rascal had vanished.

 Winter deepened during succeeding days. The Itorloo intheir buried cities felt none of its rigors, however.

 Zar had submitted to a physical examination after hisweird adventure, and had been pronounced fit. And of all hispeople he seemed to toil the most conscientiously.

 The Venus project. Soon the Children of Men would bemasters of that youthful, sunward planet. The green plainsand jungles, and the blue skies of Venus. Soon! Soon! Soon!Zar was full of dreams of adventure and brutal pleasure.

 Periodically the rocket craft of the Itorloo sallied forthfrom the cities to stamp out the fresh growth of the invaders.The oxygen-impregnated substance of their forms flamed indesert gullies, and along the rims of shrivelled salt seas,where the spore plants were trying to renew their civilization.Most of them did not get a chance, even, to approach matu­rity. But because even one mature survivor could pollute the Earth with billions of spores, impossible to destroy otherwise,the purification process must be carried through.

 Spring again, and then midsummer. The spaceships werealmost ready to leap Venus-ward on the great adventure.The generators, meant to spread life-destroying emanationsover the crust and atmosphere above, stood finished andgleaming in the white-domed caverns that housed them.

 Zar looked at the magnificent, glittering array in the spaceship construction chamber of his native communitywith pride and satisfaction.

 "Tomorrow," he said to a companion, a fierce light in hiseyes.

 The othgr nodded, the white glare of the atomic weldingfurnaces lighting up his features, and betraying there a wolf-ish grin of pleasure.

 "Tomorrow," Zar repeated, an odd sort of vagueness in histone.

 5    

 Kaw had long ago rejoined his tribe. Life, during those recent months, had been little different from what had been usual in the crow clans for thousands of years. For purposesof safety, Kaw had led his flock into a desert fastness where patrolling Itorloo fliers were seldom seen, and where only afew spore plants had yet appeared.

 His first intimation that all was not well was a hauntingfeeling of unease, which came upon him quite suddenly one day just before noon. His body burned and prickled uncom­fortably, and he felt restless. Other than these dim evidences,there was nothing to betray the invisible hand of death.

 Emanations, originating in the generators of the Itorloo,far underground. But Kaw was no physicist. He knew onlythat he and his fellows were vaguely disturbed.

 With Teka, his mate, and several of their companions, hesoared high into the sky. There, for a time, he felt better. Faroverhead, near the Sun's bright disc, he glimpsed the incan­descent streamers of Itorloo vessels, distant in space. Andpreseritly, with little attention, he saw those vessels-therewere five in the group-turn back toward Earth.

 The advance in the strength of the deadly emanations wasslow. Vast masses of rock, covering the upper crust of the planet in a thin shell, had to develop a kind of resonance tothem before they could reach their maximum power.

 By nightfall Kaw felt only slightly more uncomfortable. By the following dawn, however, he was definitely droopyand listless. The gradual, worldwide process of purificationadvanced, directed at the invaders, but promising destructionto the less favored native life of Earth, too.

 Four days. Huddled in a pathetic group in a ruined struc­ture of antiquity, Kaw's tribe waited. Their features weredull and ruffled, and they shivered as if with cold. Some ofthem uttered low, sleepy twitterings of anguish.

 That evening Kaw watched the pale Moon rise from abattered window embrasure. He was too weak to stand, butrested slumped forward on his breast. His eyes were rheumy

 and heavy-lidded, but they still held a savage glitter of de­fiance, which perhaps would burn in them even after theyhad ceased to live and see. And Raw's clouded mind couldstill hazard a guess as to the identity of the author of hiswoes. Brave but impotent, he could still scream a hoarsechallenge inspired by a courage as deathless as the ages."Itorloo! Itorloo!- "

 Some time before the first group of spaceships, headed forVenus, had been recalled to Earth, Zar, assigned to the secondgroup, which had not yet entered the launching tubes, had collapsed against his instrument panels.

 His affliction had come with a suddenness that was utterlyabrupt. Recovering from his swoon, he found himself lyingon a narrow pallet in the hospital quarters of the city. Hisvision was swimming and fogged, and he felt hot and cold byturns.

 But he could see the silvery tunic'd figure of the physicianstanding close to him.

 "What is wrong?" he stammered. "What is it that hashappened to me? A short time ago I was well!"

 "Much is wrong," the physician returned quietly. "Andyou have not really been well for a long time. A germ dis­ease-a type of thing which we thought our sanitation hadstamped out millenniums ago-has been ravaging your brain and nerves for months! Only its insidiousness prevented itfrom being discovered earlier. During its incipient stages thepoisons of it seem actually to stimulate mental and physical activity, giving a treacherous impression of robust health.And we know, certainly, that this disease is extremely con­tagious. It does not reveal itself easily, but I and others haveexamined many apparently healthy individuals with greatcare. In each there is the telltale evidence that the diseaseis not only present, but far advanced. Hundreds have col­lapsed as you have. More, surely, will follow. It is my beliefthat the entire race has been afflicted. And the plague hasa fatal look. Panic has broken out. There is a threatenedfailure of power and food supplies. Perhaps an antitoxin can be found-but there is so little time."

 Half delirious, Zar could still grasp the meaning of the physician's words, and could understand the origin of thedisease.

 He began to mutter with seeming incoherence: "The

 changing Earth. Reptiles. Mammals. Men-Succession

 Nature-"

 His voice took on a fiercer tone. "Fight, Itorloo!" hescreamed. "Fight!"

 Cruel he was, as were all his people, but he had pluck.Suddenly he arose to a sitting posture on his bed His eyesflamed. If his act represented the final dramatic gesture ofall the hoary race of man, still it was magnificent. Nor were any tears to be shed, for extinction meant only a task com­pleted.

 "Fight!" he shouted again, as if addressing a limitlessmultitude. "Fight, Itorloo! Study! Learn! Work! It is the onlyhope! Keep power flowing in the purification generators ifyou can. The old records of the explorations of Mars-thoseplants! Their approach to problems is different from our own.No metals. No machines as we know them. But in hiddencompartments in their tissues it was easy for them to createthe bacteria of death! Theyinvented those bacteria, and grewthem, breaking them away from their own substance. Someway, when I was a captive, I was infected. The thorns on thetendrils that held me! I was the carrier! Find an antitoxinto fight the plague, Itorloo! Work- "

 6

 One year. Two. Three. The sunshine was brilliant, the air almost warm. The rusty desert hills in the distance were the same. Ancient ruins brooded in the stillness, as they had forso long. On the slopes ant hordes were busy. Rodent coloniesshowed similar evidence of population. In the sky, Kaw andhis companions wheeled and turned lazily.

 This was the same Earth, with several changes. Bulbous,spiny things peopled the gorges, and were probing out acrossthe desert, slowly building-with hollow, connecting roots-the water pipes of a tremendous irrigation system. Like thatof Mars, and like that of Ganymede, moon of Jupiter, informer ages. Saline remnants of seas and polar snows couldalike provide the needed moisture.

 Thoughts traveled swiftly along connecting roots. Littleorbs and wicked spines gleamed. The invaders were at peacenow. Only the Itorloo could have threatened their massedmight. There was no danger in the lesser native life.

 The subterranean cities of the former rulers of Earth wereinhabited only by corpses and by intruding ants, who, like

 the other fauna of this planet, were immune to the plague,which had been directed and designed for the Itorloo alone.The last race of men was now one with the reptiles of theMesozoic. But all was peace.

 Kaw screamed put his contentment in loud, lazy cries, ashe circled in the clear air. He seldom thought of the past anymore. If the new masters were not truly benignant, they wereindifferent. They left him alone. Kaw, creature of Earth'sdusk, was happy.

 The great surface dome where Zar, the Itorloo, had oncekept watch, was already surrounded by crowded growths.The plants had achieved a great, but an empty, victory. ForEarth was a dying planet. Within the dome an astronomicaltelescope gleamed dully, collecting dust. Often Zar had di­rected it toward Venus, goal of shattered Itorloo dreams.

 But who knew? Out of the void to Ganymede the invadershad come. Across space to Mars. Riding light to Earth. Per­haps when the time came-when Venus was growingold-

 Dark BenedictionWALTER M. MILLER, JR,

 Always fearful of being set upon during the night, Paul slept uneasily despite his weariness from the long trek southward.When dawn broke, he rolled out of his blankets and foundhimself still stiff with fatigue. He kicked dirt over the re­mains of the campfire and breakfasted on a tough forequarterof cold boiled rabbit which he washed down with a swallowof earthy-tasting ditchwater. Then he buckled the cartridge belt about his waist, leaped the ditch, and climbed the em­bankment to the trafficless four-lane highway whose pave­ment was scattered with blown leaves and unsightly debrisdropped by a long-departed throng of refugees whose onlywish had been to escape from one another. Paul, with char-

 acteristic independence, had decided to go where the crowds had been the thickest-to the cities-on the theory that theywould now be deserted, and therefore noncontagious.

 The fog lay heavy over the silent land, and for a momenthe paused groping for cognizance of direction. Then he sawthe stalled car on the opposite shoulder of the road-a latemodel convertible, but rusted, flat-tired, with last.year's li­cense plates, and most certainly out of fuel. It obviously hadbeen deserted by its owner during the exodus, and he trustedin its northward heading as he would have trusted the read­ing of a compass. He turned right and moved south on theempty highway. Somewhere just ahead in the gray vapor laythe outskirts of Houston. He had seen the high skyline beforethe setting of yesterday's sun, and knew that his journeywould soon be drawing toa close.

 Occasionally he passeda deserted cottage or a burned-outroadside tavern, but he did not pause to scrounge for food.The exodus would have stripped such buildings clean. Pick­ings should be better in the heart of the metropolitan area,he thought-where the hysteria had swept humanity awayquickly.

 Suddenly Paul froze on the highway, listening to the fog.Footsteps in the distance-footsteps and a voice singing anabsent-minded ditty to itself. No other sounds penetrated the sepulchral silence which once had growled with the life of agreat city. Anxiety caught him with clammy hands. An old man's voice it was, crackling and tuneless. Paul groped forhis holster and brought out the revolver he had taken froma deserted police station.

 "Stop where you are, dermie!" he bellowed at the fog. "I'marmed."

 The footsteps and the singing stopped. Paul strained hiseyes to penetrate the swirling mist-shroud. After a moment, the oldster answered: "Sure foggy, ain't it, sonny? Can't seeya. Better come a little closer. I ain't no dermie."

 Loathing choked in Paul's throat. "The hell you're not.Nobody else'd be crazy enough to sing. Get off the road! I'mgoing south, and if I see you I'll shoot. Now move!"

 "Sure, sonny. I'll move. But Fm no dermie. I was just singing to keep myself company. I'm past caring about theplague. I'm heading north, where there's people, and if some dermie hears me a'singing... why, I'll tell him t'come jine in.What's the good o' being healthy if yer alone?"

 While the old man spoke, Paul heard his sloshing across

 the ditch and climbing through the brush. Doubt assailed him. Maybe the old crank wasn't a dermie. An ordinaryplague victim would have whimpered and pleaded for sat­isfaction of his strange craving-the !aying-on of hands, the feel of healthy skin beneath moist gray palms. Nevertheless,Paul meant to take no chances with the oldster.

 "Stay back in the brush while I walk past!" he called.

 '"Okay, sonny. You go right by, I ain't gonna touch you. You aiming to scrounge in Houston?"

 Paul began to advance. "Yeah, I figure people got out sofast that they must have left plenty of canned goods and stuffbehind."

 "Mmmm, there's a mite here and there," said the cracked voice in a tone that implied understatement. "Course, now,you ain't the first to figure that way, y'know."

 Paul slacked his pace, frowning. "You mean...a lot ofpeople are coming back?"

 "Mmmm, no-not a lot. But you'll bump into people every­day or two. Ain't my kind o' folks. Rough characters, mostly-don't take chances, either. They'll shoot first, then look to see if you was a dermie. Don't never come busting out of a door­way without taking a peek at the street first. And if twopeople come around a corner in opposite directions, some­body's gonna die. The few that's there is trigger happy. Just thought I'd warn ya."" "Thanks."

 "D'mention it. Been good t'hear a body's voice again, thoI can't see ye."

 Paul moved on until he was fifty paces past the voice.Then he stopped and turned. "Okay, you can get back on theroad now. Start walking north. Scuff your feet until you'reout of earshot."

 "Taking no chances, are ye?" said the old man as he wadedthe ditch. "All right, sonny." The sound of his footsteps hes­itated on the pavement. "A word of advice-your bestscrounging'll be ar&und the warehouses. Most of the storesare picked clean. Good luck!"

 Paul stood listening to the shuffling feet recede northward.When they became inaudible, he turned to continue his jour­ney. The meeting had depressed him, reminded him of theanimal-level to which he and others like him had sunk. Theoldster was obviously healthy; but Paul had been chased by-three dermies in as many days. And the thought of being

 trapped by a band of them in the fog left him unnerved. Oncehe had seen a pair of the grinning, maddened compulsivesseize a screaming young child while each of them took turnscaressing the youngster's arms and face with the gray and slippery hands that spelled certain contraction of the dis­ease-if disease it was. The dark pall of neuroderm was un­like any illness that Earth had ever seen.

 The victim became the eager ally of the sickness that gripped him. Caught in its demoniac madness, the strickenhuman searched hungrily for healthy comrades, then set upon them with no other purpose than to paw at the cleanskin and praise the virtues of the blind compulsion that drovehim to do so. One touch, and infection was insured. It wasas if a third of humanity had become night-prowling maniacs,lurking in the shadows to seize the unwary, working in bands to trap the unarmed wanderer. And two-thirds of humanity found itself fleeing in horror from the mania, seeking thefrigid northern climates where, according to rumor, the dis­ease was less infectious. The normal functioning of civili­zation had been dropped like a hot potato within six monthsafter the first alarm. When the man at the next lathe might be hiding gray discolorations beneath his shirt, industrialsociety was no place for humanity.

 Rumor connected the onslaught of the plague with an un-predicted swarm of meteorites which had brightened the skyone October evening two weeks before the first case was dis­covered. The first case was, in fact, a machinist who hadfound one of the celestial cannon balls, handled it, weighed it, estimated its volume by fluid-displacement, then cut intoit on his lathe because its low density suggested that it mightbe hollow. He claimed to have found a pocket of frozen jelly,still rigid from deep space, although the outer shell had beenheated white-hot by atmospheric friction. He said he let the jelly thaw, then fed it to his cat because it had an unpleasant fishy odor. Shortly thereafter, the cat disappeared.

 Other meteorites had been discovered and similarlytreated by- university staffs before there was any reason toblame them for the plague. Paul, who had been an engi­neering student at Texas U at the time of the incident, had heard it said that the missiles were purposefully manufac­tured by parties unknown, that the jelly contained micro­organisms which under the microscope suggested a cross be­tween a sperm-cell (because ofa similar tail) and a Pucini

 Corpuscle (because of a marked resemblance to nerve tissuein subcellular detail).

 When the meteorites were connected with the new andmushrooming disease, some people started a panic by theo­rizing that the meteor-swarm was a pre-invasion artilleryattack by some space-horde lurking beyond telescope range,and waiting for their biological bombardment to wreck civ­ilization before they moved in upon Earth. The government had immediately labeled all investigations "top-secret," andPaul had heard no news since the initial speculations. Indeed,the government might have explained the whole thing andproclaimed it to the country for all he knew. One thing wascertain: the country had not heard. It no longer possessedchannels of communication.

 Paul thought that if any such invaders were coming, they would have already arrived-months ago. Civilization wasnot truly wrecked; it had simply been discarded daring thecrazed flight of the individual away from the herd. Industrylay idle and unmanned, but still intact. Man was fleeing from Man. Fear had destroyed the integration of his society, and had left him powerless before any hypothetical invaders. Earth was ripe for plucking, but it remained unplucked and withering. Paul, therefore, discarded the invasion hypothe­sis, and searched for nothing new to replace it. He acceptedthe fact of his own existence in the midst of chaos, and soughtto protect that existence as best he couid. It proved to be afull-time job, with no spare time for theorizing.

 Life was a rabbit scurrying over a hill. Life was a warmblanket, and a secluded sleeping place. Life was ditchwater, and an unbloated can of corned beef, and a suit of clothinglooted from a deserted cottage. Life, above allelse, was anavoidance of other human beings. For no dermie had the grace to cry "unclean!" to the unsuspecting. If the dermie'sdiscolorations were still in the concealable stage, then con­ cealed they would be, while the lost creature deliberatelysought to infect his wife, his children, his friends-whoever would not protest an idle touch of the hand. When the gray-ness touched the face the backs of the hands, the creaturebecame a feverish night wanderer, subject to strange hal­ lucinations and delusions and desires.

 The fog began to part toward midmorning as Paul drovedeeper into the outskirts of Houston. The highway, was be­coming a commercial subcenter, lined with businesses andsmall shops. The sidewalks were showered with broken glass

 from windows kicked in by looters. Paul kept to the centerof the deserted street, listening and watching cautiously forsigns of life. The distant barking of a dog was the only sound in the once-growing metropolis. A flight of sparrows wingeddown the street, then darted in through a broken window toan inside nesting place.

 He searcheda small grocery store, looking for a snack,but the shelves were bare. The thoroughfare had served asa main avenue of escape, and the fugitives had looted itthoroughly to obtain provisions. He turned onto a side street,then after several blocks turned again to parallel the high­way, moving through an old residential section. Many houseshad been left open, but few had been looted. He entered oneold frame mansion and found a can of tomatoes in the kitchen.He opened it and sipped the tender delicacy from the con­tainer, while curiosity sent him prowling through the rooms.

 He wandered up the first flight of stairs, then halted withone foot on the landing. A body lay sprawled across the secondflight-the body of a young man, dead quite a while. A well-rusted pistol had fallen from his hand. Paul dropped thetomatoes and bolted for the street. Suicide was a commonrecourse, when a man learned that he had been touched.

 After two blocks, Paul stopped running. He sat pantingon a fire hydrant and chided himself for being overly cau­tious. The man had been dead for months; and infection wasachieved only through contact. Nevertheless, his scalp wagstill tingling. When he had rested briefly, he continued hisplodding course toward the heart of the city. Toward noon,he saw another human being.

 The man was standing on the loading dock of a warehouse,apparently enjoying the sunlight that came with the dis­solving of the fog. He was slowly and solemnly spooning thecontents of a can into a red-lipped mouth while his beard bobbled with appreciative chewing. Suddenly he saw Paul who had stopped in the center of the street with his hand onthe butt of his pistol. The man backed away, tossed the canaside, and sprinted the length of the platform. He boundedoff the end, snatched a bicycle away from the wall, and ped­aled quickly out of sight while he bleated shrill blasts ona police whistle clenched between his teeth.

 Paul trotted to the corner, but the man had made anotherturn. His whistle continued bleating. A signal? A dermie summons to a touching orgy? Paul stood still while he tried

 to overcome an urge to break into panicked flight. After a minute, the clamor ceased; but the silence was ominous.

 If a party of cyclists moved in, he could not escape on foot.He darted toward the nearest warehouse, seeking a place tohide. Inside, he climbed a stack of boxes to a horizontal girder,kicked the stack to topple it, and stretched out belly-downon the steel I-beam to command a clear shot at the entrances.He lay for an hour, waiting quietly for searchers. None came.At last he slid down a vertical support and returned to the loading platform. The street was empty and silent. Withweapon ready, he continued his journey. He passed the next intersection without mishap.

 Halfway up the block, a calm voice drawled a commandfrom behind him: "Drop the gun, dermie. Get your handsbehind your head."

 He halted, motionless. No plague victim would hurl the dermie-charge at another. He dropped the pistol and turned slowly. Three men with drawn revolvers were clamberingfrom the back of a stalled truck. They were all bearded, woreblue jeans, blue neckerchiefs, and green woolen shirts. Hesuddenly recalled that the man on the loading platform hadbeen similarly dressed. A uniform?

 "Turn around again!" barked the speaker.

 Paul turned, realizing that the men were probably somesort of self-appointed quarantine patrol. Tow ropes suddenly skidded out from behind and came to a stop near his feet on the pavement-a pair of lariat loops.

 "One foot in each loop, dermie!" the speaker snapped.

 When Paul obeyed, the ropes were jerked taut about hisankles, and two of the men trotted out to the sides, stoodthirty feet apart, and pulled his legs out into a wide straddle.He quickly saw that any movement would cost him his bal­ance.

 "Strip to the skin."

 "I'm no dermie," Paul protested as he unbuttoned his shirt.

 "We'll see for ourselves, Joe," grunted the leader as hemoved around to the front. "Get the top off first. If your chest's okay, we'll let your feet go."

 When Paul had undressed, the leader walked around him

 slowly, making him spread his fingers and display the soles

 of his feet. He stood shivering and angry in the chilly winter

 air while the men satisfied themselves that he wore no gray

 patches of neuroderm.

 "You're all right, I guess," the speaker admitted; then as

 Paul stooped to recover his clothing, the man growled, "Notthose! Jim, get him a probie outfit."

 Paul caught a bundle of clean clothing, tossed to him fromthe back of the truck. There were jeans, a woolen shirt, and a kerchief, but the shirt and kerchief were red. He shot aninquiring glance at the leader, while he climbed into thewelcome change.

 "All newcomers are ontwo weeks probation," the manexplained. "If you decide to stay in Houston, you'll get an­other exam next time the uniform code changes. Then youcan join our outfit, if you don't show up with the plague. Infact, you'll have to join if you stay."

 "What is the outfit?" Paul asked suspiciously.

 "It just started. Schoolteacher name of Georgelle organizedit. We aim to keep dermies out. There's about six hundredof us now. We guard the downtown area, but soon as there's enough of us we'll move out to take in more territory. Set uproad blocks and all that. You're welcome, soon as we're sureyou're clean.., and can take orders."

 "Whose orders?"

 "Georgelle's. We got no room for goof-offs, and no time forargument. Anybody don't like the setup, he's welcome to getout, Jim here'll give you a leaflet on the. rules. Better readit before you go anywhere. If you don't, you might make awrong move. Make a wrong move, and you catch a bullet."

 The man called Jim interrupted, "Reckon you better calloff the other patrols, Digger?" he said respectfully to theleader.

 Digger nodded curtly and turned to blow three short blastsand a long with his whistle. An answering short-long-shortcame from several blocks away. Other posts followed suit.Paul realized that he had been surrounded by a ring of similarambushes.

 "Jim, take him to the nearest water barrel, and see thathe shaves," Digger ordered, then: "What's your name, probie?Also your job, if you had one."

 "Paul Harris Oberlin. I was a mechanical engineering stu­dent when the plague struck. Part-time garage mechanicwhile I was in school."

 Digger nodded and jotted down the information on ascratchpad. "Good, I'll turn your name in to the registrar. Georgelle says to watch for college men. You might get agood assignment, later. Report to the Esperson Building onthe seventeenth. That's inspection day. If you don't show up,

 we'll come looking for you. All loose probies'll get shot. NowJim here's gonna see to it that you shave. Don't shave againuntil your two-weeker. That way, we can estimate how long you been in town-by looking at your beard. We got other ways that you don't need to know about. Georgette's got asystem worked out for everything, so don't try any tricks,"

 "Tell me, what do you do with dermies?"

 Digger grinned at his men. "You'll find out, probie."

 Paul was led to a rain barrel, given a basin, razor, and saapv He-scraped-his-face cleanwhile-Jim sat at a safe dis-tance, munching a quid of tobacco and watching the operationwith tired boredom. The other men had gone,

 "May I have my pistol back?"

 "Uh-uh! Read the rules. No weapons for probies,"

 "Suppose I bump into a dermie?"

 "Find yourself a whistle and toot a bunch of short blasts. Then run like hell. We'll take care of the dermies. Read therules."

 "Can I scrounge wherever 1 want to?''

 "Probies have their own assigned areas. There's a map inthe rules."

 "Who wrote the rules, anyhow?"

 "Jeezis!" the guard grunted disgustedly. "Read 'emandfind out."

 When Paul finished shaving, Jim stood up, stretched, thenbounded off the platform and picked up his bicycle.

 "Where do I go from here?" Paul called.

 The man gave him a contemptuous snort, mounted the bike, and pedaled leisurely away. Paul gathered that he wasto read the rules. He sat down beside the rain barrel and began studying the mimeographed leaflet.

 Everything was cut and dried. As a probie, he was confinedto an area six blocks square near the heart of the city. Oncehe entered it, a blue mark would be stamped on his forehead.At the two-week inspection, the indelible brand would be removed with a special solution. If a branded probie were caught outside his area, he would be forcibly escorted fromthe city. He was warned against attempting to impersonate permanent personnel, because a system of codes and pass­words would ensnare him. One full page of the leaflet wasdevoted to propaganda. Houston was to become a "Bulwarkof health in a stricken world, and the leader of a gloriousrecovery." The paper was signed by Dr. Georgelle, who hadgiven himself the title of Director.

 The pamphlet left Paul with a vague uneasiness. The uni­forms-they reminded him of neighborhood boys' gangs inthe slums, wearing special sweaters and uttering secret pass­words, whipping intruders and amputating the tails of straycats in darkened garages. And, in another way, it made him think of frustrated little people, gathering at night in brownshirts around a bonfire to sing theHorst Wessel Lied and listen to grandiose oratory about glorious destinies.Theirstray eats had been an unfavored race.

 Of course, the dermies were not merely harmless alleyprowlers. They were a real menace. And maybe Georgelle'smethods were the-orily ones effective.

 While Paul sat with the pamphlet on the platform, he hadbeen gazing absently at the stalled truck from which the menhad emerged. Suddenly it broke upon his consciousness thatit was a diesel. He bounded off the platform, and went to check its fuel tank, which had been left uncapped.

 He knew that it was useless to search for gasoline, but diesel fuel was another matter. The exodus had drained allexisting supplies of high octane fuel for the escaping motor­cade, but the evacuation had been too hasty and too fear-crazed to worry with out-of-the-ordinary methods. He sniffedthe tank. It smelled faintly of gasoline. Some unknowingfugitive had evidently filled it with ordinary fuel, which hadlater evaporated. But if the cylinders had not been damagedby the trial, the truck might be useful. He checked the enginebriefly, and decided that it had not been tried at all. Thestarting battery had been removed.

 He walked across the street and looked back at the ware-house. It bore the sign of a trucking firm. He walked aroundthe block, eyeing the streets cautiously for other patrolmen.There was a fueling platform on the opposite side of the block.A fresh splash of oil on the concrete told him that Georgelle's crew was using the fuel for some purpose-possibly for heat­ing or cooking. He entered the building and found a repairshop, with several dismantled engines lying about. Therewas a rack of batteries in the corner, but a screwdriver placedacross the terminals brought only a weak spark.

 The chargers, of course, drew power from the city's electricservice, which was dead. After giving the problem some thought, Paul connected five of the batteries in series, thenplaced a sixth across the total voltage, so that it would collect the charge that the others lost. Then he went to carry buckets

 of fuel from the pumps to the truck. When the tank was filled; he hoisted each end of the truck with a roll-under jack and inflated the tires with a harohpump. It was a long and la-borious job.

 Twilight was gathering by the time he was ready to try it.Several times during the afternoon, he had been forced to hide from cyclists who wandered past, lest they send him on to the probie area and use the truck for their own purposes.Evidently they had long since decided that automotive trans-portation was a thing of the past.

 A series of short whistle-blasts came to his ears just as he was climbing into the cab. The signals were several blocksaway, but some of the answering bleats were closer. Evi­dently another newcomer, he thought. Most new arrivals from the north would pass through the same area on their way downtown. He entered the cab, closed the door softly,and ducked low behind the dashboard as three cyclists racedacross the intersection just ahead.

 Paul settled down to wait for the all-clear. It came afterabout ten minutes. Apparently the newcomer had tried torun instead of hiding. When the cyclists returned, they were moving leisurely, and laughing among themselves. Aftertheyhad passed the intersection, Paul stole quietly out of thecab and moved along the wall to the corner, to assure himself that all the patrolmen had gone. But the sound of shrill plead­ing came to his ears.

 At the end of the building, he clung close to the wall andrisked a glance" around the corner, A block away, the nude-figure of a girl was struggling between taut ropes held bygreen-shirted guards. She was apretty girl, with a tousledmop of chestnut hair and clean white limbs-clean except for her forearms, which appeared dipped in dark stain. Then hejaw the dark irregular splotch across her flank, like a splash of ink not quite washed clean. She was adermie.

 Paul ducked close to the ground so that his face was hiddenby a clump of grassat the corner. A man-the leader of the-group-had left the girl, and was advancing up the street toward Paul, who prepared to roll under the building out ofsight. But in the middle of the block, the man stopped. Helifted a manhole cover in the pavement, then went back forthe girl's clothing, which he dragged at the end of a fishingpole with a wire hook at its tip. He dropped the clothing, one piece at a time, into the manhole. A cloud of white dust arose

 from it, and the man stepped back to avoid the dust. Quick­lime, Paul guessed.

 Then the leader cupped his hands to his mouth and called back to the others. "Okay, drag her on up here!" He drew hisrevolver and waited while they tugged the struggling girl toward the manhole.

 Paul felt suddenly ill. He had seen dermies shot in self-defense by fugitives from their deathly gray hands, but here was cold and efficient elimination. Here was Dachau and Buchenwald and the nameless camps of Siberia. He turnedand bolted for the truck.

 The sound of its engine starting brought a halt to thedisposal of the pest-girl. The leader appeared at the inter­section and stared uncertainly at the truck, as Paul nosed itaway from the building. He fidgeted with his revolver doubt­ fully, and called something over his shoulder to the others. Then he began walking out into the street and signaling for the truck to stop. Paul let it crawl slowly ahead, and leaned out the window to eye the man questioningly.

 "How the hell you get that started?" the leader calledexcitedly. He was still holding the pistol, but it dangled al­most unnoticed in his hand. Paul suddenly fed fuel to thediesel and swerved sharply toward the surprised guardsman.

 The leader yelped and dived for safety, but the fendercaught his hips, spun him off balance, and smashed him downagainst the pavement. As the truck thundered around thecorner toward the girl and her captors, he glanced in the mirror to see the hurt man weakly trying to crawl out of the street. Paul was certain that he was not mortally wounded.

 As the truck lumbered on, the girl threw herself pronebefore it, since the ropes prevented any escape. Paul swervederratically, sending the girl's captors scurrying for the alley. Then he aimed the wheels to straddle her body. She glanced up, screamed, then hugged the pavement as the behemoththundered overhead. A bullet plowed a furrow across the hood. Paul ducked low in the seat and jammed the brake pedal down, as soon as he thought she was clear.

 There were several shots, but apparently they were shoot­ing at the girl. Paul counted three seconds, then gunned theengine again. If she hadn't climbed aboard, it was just tough luck, he thought grimly. He shouldn't have tried to save heranyway. But continued shooting told him that she had man­aged to get inside. The trailer was heaped with clothing, and he trusted the mound of material to halt the barrage of bul-

 lets. He heard the explosion of a blowout as he swung aroundthe next corner, and the trailer lurched dangerously. Itswayed from side to side as he gathered speed down the wideand trafficless avenue. But the truck had double wheels, andsoon the dangerous lurching ceased.

 He roared on through the metropolitan area, staying onthe same street and gathering speed. An occasional scroungeror cyclist stopped to stare, but they seemed too surprised toact. And they could not have known what had transpired afew blocks away.

 Paul could not stop to see if he had a passenger, or if shewas still alive. She was more dangerous than the gunmen.Any gratitude she might feel toward her rescuer would bequickly buried beneath her craving to spread the disease. Hewished fervently that he had let the patrolmen kill her. Now he was faced with the problem of getting rid of her. He no­ticed, however, that mirrors were mounted on both sides of the cab. If he stopped the truck, and if she climbed out, hecould see, and move away again before she had a chance to approach him. But he decided to wait until they were out of the city.

 Soon he saw a highway marker, then a sign that said"Galveston-58 miles." He bore ahead, thinking that perhapsthe island-city would provide good scrounging, without the regimentation of Doctor Georgelle's efficient system with itsplan for "glorious recovery."

 Twenty miles beyond the city limits, he stopped the truck, let the engine idle, and waited for his passenger to climb out.He locked the doors and laid a jack-handle across the seatas an added precaution. Nothing happened. He rolled downthe window and shouted toward the rear.

 "All passengers off the bus! Last stop! Everybody out!"

 Still the girl did not appear. Then he heard something- a light tap from the trailer, and a murmur... or a moan. She was there all right. He called again, but she made no re­sponse. It was nearly dark outside.

 At last he seized the jack-handle, opened the door, andstepped out of the cab. Wary of a trick, he skirted wide aroundthe trailer and approached it from the rear. One door wasclosed, while the other swung free. He stopped a few yards away and peered inside. At first he saw nothing.

 "Get out, but keep away or I'll kill you,"

 Then he saw her move. She was sitting on the floor, lean­ing back against a heap of clothing, a dozen feet from the

 entrance. He stepped forward cautiously and flung open theother door. She turned her head to look at him peculiarly,but said nothing. He could see that she had donned some of the clothing, but one trouser-leg was rolled up, and she hadtied a rag tightly about her ankle.

 "Are you hurt?"

 She nodded. "Bullet..." She rolled her head dizzily andmoaned.

 Paul went back to the cab to search for a first aid kit. He found one, together with a flashlight and spare batteries in the glove compartment. He made certain that the ceils were not corroded and that the light would burn feebly. Then hereturned to the trailer, chiding himself for a prize fool. Asensible human would haul the dermie "out at the end of atowing chain and leave her sitting by the side of the road.

 "If you try to touch me, I'll brain you!" he warned, as heclambered into the trailer.

 She looked up again "Would you feel . . . like enjoyinganything... if you were bleeding like this?" she mutteredweakly. The flashlight beam caught the glitter of pam in hereyes, and accentuated the pallor of her small face. She wasa pretty girl-scarcely older than twenty-but Paul was inno mood to appreciate pretty women, especially dermies.

 "So that's how you think of it, eh? Enjoying yourself!"

 She said nothing. She dropped her forehead against herknee and rolled it slowly.

 "Where are you hit? Just the foot?"

 "Ankle..."

 "All right, take the rag off. Let's see."

 "The wound's in back."

 "All right, lie down on your stomach, and keep your handsunder your head."

 She stretched out weakly, and he shone the light over herleg, to make certain its skin was clear of neuroderm. Thenhe looked at the ankle, and said nothing for a time. The bullethad missed the joint, but had neatly severed the Achilles' tendon just above the heel.

 "You're a plucky kid," he grunted, wondering how she hadendured the self-torture of getting the shoe off and clothingherself.

 "It was cold back here-without clothes," she muttered.

 Paul opened the first aid packet and found an envelopeof sulfa powder. Without touching her, he emptied it into the wound, which was beginning to bleed again. There was noth-

 ing else he could do. The tendon had pulled apart and wouldrequire surgical stitching to bring it together until it couldheal. Such attention was out of the question.

 She broke the silence. "I... I'm going to be crippled, aren'tI?"

 "Oh-, not crippled," he heard himself telling her. "If we canget you to a doctor, 'anyway. Tendons can be sutured withwire. He'll probably put your foot in a cast, and you mightget a stiff ankle from it."

 She lay breathing quietly, denying his hopeful words by her silence.

 "Here!" he said. "Here's a gauze pad and some tape. Canyou manage it yourself?"

 She started to sit up. He placed the first aid pack beside her, and backed to the door. She fumbled in the kit, and whimpered while she taped the pad in place.

 "There's a tourniquet in there, too. Use it if the bleeding'sworse."

 She looked up to watch his silhouette against the dark­ening evening sky. "Thanks... thanks a lot, mister. I'm grate­ful. I promise not to touch you. Not if you don't want me to."

 Shivering, he moved back to the cab. Why did they alwaysget that insane idea that they were doing their victims afavor by giving them the neural plague?Not if you don't wantme to.He shuddered as he drove away. She felt that waynow, while the pain robbed her of the craving, but later-unless he got rid of her quickly-she would come to feel that she owed it to him-as a favor. The disease perpetuated itselfby arousing such strange delusions in its bearer. The micro­organisms' methods of survival were indeed highly special­ized. Paul felt certain that such animalcules had not evolvedon Earth.

 A light gleamed here and there along the Alvin-Galveston highway-oil lamps, shining from lonely cottages whose oc­cupants had not felt the pressing urgency of the crowded city.But he had no doubt that to approach one of the farmhouseswould bring a rifle bullet as a welcome. Where could he find help for the girl? No one would touch her but another dermie.Perhaps he could unhitch the trailer and leave her in down­town Galveston, with a sign hung on the back-"Woundeddermie inside." The plague victims would care for their own-if they found her.

 He chided himself again for worrying about her. Savingher life didn't make him responsible for her.. .did it? After

 all, if she lived, and the leg. healed, she would only prowl insearch of healthy victims again. She would never be rid of the disease, nor would she ever die of it-so far as anyoneknew. The death rate was high among dermies, but the causewas usually a bullet.

 Paul passed a fork in the highway and knew that thebridge was just ahead. Beyond the channel lay GalvestonIsland, once brightly lit and laughing in its role as seasideresort-now immersed in darkness. The wind whipped at thetruck from the southwest as the road led up onto the widecauseway. A faint glow in the east spoke of a moon about torise. He saw the wide structure of the drawbridge just ahead.

 Suddenly he clutched at the wheel, smashed furiouslydown on the brake, and tugged the emergency back. The tireshowled ahead on the smooth concrete, and the force threw him forward over the wheel. Dusty water swirled far belowwhere the upward folding gates of the drawbridge had oncebeen. He skidded to a stop ten feet from the end. When heclimbed out, the girl was calling weakly from the trailer, buthe walked to the edge and looked over. Someone had donea job with dynamite.

 Why, he wondered. To keep islanders on the island, or tokeep mainlanders off? Had another Doctor Georgelle startedhis own small nation in Galveston? It seemed more likely that the lower island dwellers had done the demolition.

 He looked back at the truck. An experienced truckstermight be able to swing it around all right, but Paul wasdoubtful. Nevertheless, he climbed back in the cab, and triedit. Half an hour later he was hopelessly jammed, with thetrailer twisted aside and the cab wedged near the sheer dropto the water. He gave it up and went back to inspect hisinfected cargo.

 She was asleep, but moaning faintly. He prodded herawake with the jack-handle. "Can you crawl, kid? If you can,come back to the door."

 She nodded, and began dragging herself toward the flash­light. She clenched her lip between her teeth to keep fromwhimpering, but her breath came as a voiced murmur . . .nnnng . . . nnnng . . .

 She sagged weakly when she reached the entrance, andfor a moment he thought she had fainted. Then she looked up. "What next, skipper?" she panted.

 "I...I don't know. Can you let yourself down to the pave­ment?"

 She glanced over the edge and shook her head. "With a rope, maybe. There's one back there someplace. If you'rescared of me, I'll try to crawl and get it."

 "Hands to yourself?" he asked suspiciously; then hethanked the darkness for hiding the heat of shame thatcrawled to his face.

 "I won't..."

 He scrambled into the trailer quickly and brought backthe rope. "I'll climb up on top and let it down in front of you.Grab hold and let yourself down."

 A few minutes later she was sitting on the concrete cause­way looking at the wrecked draw. "Oh!" she muttered as hescrambled down from atop the trailer. "I thought you just wanted to dump me here. We're stuck, huh?"

 "Yeah! We might swim it, but doubt if you could make it."

 "I'd try..." She paused, cocking her head slightly. "There'sa boat moored under the bridge. Right over there."

 "What makes you think so?"

 "Water lapping against wood. Listen." Then she shook herhead. "I forgot. You're not hyper."

 "I'm not what?" Paul listened. The water sounds seemedhomogeneous.

 "Hyperacute. Sharp senses. You know, it's one of the symp­toms."

 He nodded, remembering vaguely that he'd heard some­thing to that effect-but he'd chalked it up as hallucinatoryphenomenon. He walked to the rail and shone his light to­ward the water. The boat was there-tugging its. rope taut from the mooring as the tide swirled about it. The bottomwas still fairly dry, indicating that a recent rower had crossedfrom the island to the mainland.

 "Think you can hold onto the rope if I let you down?" hecalled.

 She gave him a quick glance, then picked up the end shehad previously touched and tied a loop about her waist. Shebegan crawling toward the rail. Paul fought down a crazyurge to pick her up and carry her; plague be damned. But hihad already left himself dangerously open to contagion. Still,he felt the drumming charges of conscience...depart fromme, ye accursed, for I was sick and you visited me not...

 He turned quickly away, and began knotting the end of the rope about the rail. He reminded himself that any saneperson would desert her at once, and swim on to safety. Yet,

 he could not. In the oversized clothing she looked like a child,hurt and helpless, Paul knew the demanding arrogance thatcould possess the wounded-help me, you've got to help me,you damn merciless bastard!...No, don't touch me there,damn you!Too many times, he had heard the sick curse thephysician, and the injured curse the rescuer. Blind aggres­sion, trying to strike back at pain.

 But the girl made no complaint except the involuntaryhurt sounds. She asked nothing, and accepted his aid with a wide-eyed gratitude that left him weak. He thought thatit would be easier to leave her if she would only beg, or plead,or demand.

 "Can you start me swinging a little?" she called as he lowered her toward the water.

 Paul's eyes probed the darkness below, trying to sort theshadows, to make certain which was the boat. He used both hands to feed out the rope, and the light laid on the rail onlyseemed to blind him. She began swinging herself pendulum-wise somewhere beneath him.

 "When I say "ready," let me go!" she shrilled.

 "You're not going to drop!"

 "Have to! Boat's out further. Got to swing for it. I can'tswim, really."

 "But you'll hurt your-"

 "Ready!"

 Paul still clung to the rope. "I'll let you down into thewater and you can hang onto the rope. I'll dive, and then pullyou into the boat."

 "Uh-uh! You'd have to touch me. You don't want that, doyou? Just a second now... one more swing... ready!"

 He let the rope go. With a clatter and a thud, she hit theboat. Three sharp cries of pain clawed at him. Then-muffledsobbing.

 "Are you all right?"

 Sobs. She seemed not to hear him.

 "Jeezis!" He sprinted for the brink of the drawbridge anddived out over the deep channel. How far... down... down.... Icy water stung his body with sharp whips, then openedto embrace him. He fought to the surface and swam towardthe dark shadow of the boat. The sobbing had subsided. Hegrasped the prow and hauled himself dripping from the chan­nel. She was lying curled in the bottom of the boat.

 "Kid...you all right, kid?"

 "Sorry... I'm such a baby," she gasped, and dragged her­self back to the stern.

 Paul founda paddle, but no oars. He cast off and begandigging water toward the other side, but the tide tugged them relentlessly away from the bridge. He gave it up and paddledtoward the distant shore. "You know anything about Gal-veston?" he called-mostly to reassure himself that she wasnot approaching him in the darkness with the death-grayhands,

 ''I used to come here for the summer, I know a little aboutit"

 Paul urged her to talk while he plowed toward the island.Her name was Willie, and she insisted that it was for Willow,not for Wilhelmina. She came from Dallas, and claimed shewas a salesman's daughter who was done in by a traveling farmer. The farmer, she explained, was just a wanderingdermie who had caught her napping by the roadside. He had: stroked her arms until she awoke, then had run away, howl­ing with glee.

 ""That was three weeks ago," said, "If I'd had a gun,I'd have dropped him. Of course, I know better now,"

 Paul shuddered and paddled on. "Why did you headsouth?"

 "I was coming here,"

 "Here? To Galveston?"

 "Uh-huh. I heard someone say that a lot of nuns werecoming to the island. I thought maybe they'd take me in,"

 The moon was high over the lightless city, and the tidehad swept the small boat far east from the bridge by the timePaul's paddle dug into the mud beneath the shallow water.He bounded out and dragged the boat through thin marshgrass onto the shore. Fifty yards away, a ramshackle fishingcottage lay sleeping in the moonlight.

 "Stay here, Willie," he grunted. "I'll find a couple of boardsor something for crutches."

 He rummaged about through a shed behind the cottageand brought back a wheelbarrow. Moaning and laughing atonce, she struggled into it, and he wheeled her to the house,humming a verseof Rickshaw Boy.

 "You're a funny guy, Paul, I'm sorry..." She jiggled hertousled head in the moonlight, as if she disapproved of herown words.

 Paul tried the cottage door, kicked it open, then walked the wheelbarrow up three steps and into a musty room. Hestruck a match, found an oil lamp with a little kerosene, andtit it. Willie caught her breath.

    He looked around. "Company," he grunted.

 The company sat in a fragile rocker with a shawl abouther shoulders and a shotgun between her knees. She hadbeen dead at least a month. The charge of buckshot had sievedthe ceiling and spattered it with bits of gray hair and brownblood.

 "Stay here," he told the girl tonelessly. "I'll try to get adermie somewhere-one who knows how to sew a tendon. Gotany ideas?"

 She was staring with a sick face at the old woman. "Here?With-"

 "She won't bother you," he said as he gently disentangledthe gun from the corpse. He moved to a cupboard and founda box of shells behind an orange teapot. "I may not be back, but I'll send somebody."

 She buried her face in her plague-stained hands, and hestood for a moment watching her shoulders shiver. "Don'tworry... I will send somebody." He stepped to the porcelainsink and pocketed a wafer-thin sliver of dry soap.

 "What's that for?" she muttered, looking up again.

 He thought of a lie, then checked it. "To wash you off ofme," he said truthfully. "I might have got too close. Soapwon't do much good, but I'll feel better," He looked at thecorpse coolly. "Didn't do her much good. Buckshot's the bestantiseptic all right."

 Willie moaned as he went out the door. He heard her cryingas he walked down to the waterfront. She was still cryingwhen he waded back to shore, after a thorough scrubbing. He was sorry he'd spoken cruelly, but it was such a damned reliefto get rid of her...

 With the shotgun cradled on his arm, he began pattingdistance between himself and the sobbing. But the soundworried his ears, even after he realized that he was no longerhearing her.

 He strode a short distance inland past scattered fishingshanties, then took the highway toward the city whose out­skirts he was entering. It would be at least an hour's trek to the end of the island where he would be most likely to en­counter someone with medical training. The hospitals weredown there, the medical school, the most likely place for anycharitable nuns-if Willie's rumor were true. Paul meant tocapture a dermie doctor or nurse and force the amorous-handed maniac at gun-point to go to Willie's aid. Then hewould be done with her. When she stopped hurting, she would

 start craving-and he had no doubt that he would be theobject of her manual affections.

 The bay was wind-chopped in the moonglow, no longer
glittering from the lights along 61st Street. The oleanders
along Broadway were choked up with weeds. Cats         or rabbits

 rustled in the tousled growth that had been acarefully tendedparkway.

 Paul wondered why the plague had chosen Man, and notthe lower animals. It was true that an occasional dog or cow was seen with the plague, but the focus was upon humanity.And the craving to spread the disease was Man-directed, evenin animals. It was as if the neural entity deliberately soughtout the species with the most complex nervous system. Wasits onslaught really connected with the meteorite swarm? Paul believed that it was.

 In the first place, the meteorites not predicted.
They were not a part of the regular cosmic bombardment.
And then there was the strange report that they wereman-
ufacturedprojectiles, teeming with frozen micro-organisms
which came alive upon thawing. In these           days of tumult and

 confusion, however, it was hard. Nevertheless Paul believedit. Neuroderm had no first cousins among Earth diseases.

 What manner of beings, then, had sent such a curse? Po­tential invaders? If so, they were slow in coming. One thingwas generally agreed upon by the scientists: the missiles hadnot been "sent" from another solar planet. Their directionupon entering the atmosphere was wrong. They could con­ceivably have been fired from an interplanetary launching ship, but their velocity was about equal to the theoreticalvelocity which a body would obtain in falling sunward from the near-infinite distance. This seemed to hint the projectiles had come from another star.

 Paul was startled suddenly by the flare of a match from

 the shadow of a building. He stopped dead still in the street.

  A man was leaning against the wall to light a cigarette. He

 flicked the match out, and Paul watched the cigarette-glow

 make an arc as the man waved at him.

 "Nice night, isn't it?" said the voice from the darkness.

 Paul stood exposed in the moonlight, carrying the shotgunat the ready. The voice sounded like that of an adolescent,not fully changed to its adult timbre. If the youth wasn't a dermie, why wasn't he afraid that Paul might be one? Andif he was a derrnie, why wasn't he advancing in the hope thatPaul might be as yet untouched?

 "I said, 'Nice night, isn't it?' Watcha carrying thegun for?Been shooting rabbits?"

 Paul moved a little closer and fumbled for his flashlightThen he threw its beam on the slouching figure in the shad­ows. He saw a young man, perhaps sixteen, reclining againstthe wall. He saw the pearl-gray face that characterized thefinal and permanent stage of neuroderm! He stood frozen to the spot a dozen feet away from the youth, who blinked per­plexedly into the light. The kid was assuming automaticallythat he was another dermie! Paul tried to keep him blindedwhile he played along with the fallacy.

 "Yeah, it's a nice night. You got any idea where I can finda doctor?"

 The boy frowned. "Doctor? You mean you don't know?"

 "Know what? I'm new here "

 "New? Oh..." the boy's nostrils began twitching slightly,as if he were sniffing at the night air. "Well, most of thepriests down at Saint Mary's were missionaries. They're alldoctors. Why? You sick?"

 "No, there's a girl... But never mind. How do I get there?And are any of them dermies?"

 The boy's eyes wandered peculiarly, and his mouth fellopen, as if he had been asked why a circle wasn't square. "You are new, aren't you? They're all dermies, if you wantto call them that. Wh-" Again the nostrils were flaring. He flicked the cigarette away suddenly and inhaled a slow draftof the breeze. "I...I smell a nonhyper," he muttered.

 Paul started to back away. His scalp bristled a warning.The boy advanced a step toward him. A slow beam of antic­ipation began to glow in his face. He bared his teeth in a widegrin of pleasure.

 "You're not a hyper yet," he hissed, moving forward. "I'venever had a chance to touch a nonhyper..."

 "Stay back, or I'll kill you!"

 The lad giggled and came on, talking to himself. "Thepadre says it's wrong, but . . . you smell so...so...ugh. . ." He flung himself forward with a low throaty cry.

 Paul sidestepped the charge and brought the- gun barreldown across the boy's head. The dermie sprawled howling inthe street. Paul pushed the gun close to his face, but theyouth started up again. Paul jabbed viciously with the barrel,and felt it strike and tear. "I don't want to have to blow yourhead off-"

 The boy howled and fell back. He crouched panting on his

 hands and knees, head hung low, watching adark puddle ofblood gather on the pavement from a deep gash across hischeek. "Whatcha wanta do that for?" he whimpered. "I wasn'tgonna hurt you." His tone was that of a wronged and rejectedsuitor,

 "Now, where's Saint Mary's? Is that one of the hospitals?How do I get there?" Paul had backed to a safe distance andwas covering the youth with the gun.

 "Straight down Broadway... to the Boulevard ... you'llsee it down that neighborhood. About the fourth street, Ithink." The boy looked up, and Paul saw the extent of the gash. It was deep and ragged, and the kid was crying.

 "Get up! You're going to lead me there."

 Pain had blanketed the call of the craving. The boy strug­
gled to his feet, pressed a handkerchief against the wound,
and with an angry glance at Paul, he set out down the road.
Paul followed ten yards behind,

 "If you take me through any dermie traps, I'll kill you."

 "There aren't any traps," the youth mumbled.

 Paul snorted unbelief, but did not repeat the warning."What made you think I was another dermie?" he snapped.

 "Because there's no nonhypers in Galveston, This is a hy­per colony. A nonhyper used to drift in occasionally, but thepriests had the bridge dynamited. The nonhypers upset thecolony. As long as there aren't any around to smell, nobodycaused any trouble. During the day, there's a guard out onthe causeway, and if any hypers come looking for a place tostay, the guard ferries them across. If nonhypers come, he tells them about the colony, and they go away,"

 Paul groaned. He had stumbled into a rat's nest. Was thereno refuge from the gray curse? Now he would have to moveon. It seemed a hopeless quest. Maybe the old man he meton his way to Houston had arrived at the only possiblefor peace: submission to the plague. But the thought sickenedhim somehow. He would have to find some barren island, finda healthy mate, and go to live a savage existence apart from all traces of civilization.

 "Didn't the guard stop you at the bridge?" the boy asked."He never came back today. He must be still out there."

 Paul grunted "no" in a tone that warned against idle con­versation. He guessed what had happened. The dermie guardhad probably spotted some healthy wanderers; and insteadof warning them away, he rowed across the drawbridge and

 set out to chase them. His body probably lay along the high­way somewhere, if the hypothetical wanderers were armed.

 When they reached 23rd Street, a few blocks from the heart of the city, Paul hissed at the boy to stop. He heardsomeone laugh. Footsteps were wandering along the side­walk, overhung by trees. He whispered to the boy to takerefuge behing a hedge. They crouched in the shadows severalyards apart while the voices drew nearer.

 "Brother James had a nice tenor," someone said softly. "But he sings his Latin with a western drawl. It sounds . . .well . . . peculiar, to say the least. Brother John is a stickler for pronunciation. He won't let Fra James solo. Says it givesa burlesque effect to the choir. Says it makes the sistersgiggle."

 The other man chuckled quietly and started to reply. Buthis voice broke off suddenly. The footsteps stopped a dozenfeet from Paul's hiding place. Paul, peering through thehedge, saw a pair of brown-robed monks standing on thesidewalk. "They were looking around suspiciously.

 "Brother Thomas, do you smell-"

 "Aye, I smell it."

 Paul changed his position slightly, so as to keep the gunpointed toward the pair of plague-stricken monastics. Theystood in embarrassed silence, peering into the darkness and shuffling their feet uneasily. One of them suddenly pinched his nose between thumb and forefinger. His companion fol­lowed suit.

 "Blessed be God," quavered one.

 "Blessed be His Holy Name," answered the other.

 "Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man."

 "Blessed be..."

 Gathering their robes high about their shins, the two monks turned and scurried away, muttering the Litany ofthe Divine Praises as they went. Paul stood up and staredafter them in amazement. The sight of dermies running froma potential victim was almost beyond belief. He questionedhis young guide. Still holding the handkerchief against hisbleeding face, the boy hung his head.

 "Bishop made a ruling against touching nonhypers," heexplained miserably. "Says it's a sin, unless the nonhypersubmits of his own free will. Says even then it's wrong, exceptin the ordinary ways that people come in contact with eachother. Calls it fleshly desire, and all that."

 "Then why did you try to do it?"

 "I ain't so religious."

 "Well, sonny, you better get religious until we come to the hospital. Now, let's go,"

 They marched on down Broadway encountering no otherpedestrians. Twenty minutes later, they were standing intheshadows before a hulking brick building, some of whose win­dows were yellow with lamplight. Moonlight bathed the statue of a woman standing on a ledge over the entrance,indicating to Paul that this was the hospital,

 "'All right, boy. You go in and: send oata derrnie doctor.Tell him somebody wants to see him, but if you say I'm nota dermie, I'll come in and kill you. Now move. And don't come back. Stay to get your face fixed,"

 The youth stumbled toward the entrance. Paul sat in the
shadow of a tree, where he could see twenty yards in ail
directions and guard himself against approach. Soon a black-
clad priest came out of the emergency entrance, stopped      on
the sidewalk, and glanced around.

 "Over here!" Paul hissed from across the street.

 The priest advanced uncertainly. In the center of the roadhe stopped again, and held his nose. "Y-you're a nonhyper," he said, almost accusingly.

 "That's right, and I've got a gun, so don't try anything."

 "What's wrong? Are you sick? The lad said-"

 "There's a dermie girl down the island. She's been shot.Tendon behind her heel is cut clean through. You're goingto help her,"

 "Of course, but..," The priest paused. "You? A nonhyper? Helping a so-called dermie?" His voice went high with amaze­ment.

 "So I'm a sucker!" Paul barked. "Now get what you need,and come on."

 "The Lord bless you," the priest mumbled in embarrass­ment as he hurried away,

 "Don't sic any of your maniacs on me?" Paul called afterhim. "I'm armed."

 "I'll have to bring a surgeon," the cleric said over his shoul­der.

 Five minutes later, Paul heard the muffled grunt of astarter. Then an engine coughed to life. Startled, he scurriedaway from the tree and sought safety in a clump of shrubs.An ambulance backed out of the driveway and into the street.It parked at the curb by the tree, engine running, A pallid

 face glanced out curiously toward the shadows. "Where are you?" it called, but it was not the priest's voice.

 Paul stood up and advanced a few steps.

 "We'll have to wait on Father Mendelhaus," the drivercalled. "He'll be a few minutes."

 "You a dermie?"

 "Of course. But don't worry. I've plugged my nose and I'mwearing rubber gloves. I can't smell you. The sight of a non-hyper arouses some craving, of course. But it can be overcomewith a little willpower. I won't infect you, although I don't understand why you nonhypers fight so hard. You're bound to catch it sooner or later. And the world can't get back tonormal until everybody has it."

 Paul avoided the startling thought. "You the surgeon?"

 "Uh, yes. Father Williamson's the name. I'm not really a specialist, but I did some surgery in Korea. How's the girl'scondition? Suffering shock?"

 "I wouldn't know."

 They fell silent until Father Mendelhaus returned. Hecame across the street carrying a bag in one hand and abrown bottle in the other. He held the bottle by the neck witha pair of tongs and Paul could see the exterior of the bottlesteaming slightly as the priest passed through the beam ofthe ambulance's headlights. He placed the flask on the curbwithout touching it, then spoke to the man in the shadows.

 "Would you step behind the hedge and disrobe, young man? Then rub yourself thoroughly with this oil,"

 "I doubt it," Paul snapped. "What is it?"

 "Don't worry, it's been in'the sterilizer. That's what tookme so long. It may be a little hot for you, however. It's only an antiseptic and deodorant. It'll kill your odor, and it'll also give you some protection against picking up stray microor­ganisms."

 After a few moments of anxious hesitation, Paul decidedto trust the priest. He carried the hot flask into the brush,undressed, and bathed himself with the warm aromatic oil.Then he slipped back into his clothes and reapproached theambulance.

 "Ride in back," Mendelhaus told him. "And you won't beinfected. No one's been in there for several weeks, and as youprobably know, the microorganisms die after a few hours'exposure. They have to be transmitted from skin to skin, or else an object has to be handled very soon after a hyper hastouched it."

 Paul warily climbed inside. Mendelhaus opened a slideand spoke through it from the front seat. "You'll have to show us the way."

 "Straight out Broadway. Say, where did you get the gas-oline for this wagon?"

 The priest paused. "That has been something of a secret,Oh well... I'll tell you. There's a tanker out in the harbor.The people left town too quickly to think of it. Automobilesare scarcer than fuel in Galveston. Up north, you find themstalled everywhere. But since Galveston didn't have any through-traffic, there were no cars running out of gas, The ones we have are the ones that were left in the repair shop,something wrong with them. And we don't have any me­chanics to fix them."

 Paul neglected to mention that he was qualified for the job. The priest might get ideas. He fell into gloomy silence as the ambulance turned onto Broadway and headed down-island. He watched the back of the priests heads, silhouettedagainst the headlighted pavement. They seemed not at all concerned about their disease. Mendelhaus was a slenderman, with a blond crew cut and rather bushy eyebrows. Hehad a thin, aristocratic face-now plague-gray-but jovialenough. It might be the face of an ascetic, but for the quick blue eyes that seemed full of lively interest rather than in­ward-turning mysticism, Williamson, on the other hand, wasa rather plain man, with a stolid tweedy look, despite hisblack cassock.

 "What do you think of our plan here?" asked Father Men­delhaus.

 "What plan?" Paul grunted.

 "Oh, didn't the boy tell you? We're trying to make theisland a refuge for hypers who are willing to sublimate theircraving and turn their attentions toward reconstruction.We're also trying to make an objective study of this neuralcondition, We have some good scientific minds, too-DoctorRelmone of Fordham, Father Seyes of Notre Dame, two bi-ologists from Boston College..."

 "Dermies trying to cure the plague?" Paul gasped.

 Mendelhaus laughed merrily. "I didn't say cure it, son. I said 'study it.'"

 "Why?"

 "To learn how to live with it, of course. Itrs been pointedout by our philosophers that things become evil only throughhuman misuse. Morphine, for instance, is a product of the

 Creator; it is therefore good when properly used for relief ofpain. When mistreated by an addict, it becomes a monster.We bear this in mind as we study neuroderm."

 Paul snorted contemptuously. "Leprosy is evil, I suppose,because Man mistreated bacteria?"

 The priest laughed again. "You've got me there. I'm nophilosopher. But you can't compare neuroderm with leprosy,"

 Paul shuddered. "The hell Ican't! It's worse."

 "Ah? Suppose you tell me what makes it worse? List thesymptoms for me."

 Paul hesitated, listing them mentally. They were: discol­oration of the skin, low fever, hallucinations, and the insanecraving to infect others. They seemed bad enough, so he listedthem orally. "Of course, people don't die of it," he added. "Butwhich is worse, insanity or death?"

 The priest turned to smile back at him through the port­hole. "Would you call me insane? It's true that victims havefrequently lost their minds. But that's not a direct result ofneuroderm. Tell me, how would you feel if everyone screamedand ran when they saw you coming, or hunted you down likea criminal? How long would your sanity last?"

 Paul said nothing. Perhaps the anathema was a contrib­uting factor-

 "Unless you were of very sound mind to begin with, youprobably couldn't endure it."

 "But the craving . . . and the hallucinations . . ."

 "True," murmured the priest thoughtfully. "The halluci­nations. Tell me something else, if all the world was blindsave one man, wouldn't the world be inclined to call that man's sight a hallucination? And the man with eyes mighteven come to agree with the world,"

 Again Paul was silent. There was no arguing with Men-delhaus, who probably suffered the strange delusions andthought them real.

 "And the craving," the priest went on. "It's true that the craving can be a rather unpleasant symptom. It's the con­dition's way of perpetuating itself. Although we're not certainhow it works, it seems able to stimulate erotic sensations inthe hands. We do know the microorganisms get to the brain,but we're not yet sure what they do there."

 "What facts have you discovered?" Paul asked cautiously.

 Mendelhaus grinned at him. "Tut! I'm not going to tellyou, because I don't want to be called a 'crazy dermie.' You wouldn't believe me, you see."

 Paul glanced outside and saw that they were approachingthe vicinity of the fishing cottage, He pointed out the lamplitwindow to the driver, and the ambulance turned onto a sideroad. Soon they were parked behind the shanty. The priestsscrambled out and carried the stretcher toward the light,while Paul skulked to a safer distance and sat down in thegrass to watch. When Willie was safe in the vehicle, he meant to walk back to the bridge, swim across the gap, and returnto the mainland.

 Soon Mendelhaus came out and walked toward him witha solemn stride, although Paul was sitting quietly in thedeepest shadow-invisible, he had thought. He arose quicklyas the priest approached. Anxiety tightened his throat, "Isshe. .. isWillie...?"

 "She's irrational," Mendelhaus murmured sadly. "Al­most .., less than sane. Some of it may be due to high fever,but..."

 "Yes?"

 "She tried to kill herself. With a knife. Said something about buckshot being the best way, or something..."

 "Jeezis! Jeezis!" Paul sank weakly in the grass and coveredhis face with his hands,

 "Blessed be His Holy Name," murmured the priest by wayof turning the oath aside. "She didn't hurt herself badly,though. Wrist's cut a little. She was too weak to do a real jobof it, Father Will's giving her a hypo and a tetanus shot andsome sulfa. We're out of penicillin."

 He stopped speaking and watched Paul's wretchedness fora moment, "You love the girl, don't you?"

 Paul stiffened. "Are you crazy? Love a little tramp dermie?Jeezis..,"

 "Blessed be-"

 "Listen! Will she be all right? I'm getting out of here!" Heclimbed unsteadily to his feet,

 "I don't know, son, infection's the real threat, and shock. If we'd got to her sooner, she'd have been safer. And if shewas in the ultimate stage of neuroderm, it would help."

 "Why?"

 "Oh, various reasons. You'll learn, someday. But listen,
you look exhausted. Why don't you come back to the hospital
with us? The third floor is entirely vacant. There's no danger
of infection up there, and we keep a sterile room ready just
in case we get a nonhyper case. You can lock the door inside,
if you want to, but it wouldn't be necessary. Nuns           are on the

 floor below. Our male staff lives in the basement. There aren'tany laymen in the building. I'll guarantee that you won't bebothered."

 "No, I've got to go," he growled, then softened his voice:"I appreciate it though, Father "

 "Whatever you wish. I'm sorry, though. You might be ableto provide yourself with some kind of transportation if youwaited."

 "Uh-uh! I don't mind telling you, your island makes mejumpy."

 "Why?"

 Paul glanced at the priest's gray hands, "Well... you stillfeel the craving, don't you?"

 Mendelhaus touched his nose. "Cotton plugs, with a littlecamphor. I can't smell you." He hesitated. "No, I won't lie toyou. The urge to touch is still there to some extent."

 "And in a moment of weakness, somebody might-"

 The priest straightened his shoulders. His eyes wentchilly. "I have taken certain vows, young man. Sometimeswhen I see a beautiful woman, I feel desire. When I see aman eating a thick steak on a fast-day, I feel envy and hunger.When I see a doctor earning large fees, I chafe under the vowof poverty. But by denying desire's demands, one learns to make desire useful in other ways. Sublimation, some call it. A priest can use it and do more useful work thereby. I am a priest."

 He nodded curtly, turned on his heel and strode away.Halfway to the cottage, he paused. "She's calling for someonenamed Paul. Know who it might be? Family perhaps?"

 Paul stood speechless. The priest shrugged and continuedtoward the lighted doorway.

 "Father, wait..."

 "Yes?"

 "I-I am a little tired. The room...I mean, will you showme where to get transportation tomorrow?"

 "Certainly."

 Before midnight, the party had returned to the hospital.Paul lay on a comfortable mattress for the first time in weeks, sleepless, and staring at the moonlight on the sill. Somewheredownstairs, Willie was lying unconscious in an operatingroom, while the surgeon tried to repair the torn tendon. Paulhad ridden back with them in the ambulance, sitting a few

 feet from the stretcher, avoiding her sometimes wanderingarms, and listening to her delirious moaning.

 Now he felt his skin crawling with belated      hypochondria.

 What a fool he had been-touching the rope, the boat, thewheelbarrow, riding in the ambulance. There were a thou­sand ways he could have picked up a few stray microorga­nisms lingering from a dermie's touch. And now he lay herein this nest of disease....

 But strange-it was the most peaceful, the sanest placehe'd seen in months. The religious orders simply accepted theplague-with masochistic complacency perhaps-but calmly.A cross, or a penance, or something. But no, they seemed toaccept it almost gladly. Nothing peculiar about that. All der- mies went wild-eyed with happiness about the "lovely desire"they possessed. The priests weren't wild-eyed

 Neither was normal man equipped with socially shaped sexual desire. Sublimation?

 "Peace," he muttered, and went to sleep.

 A knocking at the door awoke him at dawn. He gruntedat it disgustedly and sat up in bed. The door, which he hadforgotten to lock, swung open, A chubby nun with a breakfasttray started into the room. She saw his face, then stopped.She closed her eyes, wrinkled her nose, and framed a silentprayer with her lips. Then she backed slowly out.

 "I'm sorry, sir!" she quavered through the door, "I-I knewthere was a patient in here, but I didn't know... you weren'ta hyper. Forgive me."

 He heard her scurrying away down the hall. Somehow, hebegan to feel safe. But wasn't that exactly what they wantedhim to feel? He realized suddenly that he was trapped. Hehad left the shotgun in the emergency room. What was he- guest or captive? Months of fleeing from the gray terror had left him suspicious.

 Soon he would find out. He arose and began dressing.Before he finished, Mendelhaus came. He did not enter, butstood in the hallway beyond the door. He smiled a faint greet­ing, and said, "So you're Paul?"

 He felt heat rising in his face. "She's awake, then?" he asked gruffly.

 The priest nodded. "Want to see her?"

 "No, I've got to be going."

 "It would do her good."

 He coughed angrily. Why did the black-cassocked dermie

 have to put it that way? "Well it wouldn't do me any good!"he snarled. "I've been around too many gray-leather hidesalready!"

 Mendelhaus shrugged, but his eyes bore a hint of con­tempt. "As you wish. You may leave by the outside stairway-to avoid disturbing the sisters."

 "To avoid being touched, you mean!"

 "No one will touch you."

 Paul finished dressing in silence. The reversal of attitudes disturbed him. He resented the seeming "tolerance" that wasbeing extended him. It was like asylum inmates being "tol­erant" of the psychiatrist.

 "I'm ready!" he growled.

 Mendelhaus led him down the corridor and out onto asunlit balcony. They descended a stone stairway while the priest talked over his shoulder.

 "She's still not fully rational, and there's some fever. Itwouldn't be anything to worry about two years ago, but nowwe're out of most of the latest drugs. If sulfa won't hold theinfection, we'll have to amputate, of course. We should knowin two or three days."

 He paused and looked back at Paul, who had stopped on the stairway. "Coming?"

 "Where is she?" Paul asked weakly. "I'll see her."

 The priest frowned. "You don't have to, son. I'm sorry ifI implied any obligation on your part. Really, you've doneenough. I gather that you saved her life. Very few nonhyperswould do a thing like that. I-"

 "Where is she?" he snapped angrily.

 The priest nodded. "Downstairs. Come on."

 As they re-entered the building on the ground floor, thepriest cupped his hands to his mouth and called out, "Non-hyper coming! Plug your noses, or get out of the way! Avoidcircumstances of temptation!"

 When they moved along the corridor, it was Paul who feltlike the leper. Mendelhaus led him into the third room.

 Willie saw him enter and hid her gray hands beneath thesheet. She smiled faintly, tried to sit up, and failed. William­son and a nun-nurse who had both been standing by thebedside turned to leave the room. Mendelhaus followed themout and closed the door.

 There was a long, painful pause. Willie tried to grin. Heshuffled his feet.

 "They've got me in a cast," she said conversationally.

 "You'll be all right," he said hastily. "It won't be, longbefore you'll be up. Galveston's a good place for you. They'reall dermies here."

 She clenched her eyes tightly shut, "God! God! I hope Inever hear that word again. After last night... that oldwoman in the rocking chair . . . Istayed there alt alone . . . and the wind'd start the chair rocking. Ooh!" She looked at himwith abnormally bright eyes. "I'd rather die than touch anybody now...after seeing that. Somebody touched her, didn't they, Paul? That's why she did it, wasn't it?"

 He squirmed and backed toward the door. "Willie... I'msorry for what I said. I mean-"

 "Don't worry, Paul! I wouldn't touch you now." Sheclenched her hands and brought them up before her face, tostare at them with glittering hate. "I loathe myself!" shehissed.

 What was it Mendelhaus had said, about the dermie goinginsane because of being an outcast rather than because ofthe plague? But she wouldn't be an outcast here. Only amongnonhypers, like himself..."

 "Get well quick, Willie," he muttered, then hurriedlyslipped out into the corridor. She called his name twice, thenfell silent.

 "That was quick," murmured Mendelhaus, glancing at hispale face.

 "Where can I get a car?"

 The priest rubbed his chin. "I was just speaking td BrotherMatthew about that. Uh... how would you like to have asmall yacht instead?"

 Paul caught his breath, A yacht would mean access to theseas, and to an island. A yacht was the perfect solution. Hestammered gratefully,

 "Good," said Mendelhaus. "There's a small craft in drydock down at the basin. It was apparently left there because there weren't any dock crews around to get her afloat again. I took the liberty of asking Brother Matthew to find somemen and get her in the water."

 "Dermies?"  

 "Of course. The boat will be fumigated, but it isn't reallynecessary. The infection dies out in a few hours. It'll take awhile, of course, to get the boat ready. Tomorrow... next day,maybe. Bottom's cracked; it'll need some patching."

 Paul's smile weakened. More delay. Two more days ofliving in the gray shadow. Was the priest really to be trusted?

 Why should he even provide the boat? The jaws of an invisibletrap, slowly closing.

 Mendelhaus saw his doubt, "If you'd rather leave now,you're free to do so. We're really not going to as much troubleas it might seem. There are several yachts at the dock;Brother Matthew's been preparing to clean one or two up forour own use. And we might as well let you have one. They'vebeen deserted by their owners. And . . . well . . . you helped the girl when nobody else would have done so. Consider theboat as our way of returning the favor, eh?"

 A yacht. The open sea. A semitropical island, uninhabited,on the brink of the Caribbean. And a woman, of course- chosen from among the many who would be willing to sharesuch an escape. Peculiarjy, he glanced at Willie's door. It wastoo bad about her. But she'd get along okay. The yacht"... ifhe were only certain of Mendelhaus' intentions...

 The priest began frowning at Paul's hesitation. "Well?"

 "I don't want to put you to any trouble-"

 "Nonsense! You're still afraid of us! Very well, come withme. There's someone I want you to see." Mendelhaus turnedand started down the corridor.

 Paul lingered. "Who...what-"

 "Come on!" the priest snapped impatiently.

 Reluctantly, Paul followed him to the stairway. They de­scended to a gloomy basement and entered a smelly labo­ratory through a double-door. Electric illumination startled him; then he heard the sound of a gasoline engine and knewthat the power was generated locally.

 "Germicidal lamps," murmured the priest, following his ceilingward gaze. "Some of them are. Don't worry abouttouching things. It's sterile in here."

 "But it's not sterile for your convenience," growled an in­visible voice. "And it won't be sterile at all if you don't stayout! Beat it, preacher!"

 Paul looked for the source of the voice, and saw a small,short-necked man bending his shaggy gray head over a mi­croscope at the other end of the lab. He had spoken without glancing up at his visitors.

 "This is Doctor Seevers, of Princeton, son," said the priest,unruffled by the scientist's ire. "Claims he's an atheist, but personally I think he's a puritan. Doctor, this is the youngman I was telling you about. Will you tell him what youknow about neuroderm?"

 Seevers jotted something on a pad, but kept his eye to the

 instrument. "Why don't we just give it to him, and let him find out for himself?" the scientist grumbled sadistically.

 "Don't frighten him, you heretic! I brought him here to be illuminated."

 "Illuminate him yourself. I'm busy. And stop calling menames. I'm not an atheist; I'm a biochemist."

 "Yesterday you were a biophysicist. Now, entertain myyoung man." Mendelhaus blocked the doorway with his body.Paul, with his jaw clenched angrily, had turned to leave.

 "That's all I can do, preacher," Seevers grunted. ''Enter­tain him. I know nothing. Absolutely nothing. I have some observed data. I have noticed some correlations. I have seenthings happen, I have traced the patterns of the happenings and found some probable common denominators. And that is all! I admit it. Why don't you preachers admit it in yourracket?"

 "Seevers, as you can see, is inordinately proud of his hu­mility-if that's not a paradox," the priest said to Paul.

 "Now, Doctor, this young man-"

 Seevers heaved a resigned sigh. His voice went sour-sweet."All right, sit down, young man. I'll entertain you as soonas I get through counting free nerve-endings in this piece ofskin."

 Mendelhaus winked at his guest. "Seevers calls it ma­sochism when we observe a fast-day or do penance. And therehe site, ripping off patches of his own hide to look at throughhis peeping glass. Masochism-hen!"

 "Getout, preacher!" the scientist bellowed.

 Mendelhaus laughed mockingly, nodded Paul toward achair, and left the lab. Paul sat uneasily watching the backof Seevers' lab jacket.

 "Nice bunch of people really-these black-frocked yahoos,"Seevers murmured conversationally. "If they'd just stoptrying to convert me."

 "Doctor Seevers, maybe I'd better-"

 "Quiet! You bother me. And sit still. I can't stand to havepeople running in and out of here. You're in; now stay in."

 Paul fell silent. He was uncertain whether or not Seeverswas a dermie. The small man's lab jacket bunched up to hide the back of his neck, and the sleeves covered his arms. Hishands were rubber-gloved, and a knot of white cord behindhis head told Paul that he was wearing a gauze mask. His ears were bright pink, but their color was meaningless; ittook several months for the gray coloring to seep to all areas

 of the skin. But Paul guessed he was a dermie-and wearingthe gloves and mask to keep his equipment sterile.

 He glanced idly around the large room. There were severalglass cages of rats against the wall. They seemed airtight,with ducts for forced ventilation. About half the rats wereafflicted with neuroderm in its various stages, A few wore shaved patches of skin where the disease had been freshly and forcibly inflicted. Paul caught the fleeting impressionthat several of the animals were staring at him fixedly. Heshuddered and looked away.

 He glanced casually at the usual maze of laboratory glass­ware, then turned his attention to a pair of hemispheres,suspended like a trophy on the wall. He recognized them asthe twin halves of one of the meteorites, with the small jelly-pocket in the center. Beyond it hung a large picture frame containing several typewritten sheets. Another frame heldfour pictures of bearded scientists from another century, ob­viously clipped from magazine or textbook. There was noth­ing spectacular about the lab. It smelted of clean dust and sour things. Just a small respectable workshop,

 Seevers' chair creaked suddenly. "It checks," he said tohimself. "It checks again. Forty per cent increase," He threwdown the stub pencil and whirled suddenly. Paul saw a pudgyround face with glittering eyes. A dark splotch of neurodermhad crept up from the chin to split his mouth and cover one cheek and an eye, giving him the appearance of a black andwhite bulldog with a mixed color muzzle.

 "It checks," he barked at Paul, then smirked contentedly,

 "What checks?"

 The scientist rolled up a sleeve to display a patch of ad­hesive tape on a portion of his arm which had been discoloredby the disease. "Here," he grunted. "Two weeks ago this areawas normal. I took a centimeter of skin from right next tothis one, and counted the nerve endings. Since that time, thederm's crept down over the area. I took another square cen­timeter today, and recounted. Forty per cent increase."

 Paul frowned with disbelief. It was generally known thatneuroderm had a sensitizing effect, but new nerveendings... No. He didn't believe it.

 "Third time I've checked it," Seevers said happily. "Oneplace ran up to sixty-five per cent, Heh! Smart little bugs,aren't they? Inventing new somesthetic receptors that way!"

 Paul swallowed with difficulty. "What did you say?" hegasped.

 Seevers inspected him serenely, "So you're a nonhyper, are you? Yes, indeed, I can smell that you are. Vile, really.Can't understand why sensible hypers would want to pawyou. But then, I've insured myself against such foolishness."

 He said it so casually that Paul blinked before he caughtthe full impact of it. "Y-y-you've done what?"

 "What I said. When I first caught it,I simply sat down
with a velvet-tipped stylus and located the spots on my hands
that gave rise to pleasurable sensations. Then I burned them
out with an electric needle. There aren't many of them,
really-one or two points per square centimeter." He tugged
off his gloves and exhibited pick-marked palmsto prove it.

 "I didn't want to be bothered with such silly urges. Waste oftime, chasing nonhypers--for me it is. I never learned whatit's like, so I've never missed it." He turned his hands overand stared at them. "Stubborn little critters keep growingnew ones. and I keep burning them out."

 Paul leaped to his feet, "Are you trying to tell me that the plague causes new nerve cells to grow?"

 Seevers looked up coldly. "Ah, yes. You came here to beilloooominated, as the padre put it. If you wish to be de-idiotized, please stop shouting, Otherwise, I'll ask you toleave."

 Paul, who had felt like leaving a moment ago, now sub­sided quickly. "I'm sorry," he snapped, then softened his toneto repeat: "I'm sorry,"

 Seevers took a deep breath, stretched his short meaty arms in an unexpected yawn, then relaxed and grinned, "Sit down,sit down, m'boy. Ill tell you what you want to know, if you really want to know anything. Do you?"

 "Of course!"

 "You don't! You just want to know how you-whateveryour name is-will be affected by events. You don"t care aboutunderstanding for its own sake. Few people do. That's whywe're in this mess. The padre now, he cares about under­standing events-but not for their own sake. He cares, bat for his flock's sake for his God's sake-which is, I mustadmit, a better attitude than that of the common herd, whose only interest is in their own safety. But if people would justwant to understand events for the understanding's sake, wewouldn't be in such a pickle."

 Paul watched the professor's bright eyes and took the lec­ture quietly.

 "And so, before I illuminate you, I want to make an im­possible request."

 "Yes, sir."

 "I ask you to be completely objective," Seevers continued,rubbing the bridge of his nose and covering his eyes with hishand. "I want you to forget you ever heard of neurodermwhile you listen to me. Rid yourself of all preconceptions, especially those connected with fear. Pretend these are purelyhypothetical events that I'm going to discuss." He took hishands down from his eyes and grinned sheepishly. "It alwaysembarrasses me to ask for that kind of cooperation when I know damn well I'll never get it."

 "I'll try to be objective, sir."

 "Bah!" Seevers slid down to sit on his spine, and hookedthe base of his skull over the back of the chair. He blinkedthoughtfully at the ceiling for a moment, then folded hishands across his small paunch and closed his eyes.

 When he spoke again, he was speaking to himself: "As­sume a planet, somewhat earthlike, but not quite. It hascarboniferous life forms, but not human. Warm-blooded, probably, and semi-intelligent. And the planet has somethingelse-it has an overabundance of parasite forms. Actually, the various types of parasites are the dominant species. Thewarm-blooded animals are the parasites' vegetables, so tospeak. Now, during two billion years, say, of survival contestsbetween parasite species, some parasites are quite likely todevelop some curious methods of adaptation. Methods of in­suring the food supply-animals, who must have been takinga beating."

 Seevers glanced down from the ceiling. "Tell me, young­ster, what major activity did Man invent to secure his veg­etable food supply?"

 "Agriculture?"

 "Certainly. Man is a parasite, as far as vegetables are concerned. But he learned to eat his cake and have it, too.He learned to perpetuate the species he was devouring. A very remarkable idea, if you stop to think about it. Very!"

 "I don't see-"

 "Hush! Now, let's suppose that one species of micropar-asites on our hypothetical planet learned, through long ev­olutionary processes, to stimulate regrowth in the animaltissue they devoured. Through exuding controlled amounts of growth hormone, I think. Quite an advancement, eh?"

 Paul had begun leaning forward tensely.

 "But it's only the first step. It let the host live longer,although not pleasantly, I imagine. The growth control wouldbe clumsy at first. But soon, all parasite-species eitherlearned to do it, or died out. Then came the contest for the best kind of control. The parasites who kept their hosts inthe best physical condition naturally did a better job of sur­vival-since the parasite-ascendancy had cut down on thefood supply, just as Man wastes his own resources. And sinceanimals were contending among themselves fora place in the sun, it was to the parasite's advantage to help insure thesurvival of hishost-species--through growth control."

 Seevers winked solemnly. "Now begins the downfall of theparasites-their decadence. They concentrated all their ef­forts along the lines of...uh...scientific farming, youmight say. They began growing various sorts of defense andattack weapons for their hosts-weird bio-devices, perhaps.Horns, swords, fangs, stingers, poison-throwers-we can onlyguess. But eventually, one group of parasites hit upon-what?"

 Paul, who was beginning to stir uneasily, could only stam­mer. Where was Seevers getting all this?

 "Say it!" the scientist demanded.

 "The... nervous system?"

 "That's- right. You don't need to whisper it. The nervoussystem. It was probably an unsuccessful parasite at first,because nerve tissue grows slowly. And it's a long stretch ofevolution between a microspecies which could stimulatenerve growth and one which could direct utilizegrowth for the host's advantage-and for its own. But at last,after a long struggle, our little species gets there. It beginssharpening the hosfs senses, building up complex sensesfrom aggregatesofold-style receptors, and increasing thehost's intelligence within limits."

 Seevers grinned mischievously. "Conies a planetary shake-up of the first magnitude. Such parasites would naturallypick the host species with the highest intelligence to begin with. With the extra boost, this brainy animal quicklydown its own enemies, and consequently the enemiesof its

 microbenefactor. It puts itself in much the same position thatMan's in on Earth-lord it over the beasts, divine right torun the place, and all that. Now understand-it's the animalwho's become intelligent, not the parasites. The parasites are operating on complex instinct patterns,, like a hive of bees.They're wonderful neurological engineers-like bees are

 good structural engineers; blind instinct, accumulated throughevolution."

 He paused to light a cigarette. "If you feel ill, young man,there's drinking water in that bottle. You look ill."

 "I'm all right!"

 "Well, to continue: The intelligent animal became masterof his planet. Threats to his existence were overcome-unlesshe was a threat to himself, like we are. But now, the parasites had found a safe home. No new threats to force readaptation. They sat back and sighed and became stagnant-as unchang­ing as horseshoe crabs or amoeba or other Earth ancients.They kept right on working in their neurological beehives, and now they became cultivated by the animal, who recog­nized their benefactors. They didn't know it, but they wereno longer the dominant species. They had insured their sur­vival by leaning on their animal prop, who now took care ofthem with godlike charity-and selfishness. The parasiteshad achieved biological heaven. They kept on working, butthey stopped fighting. The host was their welfare state, you might say. End of a sequence."

 He blew a long breath of smoke and leaned forward to watch Paul, with casual amusement. Paul suddenly realizedthat he was sitting on the edge of his chair and gaping. Heforced a relaxation.

 "Wild guesswork," he breathed uncertainly.

 "Some of it's guesswork," Seevers admitted. "But none ofit's wild. There is supporting evidence. It's in the form of amessage."

 "Message?"

 "Sure. Come, I'll show you." Seevers arose and moved to­ward the wall. He stopped before the two hemispheres. "On second thought, you better show yourself. Take down thatsliced meteorite, will you? It's sterile."

 Paul crossed the room, climbed unsteadily upon a bench,and brought down the globular meteorite. It was the firsttime he had examined one of the things, and he inspected itcuriously. It was a near-perfect sphere, about eight inches indiameter, with a four-inch hollow in the center. The globewas made up of several concentric shells, tightly fitted, each apparently of a different metal. It was not seemingly heavierthan aluminum, although the outer shell was obviously oftough steel.

 "Set it face down," Seevers told him. "Both halves. Giveit a quick little twist. The shells will come apart. Take out

 the center shell-the hard, thin one between the soft pro­tecting shells."

 "How do you know their purposes?" Paul growled as hefollowed instructions. The shells came apart easily.

 "Envelopes are to protect messages," snorted Seevers,

 Paul sorted out the hemispheres, and found two mirror-polished cells of paper-thin tough metal. They bore no in­scription, either inside or out. He gave Seevers a puzzledfrown,

 "Handle them carefully while they're out of the protectors.They're already a little blurred..."

 "I don't see any message."                      f

 "There's a small bottle of iron filings in that drawer byyour knee. Sift them carefully over the outside of the shells.That powder isn't fine enough, really, but it's the best I coulddo. Felger had some better stuff up at Princeton, before weall got out. This'business wasn't my discovery, incidentally."

 Baffled, Paul found the iron filings and dusted the mirror-shells with the powder. Delicate patterns appeared-latitu­dinal circles, etched in iron dust and laced here and therewith diagonal lines. He gasped. It looked like the map of aplanet.

 "I know what you're thinking," Seevers said. "That's whatwe thought too, at first. Then Felger came up with this veryfine dust. Fine as they are, those lines are rows of pictographsymbols. You can make them out vaguely with a good readingglass, even with this coarse stuff. It's magnetic printing-like two-dimensional wire-recording. Evidently, the animals that printed it had either very powerful eyes, or a magneticsense."

 "Anyone understand it?"

 "Princeton staff was working on it when the world wentcrazy. They figured out enough to guess at what I've just toldyou. They found five different shell-messages among a dozenor so spheres. One of them was a sort of a key. A symbolequated to a diagram of a carbon atom, Another symbol equated to a pi in binary numbers. Things like that-aboutfive hundred symbols, in fact. Some we couldn't figure. Thenthey defined other symbols by what amounted to blank-filling quizzes. Things like-'A star is...' and there would be theunknown symbol. We would try to decide whether it meant'hot,' 'white,' 'huge,' and so forth."

 "And you managed it?"

 "In part. The ruthless way in which the missiles were

 opened destroyed some of the clarity The senders were guiltyof their own brand of anthropomorphism. They projected theirown psychology on us. They expected us to open the thingsshell by shell, cautiously, and figure out the text before wewent further. Heh! What happens? Some machinist grabsone, shakes it, weighs it, sticks it on a lathe, and-brrrrrr!Our curiosity is still rather apelike. Stick our arm in a gopherhole to see if there's a rattlesnake inside."

 There was a long silence while Paul stood peering over the patterns on the shell. "Why haven't people heard aboutthis?" he asked quietly.

 "Heard about it!" Seevers roared. "And how do you proposeto tell them about it?"

 Paul shook his head. It was easy to forget that Man hadscurried away from his presses and his broadcasting stationsand his railroads, leaving his mechanical creatures to sleep in their own rust while he fled like a bee-stung bear beforethe strange terror.

 "What, exactly, do the patterns say, Doctor?"

 "I've told you some of it-the evolutionary origin of theneuroderm parasites. We also pieced together their reasons for launching the missiles across space-several thousandyears ago. Their sun was about to flare into a supernova.They worked out a theoretical space-drive, but they couldn'tfuel it-needed some element that was scarce in their system.They could get to their outer planet, but that wouldn't helpmuch. So they just cultured up a batch of their parasite-ben­ efactors, rolled them into these balls, and fired them likecharges of buckshot at various stars. Interception-course,naturally. They meant to missjust a little, so that the pro­jectiles would swing into long elliptical orbits around the suns-close enough in to intersect the radiational 'life-belt'and eventually cross paths with planets whose orbits were near-circular. Looks like they hit us on the first pass."

 "You mean they weren't aiming at Earth in particular?"

 "Evidently not. They couldn't know we were here. Not ata range like that. Hundreds of light-years. They just took achance on several stars. Shipping off their pets was sort ofa last-ditch stand against extinction-symbolic, to be sure- but a noble gesture, as far as they were concerned. A giving away of part of their souls. Like a man writing his will andleaving his last worldly possession to some unknown speciesbeyond the stars. Imagine them standing there-watchingthe projectiles being fired out toward deep space. There goes

 their inheritance, to as unknown heir, or perhaps to no one. The little creatures that brought them up from beasthood,"

 Seevers paused, staring                                  up at the sunlight beyond          the high

 basement window. He was talking to himself again, quietly: "You can see them turn away and silently go back... to waitfor their collapsing sun to reach the critical point, the deto­nating point. They've left their last mark-a dark and un­certain benediction to the cosmos."

 "You're a fool, Seevers," Paul grunted suddenly.

 Seevers whirled, whitening. His hand darted out forget­fully toward the young man's arm, but he drew it back asPaul sidestepped.

 "You actually regard this thing as desirable, don't you?"Paul asked. "You can't see that you're under its effect. Whydoes it affect people that way? And you say I can't be objec­tive."

 The professor smiled coldly. "I didn't say it's desirable. Iwas simply pointing out that the beings whosent it itas desirable. They were making some unwarranted assump­tions."

 "Maybe they just didn't care."

 "Of course they cared. Their fallacy was that we wouldopen it as they would have done-cautiously. Perhaps theycouldn't see how a creature could be both brash and intelli­gent. They meant for us to read the warning on the shellsbefore we went further."

 "Warning...?"

 Seevers smiled bitterly. "Yes, warning. There was onegroup of oversized symbols on all the spheres. See that patternon the top ring? It says, in effect-'Finder-creatures, you whodestroy your own people-if you do this thing, then destroythis container without penetrating deeper. If you are self-destroyers then the contents will only help to destroy you.'"

 There was a frigid silence.

 "But somebody would have opened one anyway," Paul pro­tested.

 Seevers turned his bitter smile on the window. "You couldn't be more right. The senders just didn't foresee ourmonkey-minded species. If they saw Man digging out thenuggets, braying over them, chortling over them, crackingthem like walnuts, then turning tail to run howling for theforests-well, they'd think twice before they fired another round of their celestial buckshot."

 "Doctor Seevers, what do you think will happen now? Tothe world, I mean?"

 Seevers shrugged. "I saw a baby born yesterday-to awoman down the island. It was fully covered with neurodermat birth. It has some new sensory equipment-small pores inthe fingertips, with taste buds and olfactory cells in them, Also a nodule above each eye sensitive to infrared."

 Paul groaned.

 "It's not the first case. Those things are happening toadults, too, but you have to have the condition for quite awhile. Brother Thomas has the finger pores already. Hasn'tlearned to use them yet, of course. He gets sensations fromthem, but the receptors aren't connected to olfactory and tastecenters of the brain. They're still linked with the somestheticinterpretive centers. He can touch various substances andget different perceptive combinations of heat, pain, cold, pres­ sure, and so forth. He says vinegar feels ice-cold, quinine sharp-hot, cologne warm-velvet-prickly, and... he blushes when he touches a musky perfume."

 Paul laughed, and the hollow sound startled him.

 "It may be several' generations before we know all thatwill happen," Seevers went on. "I've examined sections of ratbrain and found the microorganisms. They may be workingat rerouting these new receptors to proper brain areas. Ourgrandchildren-if Man's still on Earth by then-can perhapstaste-analyze substances by touch, qualitatively determinethe contents of a test tube by sticking a finger in it. See awarm radiator in a dark room-by infrared. Perhaps there'llbe some ultraviolet sensitization. My rats are sensitive to it."

 Paul went to the rat cages and stared in at three graypelted animals that seemed larger than the others. They re­treated against the back wall and watched him warily. Theybegan squeaking and exchanging glances among themselves.

 "Those are third-generation hypers," Seevers told him."They've developed a simple language. Not intelligent byhuman standards, but crafty. They've learned to use theirsensory equipment. They know when I mean to feed them, and when I mean to take one out to kill and dissect. A slight change in my emotional odor, I imagine. Learning's a bighurdle, youngster. A hyper with finger pores gets sensations from them, but it takes a long time to attach meaning to thevarious sensations-through learning. A baby gets visual sensations from his untrained eyes-but the sensation is ut-

 terly without significance until he associates milk with whitemother with a face shape, and so forth."

 "What will happen to the brain?" Paul breathed.

 "Not too much, I imagine, I haven't observed much hap­pening. The rats show an increase in intelligence, but not in brain size. The intellectual boost apparently comes from anability to perceive things in terms of more senses. Ideas, con­cepts, precepts-are made of memory collections of past sen­sory experiences. An apple is red, fruity-smelling, sweet-acidflavored-that's your sensory idea of an apple. A blind manwithout a tongue couldn't form such a complete idea. A hyper, on the other hand, could add some new adjectives that youcouldn't understand. The fully developed hyper-I'm not oneyet-has more sensory tools with which to grasp ideas. When he learns to use them, he'll be mentally more efficient. Butthere's apparently a hitch.

 "The parasite's instinctive goal is to insure the host's sur­vival. That's the substance of the warning. If Man has thecapacity to work together, then the parasites will help himshape his environment. If Man intends to keep fighting withhis fellows, the parasite will help him do a better job of that, too. Help him destroy himself more efficiently."

 "Men have worked together-"

 "In small tribes," Seevers interrupted. "Yes, we have groupspirit. Ape-tribe spirit, not race spirit."

 Paul moved restlessly toward the door. Seevers had turnedto watch him with a cool smirk.

 "Well, you're illuminated, youngster. Now what do youintend to do?"

 Paul shook his head to scatter the confusion of ideas."What can anyone do? Except run. To an island, perhaps."

 Seevers hoisted a cynical eyebrow. "Intend taking the con­dition with you? Or will you try to stay nonhyper?"

 'Take... are you crazy? I mean to stay healthy?"

 "That's what I thought. If you were objective about this,you'd give yourself the condition and get it over with. I did.You remind me of a monkey running away froma hypodermicneedle. The hypo has serum health-insurance in it, but theneedle looks sharp. The monkey chatters with fright."

 Paul stalked angrily to the door, then paused. "Therers a girl upstairs, a dermie. Would you-"

 "Tell her all this? I always brief new hypers. It's one ofmy duties around this ecclesiastical leper ranch. She's on the

 verge of insanity, I suppose. They all are, before they get ridof the idea that they're damned souls. What's she to you?"

 Paul strode out into the corridor without answering. Hefelt physically ill. He hated Seevers' smug bulldog face witha violence that was unfamiliar to him. The man had giventhe plague to himself! So he said. But was it true? Was any of it true? To claim that the hallucinations were new sensoryphenomena, to pose the plague as possibly desirable-Seevershad no patent on those ideas. Every dermie made such claims;it was a symptom. Seevers had simply invented clever ra­tionalizations to support his delusions, and Paul had beennearly taken in. Seevers was clever.Do you mean to take thecondition with you when you go?Wasn't that just anotherway of suggesting, "Why don't you allow me to touch you?" Paul was shivering as he returned to the third-floor room torecoat himself with the pungent oil. Why not leave now? he thought.

 But he spent the day wandering along the waterfront,stopping briefly at the docks to watch a crew of monks scram­bling over the scaffolding that surrounded the hulls of twosmall sea-going vessels. The monks were caulking split seamsand trotting along the platforms with buckets of tar andpaint. Upon inquiry, Paul learned which of the vessels wasintended for his own use. And he put aside all thoughts of immediate departure.

 She was a fifty-footer, a slender craft with a weighted fin-keel that would cut too deep for bay navigation. Paul guessedthat the colony wanted only a flat-bottomed vessel for haulingpassengers and cargo across from the mainland. They wouldhave little use for the trim seaster with the lines of a babydestroyer. Upon closer examination, he guessed that it hadbeen a police boat, or Coast Guard craft. There was a gun-mounting on the forward deck, minus the gun. She was builtfor speed, and powered by diesels, and she could be provi­sioned for a nice long cruise.

 Paul went to scrounge among the warehouses and locatea stock of supplies. He met an occasional monk or nun, batthe gray-skinned monastics seemed only desirous of avoidinghim. The dermie desire was keyed principally, by smell, andthe deodorant oil helped preserve him from their affections.Once he was approached by a wild-eyed layman who startledhim amidst a heap of warehouse crates. The dermie was al­most upon him before Paul heard the footfall. Caught without

 an escape route, and assailed     by startled terror, he shattered

 the man's arm with a shotgun blast, then fled from the ware­house to escape the dermie's screams.

 Choking with shame, he found a dermie monk and senthim to care for the wounded creature. Paul had shot at other plague victims when there was no escape, but never withintent to kill. The man's life had been spared only by hastyaim.

 "It was self-defenset" he reminded himself.

 But defense against what? Against the inevitable?

 He hurried back to the hospital and found Mendelhausoutside the small chapel. ''I better not wait for your boat," hetold the priest. "I just shot one of your people. I better leave before it happens again."

 Mendelhaus' thin lips tightened, "You shot-"

 "Didn't kill him," Paul explained hastily. "Broke his arm.One of the brothers is bringing him over. I'm sorry, Father,but he jumped me."

 The priest glanced aside silently, apparently wrestling against anger, "I'm glad you told me," he said quietly. "Isuppose you couldn't help it. But why did you leave the hos­pital? You're safe here. The yacht will be provisioned for you.I suggest you remain in your room until it's ready. I won't vouch for your safety any farther than the building." Therewas a tone of command in his voice, and Paul nodded slowly. He started away.

 "The young lady's been asking for you," the priest calledafter him.

 Paul stopped. "How is she?"

 "Over the crisis, I think. Infection's down. Nervous con­dition not so good. Deep depression. Sometimes she goes alittle hysterical." He paused, then lowered his voice, "You'reat the focus of it, young man. Sometimes she gets the ideathat she touched you, and then sometimes she raves abouthow she wouldn't do it."

 Paul whirled angrily, forming a protest, but the priestcontinued: "Seevers talked to her, and then a psychologist-one of oar sisters. It seemed to help some. She's asleep now,I don't know how much of Seevers' talk she understood, how­ever. She's dared-combined effects of pain, shock, infection,guilt feelings, fright, hysteria-and some other things, Mor­phine doesn't make her mind any clearer. Neither does the fact that she thinks you're avoiding her."

 "It's the plague I'm avoiding!" Paul snapped. "Not her."

 Mendelhaus chuckled mirthlessly. "You're talking to me,aren't you?" He turned and entered the chapel through aswinging door. As the door fanned back and forth, Paulcaught a glimpse of a candlelit altar and a stark woodencrucifix, and a sea of monk-robes flowing over the pews, wait­ing for the celebrant priest to enter the sanctuary and begin the Sacrifice of the Mass. He realized vaguely that it wasSunday.

 Paul wandered back to the main corridor and found him­self drifting toward Willie's room. The door was ajar, and he stopped short lest she see him. But after a moment he inchedforward until he caught a glimpse of her dark mass of hairunfurled across the pillow. One of the sisters had combed itfor her, and it spread in dark waves, gleaming in the can­dlelight. She was still asleep. The candle startled him for aninstant-suggesting a deathbed and the sacrament of thedying. But a dogeared magazine lay beneath it; someone hadbeen reading to her.

 He stood in the doorway, watching the slow rise of her breathing. Fresh, young, shapely-even in the crude cottongown they had given her, even beneath the blue-white pallorof her skin-soon to become gray as a cloudy sky in a winterytwilight. Her lips moved slightly, and he backed a step away.They paused, parted moistly, showing thin white teeth. Herdelicately carved face was thrown back slightly on the pillow.There was a sudden tightening of her jaw.

 A weirdly pitched voice floated unexpectedly from downthe hall, echoing the semisinging of Gregorian chant:"As-perges me, Domine, hyssopo, et mundabor..."The priest wasbeginning Mass.

 As the sound came, the girl's hands clenched into rigidfists beneath the sheet. Her eyes flared open to stare <wildly at the ceiling. Clutching the bedclothes, she pressed the fistsup against her face and cried out: "No! Noooo! God, I won't!"

 Paul backed out of sight and pressed himself against thewall. A knot of desolation tightened in his stomach. He lookedaround nervously. A nun, hearing the outcry, came scurryingdown the hall, murmuring anxiously to herself, A plumpmother hen in a dozen yards of starched white cloth. She gavehim a quick challenging glance and waddled inside.

 "Child, my child, what's wrong! Nightmares again?"

 He heard Willie breathe a nervous moan of relief. Thenher voice, weakly-"They . . . they made me . . . touch . . .Ooo, God! I want to cut off my hands!"

 Paul fled, leaving the nun's sympathetic reassurance to fade into a murmur behind him.

 He spent the rest of the day and the night in his room. On the following day, Mendelhaus came with word that the boatwas not yet ready. They neededto finish caulking and stockit with provisions. But the priest assured him that it shouldbe afloat within twenty-four hours, Paal omild not bring him­self to ask about the girl.

 A monk brought his food-unopened cans, still steamingfrom the sterilizer, and on a covered tray. The monk woregloves and mask, and he had oiled his own skin. There weremoments when Paul felt as if he were the diseased and con­tagious patient from whom the others protected themselves. Like Omar, he thought, wondering-"which is the Potter,pray, and which the Pot?"

 Was Man, as Seevers implied, a terrorized ape-tribefleeing illogically from the gray hands that only wanted tooffer a blessing? How narrow was the line dividing blessingfrom curse, god from demon! The-parasites came in a devil'smask, the mask of disease, "Diseases have often killed me," said Man. "All disease is therefore evil." But was that nec­essarily true? Fire had often killed Man's club-bearing ances­tors, but later came to serve him. Even diseases had beenused to good advantage-artificially induced typhoid and malaria to fight venereal infections.

 But the gray skin ... taste buds in the fingertips.. . alien microorganisms tampering with the nerves and the brain.Such concepts caused his scalp to bristle. Man--made overto suit the tastes of a bunch of supposedly beneficent para­sites-was he still Man, or something else? Little bacterio­logical farmers imbedded in the skin, raising a crop of nervecells-eat one, plant two, sow an olfactor in a new field,reshuffle the feeder-fibers to the brain,

 Monday brought a cold rain and stiff wind from the Gulf.He watched the water swirling through littered gutters inthe street. Sitting in the window, he watched the gloom andwaited, praying that the storm would not delay his departure. Mendelhaus smiled politely through his doorway once. "Wil­lie's ankle seems healing nicely," he said. "Swelling's gonedown so much we had to change caste. If only she would-"

 "Thanks for the free report, Padre," Paul growled irrita­bly.

 The priest shrugged and went away.

 It was still raining when the sky darkened with evening.The monastic dock-crew had certainly been unable to finish.Tomorrow... perhaps.

 After nightfall, he lit a candle and lay awake watchingits unflickering yellow tongue until drowsiness lolled hishead aside. He snuffed it out and went to bed.

 Dreams assailed him, tormented him, stroked him withdark hands while he lay back, submitting freely. Smallhands, soft, cool, tender-touching his forehead and hischeeks, while a voice whispered caresses.

 He awoke suddenly to blackness. The feel of the dream-hands was still on his face. What had aroused him? A soundin the hall, a creaking hinge? The darkness was impenetra­ble. The rain had stopped-perhaps its cessation had dis­turbed him. He felt curiously tense as he lay listening to thehumid, musty corridors. A... faint... rustle... and...

 Breathing!. The sound of soft breathing was in the roomwith him!

 He let out a hoarse shriek that shattered the unearthlysilence. A high-pitched scream of fright answered him! Proma few feet away in the room. He groped toward it and fumbledagainst a bare wall. He roared curses, and tried to find first matches, then the shotgun. At last he found the gun, aimed at nothing across the room, and jerked the trigger. The ex­plosion deafened him. The window shattered, and a sift ofplaster rustled to the floor.

 The brief flash had illuminated the room. It was empty.He stood frozen. Had he imagined it all? But no, the visitor'sstartled scream had been real enough.

 A cool draft fanned his face. The door was open. Had he forgotten to lock it again? A tumult of sound was beginningto arise from the lower floors. His shot had aroused the sleep­ers. But there was a closer sound-sobbing in the corridor,and an irregular creaking noise.

 At last he found a match and rushed to the door. But thetiny flame revealed nothing within its limited aura. He hearda doorknob rattle in the distance; his visitor was escaping via the outside stairway. He thought of pursuit and ven­ geance. But instead, he rushed to the washbasin and began scrubbing himself thoroughly with harsh brown soap. Hadhis visitor touched him-or had the hands been only dream- stuff? He was frightened and sickened.

 Voices were filling the corridor. The light of several can-dles was advancing toward his doorway. He turned to see

 monks' faces peering anxiously inside. Father Mendelhaus shouldered his way through the others, glancedat the win­dow, the wall, then at Paul.

 "What-"

 "Safety, eh?" Paul hissed. "Well, I had a prowler! A woman!I think I've been touched."

 The priest turned and spoke to a monk. "Go to the stairwayand call for the Mother Superior. Ask her to make an im­mediate inspection of the sisters' quarters. If any nuns havebeen out of their rooms-"

 A shrill voice called from down the hallway: "Father,Father! The girl with the injured ankle! She's not in her bed!She's gone!"

 "Willie!" Paul gasped.

 A small nun with a candle scurried up and panted to re­cover her breath for a moment. "She's gone, Father. I was onnight duty. I heard the shot, and I went to see if it disturbedher. She wasn't there!"

 The priest grumbled incredulously. "How could she getout? She can't walk with that cast."

 "Crutches, Father. We told her she could get up in a fewdays. While she was still irrational, she kept saying they were going to amputate her leg. We brought the crutches into prove she'd be up soon. It's my fault, Father. I shouldhave-"

 "Never mind! Search the building for her."

 Paul dried his wet skin and faced the priest angrily. "Whatcan I do to disinfect myself?" he demanded.

 Mendelhaus called out into the hallway where a crowdhad gathered. "Someone please get Doctor Seevers."

 "I'm here, preacher," grunted the scientist. The monasticsparted ranks to make way for his short chubby body. He grinned amusedly at Paul. "So, you decided to make yourhome here after all, eh?"

 Paul croaked an insult at him. "Have you got any effec­tive-"

 "Disinfectants? Afraid not. Nitric acid will do the trick on one or two local spots. Where were you touched?"

 "I don't know. I was asleep."

 Seevers' grin widened. "Well, you can't take a bath innitric acid. We'll try something else, but I doubt if it'll work for a direct touch."

 "That oil-"

 "Uh-uh! That'll do for" exposure-weakened parasites you

 might pick up by handling an object that's been touched. Butwith skin-to-skin contact, the bugs're pretty stout little ras­cals. Come on downstairs, though, we'll make a pass at it,"

 Paul followed him quickly down the corridor. Behind him,a soft voice was murmuring: "I just can't understand whynonhypers are so..." Mendelhaus said something to Seevers,blotting out the voice. Paul chafed at the thought that theymight consider him cowardly.

 But with the herds fleeing northward, cowardice was the social norm. And after a year's flight, Paul had accepted the norm as the only possible way to fight.

 Seevers was emptying chemicals into a tub of water in thebasement when a monk hurried in to tug at Mendelhaus'sleeve. "Father, the sisters report that the girl's not in thebuilding."

 "What? Well, she can't be far! Search the grounds. If she'snot there, try the adjoining blocks."

 Paul stopped unbuttoning his shirt. Willie had said somemournful things about what she would rather do than submitto the craving. And her startled scream when he had criedout in the darkness-the scream of someone suddenly awak­ening to reality-from a daze-world.

 The monk left the room. Seevers sloshed more chemicalsinto the tub. Paul could hear the wind whipping about thebasement windows and the growl of an angry surf not so faraway. Paul rebuttoned his shirt.

 "Which way's the ocean?" he asked suddenly. He backed toward the door.

 "No, you fool!" roared Seevers. "You're not going to-gethim,preacher!"

 Paul sidestepped as the priest grabbed for him. He dartedoutside and began running for the stairs. Mendelhaus bel­lowed for him to stop.

 "Not me!" Paul called back angrily. "Willie!"

 Moments later, he was racing across the sodden lawn andinto the street. He stopped on the corner to get his bearings.The wind brought the sound of the surf with it. He beganrunning east and calling her name into the night.

 The rain had ceased, but the pavement was wet and watergurgled in the gutters. Occasionally the moon peered throughthe thinning veil of clouds, but its light failed to furnish aview of the street ahead. After a minute's running, he foundhimself standing on the seawall. The breakers thundered astone's throw across the sand. For a moment they became

 visible under the coy moon, then vanished againin blackness.

 He had not seen her.

 "Willie!"

 Only the breakers' growl responded. And a glimmer ofphosphorescence from the waves,

 "Willie!"He slipped down from the seawall and beganfeeling along the jagged rocks that lay beneath it. She couldnot have gotten down without faffing. Then he remembereda rickety flight of steps just to the north, and he trottedquickly toward it.

 The moon came out suddenly. He saw her, and stopped.She was sitting motionless on the bottom step, holding her face in her hands. The crutches were stacked neatly againstthe handrail. Ten yards across the sand slope lay the hungry, devouring surf. Paul approached her slowly. The moon wentout again. His feet sucked at the rain-soaked sand.

 He stopped by the handrail, peering at her motionlessshadow. "Willie?"

 A low moan, then a long silence. "I did it, Paul," she mut-tered miserably. "It was like a dream at first, but then... youshouted.,. and..."

 He crouched in front of her, sitting on his heels. Then he took her wrists firmly and tugged her hands from her face.

 "Don't,,,"

 He pulled her close and kissed her. Her mouth was fright­
ened. Then he lifted her-being cautious of the now-sodden
cast. He climbed the steps and started back to the hospital.
Willie, dazed and weary and still uncomprehending, fell
asleep in his arms. Her hair blew about his face in the wind.
It smelled warm and alive. He wondered what sensation it
would produce to the finger-pore receptors. "Wait and see,"
he said to himself.                                   

 The priest met him with a growing grin when he broughther into the candlelit corridor. "Shall we forget the boat,son?"

 Paul paused. "No... I'd like to borrow it anyway."   Mendelhaus looked puzzled,

 Seevers snorted at him: "Preacher, don't you know any reasons for traveling besides running away?"

 Paul carried her back to her room. He meant to have along talk when she awoke. About an island-until the worldsobered up.

 5

 CIVILIZATION DESTROYED

 Even if humanity survives, the civilization it developed over the last ten thousand years may not, in a "Catastrophe of theFifth Class."

 We are, for instance, beginning to suspect that the Sun isnot quite as reliable a luminary as we have been taking forgranted. Suppose the Sun undergoes a small hiccup, nothingof importance to itself, or very noticeable from out in space-yet enough to introduce sufficient change on Earth to breakdown humanity's fine-tuned system of society ("Last Night of Summer" by Alfred Coppel).

 Or humanity can do it to itself. Wars have been endemic since the beginning of civilization, certainly, and they havebeen growing steadily more deadly as technology advances. With the coming of the nuclear bomb, the true Armageddonhas finally become possible. ("The Store of the Worlds" byRobert Sheckley).

 Consider, though, that civilization is the product of hu­manity's three-pound brain, the most magnificently orga­nized bit of matter we haveany knowledge of. What if some­thing goes wrong with it-whether other-induced or self-induced ("How It Was When the Past Went Away" by RobertSilverberg)?

 And finally, what of the sword of Damocles that trulyhangs suspended over humanity; the one catastrophe that isvisible, perhaps even inevitable, and is eating away at usnow-overpopulation. What if we continue to increase our numbers and if the mere weight of flesh and blood breaks us down ("Shark Ship" by C. M. Kornbluth)?

 Last Night of Summer

 ALFRED COPPEL

 There were fires burning in the city. With the house dark-the power station was deserted by this time-Tom Henderson could see the fires clearly. They reflected like bonfires againstthe pall of smoke,

 He sat in the dark, smoking and listening to the reedyvoice of the announcer that came out of the battery-poweredportable radio,

 "-mean temperatures are rising to abnormal heights allover the world. Paris reports a high yesterday of 110 degrees.,. Naples was 115... astronomers predict... the government requests that the civil population remain calm. Martial lawhas been declared in Los Angeles-"

 The voice was faint. The batteries were low. Not that itmattered.With all our bickering, Henderson thought,this is the finish. And we haven't got what it takes to face it. It wasso simple, really. No war of the worlds, no collision withanother planet. A slight rise in temperature. Just that. Theastronomers had discovered it first, of course, And,there hadbeen reassuring statements to the press. The rise in temper-ature would be small. Ten percent give or take a few milliondegrees. They spoke of surface-tensions, internal stresses andused all the astrophysical terms not one man in two millionhad ever taken the trouble to understand. And what they said to the world was that on the last night of summer itwould die.

 It would be gradual at first. Temperatures had been high
all summer. Then on September  22nd, there would be a sud-

 den surge of heat from that familiar red ball in the sky. The surface temperature of the earth would be raised to 200° centigrade for seventeen hours. Then everything would beback to normal.

 Henderson grinned vacuously at the empty air.Back tonormal.The seas, which would have boiled away, would con­dense and fall as hot rain for a month or so, flooding the land,washing away all traces of man's occupation-those thathadn't burned. And in two months, the temperature wouldbe down to where a man could walk on the surface withoutprotective clothing.

 Only there would not be very many men left. There wouldonly be the lucky ones with the talismans of survivals, themetal disks that gave access to the Burrows. Out of a pop­ulation of two billions, less than a million would survive.

 The announcer sounded bone-weary.He should, Hender­son thought.He's been on the air for ten hours or more withoutrelief. We all do what we can. But it isn't much,

 "-no more applicants are being taken for the Burrows-"

 I should hope not, Henderson thought. There had been solittle time. Three months. That they had been able to build the ten Burrows was tribute enough. But then money hadn'tmattered, had it? He had to keep reminding himself that theold values didn't apply. Not money, or materials, or even labor-that stand-by of commerce. Only time. And therehadn't been any of that.

 "-population of Las Vegas has been evacuated into sev­eral mines in the area-"

 Nice try, but it wouldn't work,Henderson thought lan­guidly. If the heat didn't kill, the overcrowding would. Andif that failed, then the floods would succeed. And of course there would be earthquakes.We can't accept catastrophe onthis scale,he told himself.We aren't equipped mentally for it any better than toe are physically. The only thing a man couldunderstand were his own problems. And this last night of summer made them seem petty, small, as though they werebeing viewed through the wrong end of a telescope.

 I'm sorry for the girls,he thought. Lorrie and Pam. Theyshould have had a chance to grow up. He felt a tightness inhis throat as he thought of his daughters. Eight and ten aresad ages to die.

 But he hadn't thought of them before, why should the endof the world make it any different? He had left them andLaura, too. For what? For Kay and money and a kind of life that would go out in a bright flash with the coming of dawn.They all danced their minuscule ballet on the rim of the worldwhile he sat, drained of purpose or feeling, watching themthrough that reversed telescope.

 He wondered where Kay was now. All over the city therewere Star Parties going on. The sky the limit tonight! Any­thing you want. Tomorrow-bang!Nothing denied, nothingforbidden. This is the last night of the world, kiddo!

 Kay had dressed-if that was the word-and gone out atseven. "I'm not going to sit here and just wait!" He remem­bered the hysteria in her voice, the drugged stupor in hereyes. And then Trina and those others coming in, some drunk,others merely giddy with terror. Trina wrapped in her mink coat, and dancing around the room singing in a shrill, crackedvoice. And the other girl-Henderson never could rememberher name, but he'd remember her now for all the time there was left-naked except for her jewels. Diamonds, rubies, em­eralds-all glittering sparkling in the last rays of theswollen sun. And the tears streamed down her cheeks as shebegged him to make love to her-

 It was'a nightmare. But it was real. The red sun thatslipped into the Pacific was real. The fires and looting in thecity were not dreams. This was the way the world was ending.Star Parties and murder in the streets, and women dressedin gems, and tears-a million gallons of tears.

 Outside there was the squeal of tires and a crash, then the,tinkling of broken glass and silence. A shot came from downthe street. There was a cry that was part laughter and partscream,

 I'm without purpose,Henderson thought.Isit and watchand wait for nothing.And the radio's voice grew fainter still.

 "-those in the Burrows will survive... in mines and eaves ... geologists promise a forty percent survival... behind theiron curtain-"

 Behind the iron curtain, surely nothing. Or perhaps itwould be instantaneous, not sweeping across the world withdawn. Of course, it would be instantaneous. The sun wouldswell-oh, so slightly-and eight minutes later, rivers, lakes, streams, the oceans-everything wet-would boil up into thesky'...

 From the street came a rasping repetitive cry. Not awoman. A man. He was burning. A street gang had soakedhim with gasoline and touched him with a match. They fol­lowed him shrieking:preview, preview! Henderson watchedhim through the window as he ran with thatuuuh uuuhuuuhnoise seemingly ripped from his throat. He vanished

 around the corner of the next house, closely pursued by his tormentors,

 Ihope the girls and Laura are safe,Henderson thought. And then he almost laughed aloud. Safe. What was safetynow?Maybe, he thought,Ishould have gone with Kay. Wasthere anything left he wanted to do that he had never done? Kill? Rape? Any sensation left untasted? The night before,at the Gilmans', there had been a ludicrous Black Mass fullof horror and asininity: pretty Louise Gilman taking theguests one after another amid the broken china and sterlingsilver on the dining table while her husband lay half-deadof self-administered morphine.

 Our set,Henderson thought.Brokers, bankers, people whomatter.God, it was bad enough to die. But to die withoutdignity was worse yet. And to die without purpose was abys­ mal.

 Someone was banging at the door, scratching at it, shriek­ing. He sat still.

 "Tom-Tom-it's Kay! Let me in, for God's sake!"

 Maybe it was Kay. Maybe it was and he should let herstay outside.Ishould keep what shreds of dignity I have, hethought,and die alone, at least. How would it have been to face this thing with Laura? Any different? Or was there any­thing to choose?Imarried Laura, he thought.And I marriedKay, too.It was easy. If a man could get a divorce every twoyears, say, and he lived to be sixty-five, say-then how manywomen could he marry? And if you assumed there were abillion women in the world, what percentage would it be?

 "Let me in, Tom, damn you! I know you're there!"

 Eight and ten isn't very old,he thought.Not very old, really.They might have been wonderful women...to lie amid thecrockery and cohabit like animals while the sun got readyto blow up?

 "Tom...!"

 He shook his head sharply and snapped off the radio. Thefires in the city were brighter and bigger. Not sunfires, those.Someone had set them. He got up and went to the door. Heopened it. Kay stumbled in, sobbing. "Shut the door, oh, God,shut it!"

 He stood looking at her torn clothes-what there was of

 them-and her hands. They were sticky red with blood. He

 felt no horror, no curiosity. He experienced nothing but a

 dead feeling of loss.Inever loved her, he thought suddenly.

 That's why.

 She reeked of liquor and her lipstick was smeared all over

 her face. "I gave him what he wanted." she said shrilly. "The

 filthy swine coming to mix with the dead ones and then run, back to the Burrow-" Suddenly she laughed. "Look, Tom- look!" She held out one bloody hand. Two disks gleamed dully inher palm.

 "We're safe, safe-" She said it again and again, bending over the disks and crooning to them.

 Henderson stood in the dim hallway, slowly letting hismind understand what he was seeing. Kay had killed a man f or those tickets into the Burrow.

 "Give them to me," he said.

    She snatched them away. "No."
"I want them, Kay."

 "No, nononono-" She thrust, them into the torn bosom of her dress. "I came back. I came back for you. That's true, isn'tit?"

 "Yes," Henderson said. And it was also true that shecouldn't have hoped to reach a Burrow alone. She would needa car and. a man with a gun. "I understand, Kay," he saidsoftly, hating her.

 "If I gave them to you, you'd take Laura," she said."Wouldn't you?Wouldn't you? Oh, I know you, Tom, I knowyou so well. You'd never gotten free of her or those two sniv­eling brats of yours-"

 He struck her sharply across the face, surprised at therage that shook him.

 "Don't do that again," she said, glaring hatred at him. "Ineed you right now but you need me more. You don't knowwhere the Burrow is. I do."

 It was true, of course. The entrances to the Burrows wouldhave to be secret, known only to those chosen to survive.Mobs would storm them otherwise. And Kay had found outfrom the man-that man who had paid with his life for for­getting that there were only potential survivors now andanimals.

 "All right, Kay," Henderson said. "Ill make a bargain withyou."

 "What?" she asked suspiciously.

 "I'll tell you in the car. Get ready. Take light things." Hewent into the bedroom and took his Luger from the bedside table drawer. Kay was busy stuffing her jewelry into a hand­bag. "Come on," he said. "That's enough. Plenty. There isn'tmuch time."

 They went down into the garage and got into the car, "Rollup the windows," he said. "And lock the doors,"

 "All right."

 He started the engine and backed onto the street,

 "What's the bargain?" Kay asked.

 "Later,"he said.

 He put the car in gear and started down out of the resi­dential district, going through the winding, wooded drives. There were dark shapes running in the shadows. A man ap­peared in the headlights' beam and Henderson swervedswiftly by him. He heard shots behind. "Keep down," he said.

 "Where are we going? This isn't the way."

 "I'm taking the girls with me," he said. "With us."

 "They won't let them in."

 "We can try."

 "You fool, Tom! They won't let them in, I say!"

 He stopped the car and twisted around to look at her. "Would you rather try to make it on foot?"

 Her face grew ugly with a renaissance of fear. She couldsee her escape misting away. "All right. But I tell you theywon't let them in. No one gets into a Burrow without a disk."

 "We can try." He started the car again, driving fast alongthe littered streets toward Laura's apartment.

 At several points the street was blocked with burning de­bris, and once a gang of men and women almost surroundedthem, throwing rocks and bits of wreckage at the car as he backed it around.

 "You'll get us both killed for nothing," Kay said wildly.

 Tom Henderson looked at his wife and felt sick for thewasted years. "We'll be all right," he said.

 He stopped the car in front of Laura's. There were twooverturned cars on the sidewalk. He unlocked the door andgot out, taking the keys with him. "I won't be long," he said.

 "Say good-by to Laura for me," Kay said, her eyes glit­tering.

 "Yes," he said. "I will."

 A shadow moved menacingly out of the dark doorway.

 Without hesitation, Tom Henderson lifted the Luger and

 fired. The man fell and did not move.I've just killed a man,

 Henderson thought. And then:But what does it matter on the

 last night of summer?

 Heshot away the lock and walked swiftly up the darkhallway, up the two flights of stairs he remembered so well.

 At Laura's door he knocked. There was movement within.The door opened slowly.

 "I've come for the girls," he said.Laura stepped back. "Come in," she said.

 The scent she wore began to prod memories. His eyes feltunaccountably hot and wet. "There's very little time," he said.

 Laura's hand was on his in the dark. "You can get theminto a Burrow?" she asked. And then faintly. "I put them tobed. I didn't know what else to do."

 He couldn't see her, but he knew how she would look: theclose-cropped sandy hair; the eyes the color of rich chocolates;her so familiar body supple and warm under the wrapper;the smell and taste of her. It didn't matter now, nothingmattered on this last crazy night of the world.

 "Get them," he said, "Quickly,"

 She did as was told.Pam and Lorrie-he could hearthem complaining softly about being awakened in the middleof the night-soft little bodies, with the musty-childish odor of sleep and safety. Then Laura was kneeling, holding themagainst her, each in turn. And he knew the tears must be weton her cheeks. He thought: saygood-by and make it quick.Kiss your children good-by and watch them go out while youremain alone in the dark that isn't ever going to end. Ah,Laura. Laura-

 "Take them quickly, Tom," Laura said. And then she pressed herself against him just for an instant. "I love you,Tom. I never stopped."

 He lifted Pam into his arms and took Lome's hand. He didn't trust himself to speak.

 "Good-by, Tom," Laura said, and closed the door behindhim.

 "Isn't Mommy coming?" Pam asked sleepily.

 "Another time, baby," Tom said softly.

 He took them out to the waiting car and Kay.

 "They won't take them," she said. "You'll see."

 "Where is it, Kay?"

 She remained sullenly silent and Henderson felt his nervescracking. "Kay-"

 "All right." She gave him directions grudgingly, as thoughshe hated to share her survival with him. She wouldn't lookat the girls, already asleep in the back of the car.

 They drove through the city, the looted, tortured city thatburned and echoed to the shrill gaiety of Star Parties andalready stank of death.

 Twice, they were almost struck by careening cars, filledwith drunken, naked, insane people, all with the desperatedesire to make this last night more vivid than all the others' back to the very beginning of time.

 The headlights illuminated tableaus from some wild in­ferno as the car swung around through the concrete cemeterythe city had become:

 A woman hung by the ankles, her skirt shrouding her faceand upper body, her legs and buttocks flayed...

 Psalm singers kneeling in the street, not moving as a truckcut a swath through their midst. And the hymn, thin andweak, heard over the moans of the dying:Rock of Ages, cleftfor me, let me hide myself in thee...

 Sudden sun-worshippers and troglodytes dancing round a fire of burning books...

 The death throes of a world,Henderson thought.Whatsurvives the fire and flood will have to be better.

 And then they had reached the silent hill that was theentrance to the Burrow, the miles-deep warren clothed inrefrigerator pipes and cooling earth. "There," Kay said."Where you see the light. There'll be a guard."

 Behind them, the fires burned in the city. The night wasgrowing lighter, lit by a rising moon, a moon too red,too large.Four hours left, perhaps, Tom thought.Orless.

 "You can't take them," Kay was whispering harshly. "If you try they might not let us in. It's kinder to let them stayhere-asleep. They'll never know."

 "That's right," Tom said.

 Kay got out of the car and started up the grassy slope."Then come on!"

 Halfway up the hill, Henderson could make out the pacing figure of the guard: death watch on a world. "Wait a minute,"he said.

 "What is it?"

 "Are you sure we can get in?"

 "Of course."

 "No questions asked?"

 "A11 we need are the disks. They can't know everybodywho belongs."

 "No," Tom said quietly. "Of course not." He stood lookingat Kay under the light of the red moon,

 "Tom-"

 He took Kay's hand. "We weren't worth much, were we,Kay?"

 Her eyes were bright, wide, staring.

 "You didn't really expect anything else, did you?"

 "Tom-Tom!"

 The pistol felt light in his hand.

 "I'm your wife-" she said hoarsely,

 "Let's pretend you're not. Let's pretend it's a Star Party."

 "My God-please-nonono-"

 The Luger bucked in his hand, Kay sank to the grassawkwardly and lay there, eyes glazed and open in horrifiedsurprise. Henderson opened her dress and took the two disks from between her breasts. Then he covered her carefully andshut her eyes with his forefinger. "You didn't miss much,Kay," he said looking down at her. "Just more of the same."

 He went back to the car and woke up the girls.

 "Where are we going now, Daddy?" Pam asked.

 "Up there on the hill, dear. Where the light is."

 "Carry me?"

 "Both of you," he said, and dropped the Luger into thegrass. He-picked them up and carried them up the hill to within a hundred feet of the bunker entrance. Then he put them down and gave them each a disk. "Go to the light andgive the man there these," he said, and kissed them both.

 "You're not coming?"

 "No, babies."

 Lorrie looked as though she might start crying.

 "I'm afraid."

 "There's nothing to be afraid of," Tom said.

 "Nothing at all," Pam said.

 Tom watched them go. He saw the guard kneel and hugthem both.There is some kindness in this stripping of inhi­bitions,Henderson thought,something is left after all. They disappeared into the Burrow and the guard stood up salutingthe darkness with a wave. Henderson turned and walkedback down the hill, skirting the place where Kay lay face to the sky. A Warm dry wind touched his face.Time running out quickly now, he thought. He got into the car and startedback toward the city. There were still a few hours left of this last night of summer, and Laura and he could watch the reddawn together.

 The Store of the WorldsROBERT  SHECKLEY

 Mr. Wayne came to the end of the long, shoulder-high moundof gray rubble, and there was the Store of the Worlds. It wasexactly as his friends had described: a small shack con­structed of bits of lumber, parts of cars, a piece of galvanized iron and a few rows of crumbling bricks, all daubed over witha watery blue paint.

 He glanced back down the long lane of rubble to make sure he hadn't been followed. He tucked his parcel more firmly under his arm; then, with a little shiver at his ownaudacity, he opened the door and slipped inside.

 "Good morning," the proprietor said.

 He, too, was exactly as described: a tall, crafty-looking oldfellow with narrow eyes and a downcast mouth. His name was Tompkins. He sat in an old rocking chair, and perchedon the back of it was a blue-and-green parrot. There was one other chair in the store and a table. On the table was a rustedhypodermic.

 "I've heard about your store from friends," Mr. Waynesaid.

 "Then you know my price," Tompkins said. "Have youbrought it?"

 "Yes," said Mr. Wayne, holding up his parcel. "All my worldly goods. But I want to ask first-"

 "They always want to ask," Tompkins said to the parrot, who blinked. "Go ahead, ask."

 "I want to know what really happens."

 Tompkins sighed. "What happens is this: I give you aninjection which knocks you out. Then, with the aid of certaingadgets which I have in the back of the store, I liberate yourmind."

 Tompkins smiled as he said that, and his silent parrotseemed to smile, too.

 "What happens then?" Mr. Wayne asked.

 "Your mind, liberated from its body, is able to choose fromthe countless probability worlds which the earth easts off inevery second of its existence."

 Grinning now, Tompkins sat up in his rocking chair andbegan to show signs of enthusiasm.

 "Yes, my friend, though you might not have suspected it,from the moment this battered earth was born out of the sun'sfiery womb, it cast off its alternate-probability worlds. Worldswithout end, emanating from events large and small; everyAlexander and every amoeba creating worlds, just as rippleswill spread in a pond no matter how big or how small thestone you throw. Doesn't every object cast a shadow? Well,my friend, the earth itself is four-dimensional; therefore itcasts three-dimensional shadows, solid reflections of itself,through every moment of its being. Millions, billions of earths! An infinity of earths! And your mind, liberated byme, will be able to select any of these worlds and live uponit for a while."

 Mr. Wayne was uncomfortably aware that Tompkins sounded like a circus barker, proclaiming marvels that sim­ply couldn't exist. But, Mr. Wayne reminded himself, thingshad happened within his own lifetime which he would neverhave believed possible. Never! So perhaps the wonders thatTompkins spoke of were possible, too.

 Mr. Wayne said, "My friends also told me-"

 "That I was an out-and-out fraud?" Tompkins asked.

 "Some of themimplied that," Mr. Wayne said cautiously,"But I try to keep an open mind. They also said-"

 "I know what your dirty-minded friends said. They toldyou about the fulfillment of desire. Is that what you want tohear about?"

 "Yes," said Mr. Wayne. "They told me that whatever Iwished for-whatever I wanted-"

 "Exactly," Tompkins said. 'The thing could work in noother way. There are the infinite worlds to choose among.Your mind chooses and is guided only by desire. Your deepestdesire is the only thing that counts. If you have been har­boring a secret dream of murder-""Oh, hardly, hardly!" cried Mr. Wayne."-then you will go to a world where youcan murder,where you can roll in blood, where you can outdo De Sade or

 Nero or whoever your idol may be. Suppose it's power youwant? Then you'll choose a world where you are a god, lit­erally and actually. A bloodthirsty Juggernaut, perhaps, or an ail-wise Buddha."

 "I doubt very much if I-"

 "There are other desires, too," Tompkins said. "All heavensand all hells will be open to you. Unbridled sexuality. Glut­tony, drunkenness, love, fame-anything you want."

 "Amazing!" said Mr. Wayne.

 "Yes," Tompkins agreed. "Of course, my little list doesn'texhaust all the possibilities, all the combinations and per­mutations of desire. For all I know, you might want a simple, placid, pastoral existence on a South Sea island among ideal­ized natives."

 "That sounds more like me," Mr. Wayne said with a shylaugh.

 "But who knows?" Tompkins asked, "Even you might notknow what your true desires are. They might involve your own death."

 "Does that happen often?" Mr, Wayne asked anxiously.

 "Occasionally."

 "I wouldn't want to die," Mr. Wayne said.

 "It hardly ever happens," Tompkins said, looking at the parcel in Mr. Wayne's hands.

 "If you say so.... But how do I know all this is real? Your fee is extremely high; it'll take everything I own. And for all I know, you'll give me a drug and I'll justdream! Everything I own just for a-shot of heroin and a lot of fancy words!"

 Tompkins smiled reassuringly. "The experience has no druglike quality about it. And no sensation of a dream, ei­ther."

 "If it'strue," Mr. Wayne said a little petulantly, "why can'tI stay in the world of my desire for good?"

 "I'm working on that," Tompkins said. "That's why Icharge so high a fee-to get materials, to experiment. I'mtrying to find a way of making the transition permanent. Sofar I haven't been able to loosen the cord that binds a manto his own earth-and pulls him back to it. Not even the greatmystics could cut that cord, except with death. But I stillhave my hopes."

 "It would be a great thing if you succeeded," Mr. Wayne said politely.

 "Yes, it would!" Tompkins cried with a surprising burstof passion. "For then I'd turn my wretched shop into an escape

 hatch! My process would be free then, free for everyone!Everyone could go to the earth of his desires, the earth thatreally suited him, and leavethis damned place to the ratsand worms-"

 Tompkins cut himself off in midsentence and became icycalm. "But I fear my prejudices are showing. I can't offer apermanent escape from this world yet, not one that doesn'tinvolve death. Perhaps I never will be able to. For now, all I can offer you is a vacation, a change, a taste of anotherworld and a look at your own desires. You know my fee. I'llrefund it if the experience isn't satisfactory."

 "That's good of you," Mr. Wayne said quite earnestly. "Butthere's that other matter my friends told me about, The tenyears off my life."

 "That can't be helped," Tompkins said, "and can't be re­funded. My process is a tremendous strain on the nervoussystem, and life expectancy is shortened accordingly. That'sone of the reasons why our so-called government has declaredmy process illegal,"

 "But they don't enforce the ban very firmly," Mr. Waynesaid.

 "No. Officially the process is banned asa harmful fraud.But officials are men, too. They'd like to leave this earth, justlike everyone else."

 "The cost," Mr, Wayne mused, gripping his parcel tightly.
"And ten years off my life! For the fulfillment of my secret
desires__Really, I must give this some thought,"

 "Think away," Tompkins said indifferently.

 All the way home Mr. Wayne thought about it. When histrain reached Port Washington, Long Island, he was still thinking. And driving his car from the station to his house, he was still thinking about Tompkins's crafty old face, andworlds of probability, and the fulfillment of desire.

 But when he stepped inside his home, those thoughts hadto stop. Janet, his wife, wanted him to speak sharply to themaid, who had been drinking again. His son, Tommy, wanted help with the sloop, which was to be launched tomorrow. Andhis baby daughter wanted to tell about her day in kinder­garten.

 Mr. Wayne spoke pleasantly but firmly to the maid. Hehelped Tommy put the final coat of copper paint on the sloop'sbottom, and he listened to Peggy tell about her adventuresin the playground.

 Later, when the children were in bed and he and Janetwere alone in their living room, she asked him if somethingwas wrong.

 "Wrong?"

 "You seem to be worried about something," Janet said."Did you have 'a bad day at the office?"

 "Oh, just the usual sort of thing-"

 He certainly was not going to tell Janet, or anyone else, that he had taken the day off and gone to see Tompkins inhis crazy old Store of the Worlds, Nor was he going to speakabout the right every man should have, once in his lifetime,to fulfill his most secret desires. Janet, with her good commonsense, would never understand that.

 The next days at the office were extremely hectic. All ofWall Street was in a mild panic over events in the MiddleEast and in Asia, and stocks were reacting accordingly. Mr. Wayne settled down to work. He tried not to think of thefulfillment of desire at the cost of everything he possessed, with ten years of his life thrown in for good measure. It was crazy! Old Tompkins must be insane!

 On weekends he went sailing with Tommy. The old sloopwas behaving very well, taking practically no water throughher bottom seams. Tommy wanted a new suit of racing sails,but Mr. Wayne sternly rejected that. Perhaps next year, if'the market looked better. For now, the old sails would haveto do.

 Sometimes at night, after the children were asleep, he andJanet would go sailing. Long Island Sound was quiet thenand cool. Their boat glided past the blinking buoys, sailingtoward the swollen yellow moon.

 "Iknow something's on your mind," Janet said,

 "Darling, please!"

 "Is there something you're keeping from me?"

 "Nothing!"

 "Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?"

 "Absolutely sure."

 "Then, put your arms around me. That's right...."

 And the sloop sailed itself for a while.

 Desire and fulfillment....But autumn came and the sloop

 had to be hauled. The stock market regained some stability,but Peggy caught the measles. Tommy wanted to know thedifferences between ordinary bombs, atom bombs, hydrogenbombs, cobalt bombs and all the other kinds of bombs that

 were in the news. Mr. Wayne explained to the best of his ability. And the maid quit unexpectedly.

 Secret desires were all very well. Perhaps hedid want to kill someone or live on a South Sea island. But there wereresponsibilities to consider. He had two growing children andthe best of wives.

 'Perhaps around Christmastime....

 But in midwinter there was a fire in the unoccupied guest room due to defective wiring. The firemen put out the blazewithout much damage, and no one was hurt. But it put anythought of Tompkins out of his mind for a while. First thebedroom had to be repaired, for Mr, Wayne was very proudof his gracious old house.

 Business was still frantic uncertain due to the inter­national situation. Those Russians, those Arabs, those Greeks,those Chinese. The intercontinental missiles, the atombombs, the Sputniks- Mr. Wayne spentlong days at theoffice and sometimes evenings, too. Tommy caught themumps. A part of the roof had to be reshingled. And thenalready it was time to consider the spring launching of thesloop,

 A year had passed, and he'd had very little time to thinkof secret desires. But perhaps next year. In the mean­time-

 "Well?" said Tompkins. "Are you all right?"

 "Yes, quite all right," Mr. Wayne said. He got up from thechair and rubbed his forehead.

 "Do you want a refund?" Tompkins asked.

 "No. The experience was quite satisfactory."

 "They always are," Tompkins said, winking lewdly at theparrot. "Well, what was yours?"

 "A world of the recent past," Mr. Wayne said.

 "A lot of them are. Did you find out about your secret desire? Was it murder? Or a South Sea island?"

 "I'd rather not discuss it," Mr. Wayne said pleasantly butfirmly.

 "A lot of people won't discuss it with me," Tompkins saidsulkily. "I'll be damned if I know why."

 "Because-well, I think the world of one's secret desire

 seems sacred, somehow. No offense___Do you think you'll

 ever be able to make it permanent? The world of one's choice,I mean?"

 The old man shrugged his shoulders, "I'm trying. If I suc­ceed, you'll hear about it. Everyone will."

 "Yes, I suppose so." Mr. Wayne undid his parcel and laid its contents on the table. The parcel contained a pair of armyboots, a knife, two coils of copper wire and three small cansof corned beef.

 Tompkins's eyes glittered for a moment. "Quite satisfac-tory," he said. "Thank you."

 "Good-bye," said Mr. Wayne. "And thankyou,"

 Mr. Wayne left the shop and hurried down to the end ofthe lane of gray rubble. Beyond it, as far as he could see, layflat fields of rubble, brown and gray and black. Those fields,stretching to every horizon, were made of the twisted corpsesof buildings, the shattered remnants of trees and the finewhite ash that once was human flesh and bone.

 "Well," Mr. Wayne said to himself, "at least we gave asgood as we got."

 His year in the past had cost him everything he ownedand ten years of life thrown in for good measure. Had it beena dream? It was still worth it! But now he had to put awayall thought of Janet and the children. That was finished,unless Tompkins perfected his process. Now he had to thinkabout his own survival.

 He picked his way carefully through the rubble, deter­mined to get back to the shelter before dark, before the ratscame out. If he didn't hurry, he'd miss the evening potatoration.

 How It Was When the Past Went Away                ROBERT SILVERBERG

 The day that an antisocial fiend dumped an amnesifacientdrug into the city water supply was one of the finest that SanFrancisco had had in a long while. The damp cloud that hadbeen hovering over everything for three weeks finally drifted

 across the bay into Berkeley that Wednesday, and the sunemerged, bright and warm, to give the old town its warmestday so far in 2003. The temperature climbed into the hightwenties, and even those oldsters who hadn't managed to learn to convert to the centigrade thermometer knew it was hot. Air-conditioners hummed from the Golden Gate to theEmbarcadero. Pacific Gas & Electric recorded its highest one- hour load in history between two and three in the afternoon. The parks were crowded. People drank a lot of water, somea good deal more than others. Toward nightfall, the thirstiestones were already beginning to forget things. By the next morning, everybody in the city was in trouble, with a fewexceptions. It had really been an ideal day for committinga monstrous crime.

 On the day before the past went away, Paul Mueller had
been thinking seriously about leaving the state and claiming
refuge in one of the debtor sanctuaries-Reno, maybe, or
Caracas. It wasn't altogether his fault, but he was close to

 a million in the red and his creditors were getting unruly.It had reached the point where they were sending their robotbill collectors around to harass him in person, just aboutevery three hours.

 "Mr. Mueller? I am requested to notify you that the sumof $8,005.97 is overdue in your account with Modern Age Recreators, Inc. We have applied to your financial represen­ tative and have discovered your state of insolvency, andtherefore, unless a payment of $395.61 is made by the elev­ enth of this month, we may find it necessary to begin con­fiscation procedures against your person. Thus I adviseyou-"

 "-the amount of $11,554.97, payable on the ninth of Au­gust, 2002, has not yet been received by Luna Tours, Ltd.Under the Credit Laws of 1995 we have applied for injunctiverelief against you and anticipate receiving a decree of per­sonal service due, if no payment is received by-"

 "-interest on the unpaid balance is accruing, as specifiedin your contract, at a rate of four percent per month-"

 "-balloon payment now coming due, requiring the im­mediate payment of-"

 Mueller was growing accustomed to the routine. The ro­bots couldn't call him-Pacific Tel & Tel had cut him out oftheir data net months ago-and so they came around, politeblank-faced machines stenciled with corporate emblems, and

 in soft purring voices told him precisely how deep in the mirehe was at the moment, how fast the penalty charges were piling up, and what they planned to do to him unless he settled his debts instantly. If he tried to duck them, they'dsimply track him down in the streets like indefatigable pro­cess servers, and announce his shame to the whole city. Sohe didn't duck them. But fairly soon their threats would begin to materialize.

 They could do awful things to him. The decree of personalservice, for example, would turn him into a slave, he'd becomean employee of his creditor, at a court-stipulated salary, butevery cent he earned would be applied against his debt, while the creditor provided him with minimal food, shelter, andclothing. He might find himself compelled to do menial jobsthat a robot would spit at, for two or three years, just to clearthat one debt. Personal confiscation procedures were evenworse; under that deal he might well end up as the actualservant of one of the executives of a creditor company, shiningshoes and folding shirts. They might also get an open-endedgarnishment on him, under which he and his descendants,if any, would pay& stated percentage of their annual income down through the ages until the debt, and the compoundinginterest thereon, was finally satisfied. There were other tech­ niques for dealing with delinquents, too.

 He had no recourse to bankruptcy. The states and thefederal government had tossed out the bankruptcy laws in1995, after the so-called Credit Epidemic of the 1980's, whenfor a while it was actually fashionable to go irretrievablyinto debt and throw yourself on the mercy of the courts. The haven of easy bankruptcy was no more; if you became in­ solvent, your creditors had you in their grip. The only way was to jump to a debtor sanctuary, a place where local lawsbarred any extradition for a credit offense. There were abouta dozen such sanctuaries, and you could live well there, pro­vided you had some special skill that you could sell at a highprice. You needed to make a good living, because in a debtor sanctuary everything was on a strictly cash basis-cash in advance, at that, even for a haircut. Mueller had a skill thathe thought would see him through: he was an artist, a makerof sonic sculptures, and his work was always in good demand.All he needed was a few thousand dollars to purchase thebasic tools of his trade-his last set of sculpting equipment had been repossessed a few weeks ago-and he could set upa studio in one of the sanctuaries, beyond the reach of the

 robot hounds. He imagined he could still find a friend whowould lend him a few thousand dollars. In the name of art,so to speak. In a good cause.

 If he stayed within the sanctuary area for ten consecutiveyears, he would be absolved of his debts and could come fortha free man. There was only one catch, not a small one. Oncea man had taken the sanctuary route, he was forever barredfrom all credit channels when he returned to the outsideworld. He couldn't even get a post office credit card, let alonea bank loan. Mueller wasn't sure he could live that way,paying cash for everything all the rest of his life. It wouldbe terribly cumbersome and dreary. Worse: it would be bar­baric.

 He made a note on his memo pad:Call Freddy Munsonin morning and borrow three bigs. Buy ticket to Caracas, Buysculpting stuff.

 The die was cast-unless he changed his mind in the morn­ing.

 He peered moodily out at the row of glistening white­washed just-post-Earthquake houses descending the steeplyinclined street that ran down Telegraph Hill toward Fish­erman's Wharf. They sparkled in the unfamiliar sunlight. A beautiful day, Mueller thought. A beautiful day to drownyourself in the bay. Damn. Damn, Damn. He was going to be forty years old soon, He had come into the world on thesame black day that President John Kennedy had left it.Born in an evil hour, doomed to a dark fate. Mueller scowled.He went to the tap and got a glass of water. It was the only thing he could afford to drink, just now. He asked himselfhow he had ever managed to get into such a mess. Nearly a million in debt!

 He lay down dismally to take a nap.

 When he woke, toward midnight, he felt better than hehad felt for a long time. Some great cloud seemed to have lifted from him, even as it had lifted from the city that day.Mueller was actually in a cheerful mood. He couldn't imaginewhy.

 In an elegant townhouse on Marina Boulevard, TheAmazing Montini was rehearsing his act. The Amazing Mon-tini was a professional mnemonist: a small, dapper man ofsixty, who never forgot a thing. Deeply tanned, his dark hair slicked back at a sharp angle, his small black eyes glisteningwith confidence, his thin lips fastidiously pursed. He drew

 a book from a shelf and let it drop open at random. It wasan old one-volume edition of Shakespeare, a familiar prop inhis nightclub act. He skimmed the page, nodded, lookedbriefly at another, then another, and smiled his inward smile. Life was kind to The Amazing Montini. He earned a com­fortable $30,000 a week on tour, having converted a freakishgift into a profitable enterprise. Tomorrow night he'd open for a week at Vegas; then on to Manila, Tokyo, Bangkok, Cairo, on around the globe. In twelve weeks he'd earn his year's take; then he'd relax once more.

 It was all so easy. He knew so many good tricks. Let themscream out a twenty digit number; he'd scream it right back.Let them bombard him with long strings of nonsense sylla­bles; he'd repeat the gibberish flawlessly. Let them drawintricate mathematical formulas on the computer screen; he'dreproduce them down to the last exponent. His memory wasperfect, both for visuals and auditories, and for the otherregisters as well.

 The Shakespeare thing, which was one of the simplestroutines he had, always awed the impressionable. It seemedso fantastic to most people that a man could memorize thecomplete works, page by page. He liked to use it as an opener.

 He handed the book to Nadia, his assistant. Also his mis­tress; Montini liked to keep his circle of intimates close. Shewas twenty years old, taller than he was, with wide frost-gleamed eyes and a torrent of glowing, artificially radiantazure hair: up to the minute in every fashion. She wore aglass bodice, a nice container for the things contained. She was not very bright, but she did the things Montini expected her to do, and did them quite well. She would be replaced,he estimated, in about eighteen more months. He grew boredquickly with his women. His memory was too good.

 "Let's start," he said.

 She opened the book. "Page 537, left-hand column."

 Instantly the page floated before Montini's eyes. "Henry VI, Part Two," he said. "King Henry: Say, man, were these thy words? Horner: An't shall please your majesty, I neversaid nor thought any such matter: God is my witness, I amfalsely accused by the villain. Peter: By these ten bones, mylords, he did speak them to me in the garret one night, as wewere scouring my Lord of York's armour. York: Base dunghillvillain, and-"

 "Page 778, right-hand column," Nadia said.

 "Romeo and Juliet. Mercutio is speaking:... an eye would

 spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as full of quarrels as anegg is full of meat, and yet thy head hath been beaten asaddle as an egg for quarreling. Thou hast quarreled with aman for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thydog that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not-"

 "Page 307, starting fourteen lines down on the right side."

 Montini smiled. He liked the passage. A screen wouldshow it to his audience at the performance.

 "Twelfth Night," he said. "The Duke speaks: Too old, byheaven. Let still the woman take an elder than herself, sowears she to him, so sways she level in her husband's heart:For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, our fancies aremore giddy and unfirm-"

 "Page 495, left-hand column."

 "Wait a minute," Montini said. He poured himself a tallglass of water and drank it in three quick gulps. "This workalways makes me thirsty."

 Taylor Braskett, Lt. Comdr., Ret., U.S Space Service,strode with springy stride into his Oak Street home, justoutside Golden Gate Park. At 71, Commander Braskett still managed to move in a jaunty way, and he was ready to stepback into uniform at once if this country needed him. Hebelieved his country did need him, more than ever, now that socialism was running like wildfire through half the nations of Europe. Guard the home front, at least. Protect what's leftof traditional American liberty. What we ought to have, Com­mander Braskett believed, is a network of C-bombs in orbit, ready to rain hellish death on the enemies of democracy. No matter what that treaty says, we must be prepared to defendourselves.

 Commander Braskett's theories were not widely accepted.People respected him for having been one of the first Amer­icans to land on Mars, of course, but he knew that they quietlyregarded him as a crank, a crackpot, an antiquated MinuteMan still fretting about the Redcoats. He had enough of asense of humor to realize that he did cut an absurd figure tothese young people. But he was sincere in his determination to help keep America free-to protect the youngsters fromthe lash of totalitarianism, whether they laughed at him ornot. All this glorious sunny day he had been walking throughthe park, trying to talk to the young ones, attempting toexplain his position. He was courteous, attentive, eager tofind someone who would ask him questions. The trouble was

 that no one listened. And the young ones-stripped to thewaist in the sunshine, girls as well as boys, taking drugs out in the open, using the foulest obscenities in casual speech- at times, Commander Braskett almost came to think that the battle for America had already been lost. Yet he never gave up all hope.

 He had been in the park for hours. Now, at home, hewalked past the trophy room, into the kitchen, opened therefrigerator, drew out a bottle of water. Commander Brasketthad three bottles of mountain spring water delivered to hishome every two days; it was a habit he had begun fifty years ago, when they had first started talking about putting fluor­ides in the water. He was not unaware of the little smilesthey gave him when he admitted that he drank only bottledspring water, but he didn't mind; he had outlived many ofthe smilers already, and attributed his perfect health to his refusal to touch the polluted, contaminated water that mostother people drank. First chlorine, then fluorides-probablythey were putting in some other things by now, CommanderBraskett thought.

 He drank deeply.

 You have no way of telling what sort of dangerous chem­icals they might be putting in the municipal water systemthese days, he told himself. Am I a crank? Then I'm a crank.But a sane man drinks only water he can trust.

 Fetally curled, knees pressed almost to chin, trembling, sweating, Nate Haldersen closed his eyes and tried to easehimself of the pain of existence. Another day. A sweet, sunnyday. Happy people playing in the park. Fathers and children. Husbands and wives. He bit his lip, hard, just short of lac­eration intensity. He was an expert at punishing himself.

 Sensors mounted in his bed in the Psychotrauma Ward ofFletcher Memorial Hospital scanned him continuously, send­ing a constant flow of reports to Dr. Bryce and his team ofshrinks. Nate Haldersen knew he was a man without secrets.His hormone count, enzyme ratios, respiration, circulation,even the taste of bile in his mouth-it all became instanta­neously known to hospital personnel. When the sensors dis­covered him slipping below the depression line, ultrasonic snouts came nosing up from the recesses of the mattress,proximity nozzles that sought him out in the bed, found theproper veins, squirted him full of dynajuice to cheer him up.

 Modern science was wonderful. It could do everything forHaldersen except give him back his family.

 The door slid open. Dr. Bryce came in. The head shrinklooked his part: tall, solemn yet charming, gray at the tem­ples, clearly a wielder of power and an initiate of mysteries.He sat down beside Haldersen's bed. As usual, he made a big point of not looking at the row of computer outputs next tothe bed that gave the latest details on Haldersen's condition.

 "Nate?" he said. "How goes?"

 "It goes," Haldersen muttered.

 "Feel like talking awhile?"

 "Not specially. Get me a drink of water?"

 "Sure," the shrink said. He fetched it and said, "It's agorgeous day. How about a walk in the park?"

 "I haven't left this room in two and a half years, Doctor. You know that."

 "Always a time to break loose. There's nothing physicallywrong with you, you know."

 "I just don't feel like seeing people," Haldersen said. Hehanded back the empty glass. "More?"

 "Want something stronger to drink?"

 "Water's fine." Haldersen closed his eyes. Unwanted im­ages danced behind the lids: the rocket liner blowing open over the pole, the passengers spilling out like autumn seeds erupting from a pod, Emily tumbling down, down, fallingeighty thousand feet, her golden hair swept up by the thincold wind, her short skirt flapping at her hips, her long lovelylegs clawing at the sky for a place to stand. And the childrenfalling beside her, angels dropping from heaven, down, down,down, toward the white soothing fleece of the polar ice. Theysleep in peace, Haldersen thought, and I missed the plane,and I alone remain. And Job spake, and said, Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it wassaid, There is a man child conceived.

 "It was eleven years ago," Dr. Bryce told him. "Won't youlet go of it?"

 "Stupid talk coming from a shrink. Why won't it let go ofme?"

 "You don't want it to. You're too fond of playing your role."

 "Today is talking-tough day, eh? Get me some morewater."

 "Get up and get it yourself," said the shrink.

 Haldersen smiled bitterly. He left the bed, crossing the room a little unsteadily, and filled his glass. He had had all

 sorts of therapy-sympathy therapy, antagonism therapy,drugs, shock, orthodox freuding, the works. They did nothingfor him. He was left with the image of an opening pod, andfalling figures against the iron-blue sky. The Lord gave, andthe Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. My soul is weary of my life. He put the glass to his lips. Eleven years. I missed the plane. I sinned with Marie, andEmily died, and John, and Beth. What did it feel like to fallso far? Was it like flying? Was there ecstasy in it? Haldersenfilled the glass again.

 "Thirsty today, eh?"

 "Yes," Haldersen said.

 "Sure you don't want to take a little walk?"

 "You know I don't." Haldersen shivered. He turned andcaught the psychiatrist by the forearm. "When does it end, Tim? How long do I have to carry this thing around?"

 "Until you're willing to put it down."

 "How can I make a conscious effort to forget something?Tim, Tim, isn't there some drug I can take, something towash away a memory that's killing me?"

 "Nothing effective."

 "You're lying," Haldersen murmured. "I've read about theamnesifacients. The enzymes that eat memory-RNA. Theexperiments with di-isopropyl fluorophosphate. Puromycin.The-"

 Dr. Bryce said, "We have no control over their operations. -We can't simply go after a single block of traumatic memorieswhile leaving the rest of your mind unharmed. We'd have tobash about at random, hoping we got the trouble spot, butnever knowing what else we were blotting out. You'd wake up without your trauma, but maybe without rememberinganything else that happened to you between, say, the agesof 14 and 40. Maybe in fifty years we'll know enough to be able to direct the dosage at a specific-"

 "I can't wait fifty years."

 "I'm sorry, Nate."

 "Give me the drug anyway. I'll take my chances on whatI lose."

 "We'll talk about that some other time, all right? Thedrugs are experimental. There'd be months of red tape beforeI could get authorization to try them on a human subject.You have to realize-"

 Haldersen turned him off. He saw only with his inner eye,saw the tumbling bodies, reliving his bereavement for the

 billionth time, slipping easily back into his self-assumed roleof Job. I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and minehope hath he removed like a tree.

 The shrink continued to speak. Haldersen continued notto listen. He poured himself one more glass of water with ashaky hand.

 It was close to midnight on Wednesday before Pierre Ger­ard, his wife, their two sons, and their daughter had a chanceto have dinner. They were the proprietors, chefs, and totalstaff of the Petit Pois Restaurant on Sansome Street, andbusiness had been extraordinarily, exhaustingly good all eve­ning. Usually they were able to eat about half past five, before the dinner rush began, but today people had beguncoining in early-made more expansive by the good weather,no doubt-and there hadn't been a free moment for anybodysince the cocktail hour. The Gerards were accustomed to brisktrade, for theirs was perhaps the most popular family-runbistro in the city, with a passionately devoted clientele. Still,a night like this was too much!

 They dined modestly on the evening's miscalculations: anoverdone rack of lamb, some faintly corky Chateau Bey-chevelle '97, a fallen souffle, and such. They were thriftypeople. Their one extravagance was the Evian water that they imported from France. Pierre Gerard had not set footin his native Lyons for thirty years, but he preserved many of the customs of the motherland, including the traditional attitude toward water. A Frenchman does not drink muchwater; but what he does drink comes always from the bottle,never from the tap. To do otherwise is to risk a diseased liver.One must guard one's liver.

 That night Freddy Munson picked up Helene at her flaton Geary and drove across the bridge to Sausalito for dinner,as usual, at Ondine's. Ondine's was one of only four restau­rants, all of them famous old ones, at which Munson ate infixed rotation. He was a man of firm habits. He awakened religiously at six each morning, and was at his desk in thebrokerage house by seven, plugging himself into the data channels to learn what had happened in the European fi­ nance markets while he slept. At half past seven local time the New York exchanges opened and the real day's workbegan. By half past eleven, New York was through for the

 day, and Munson went around the corner for lunch, always at the Petit Pois, whose proprietor he had helped to make amillionaire by putting him into Consolidated Nucleonics' sev­eral components two and a half years before the big merger.At half past one, Munson was back in the office to transactbusiness for his own account on the Pacific Coast exchange;three days a week he left at three, but on Tuesdays andThursdays he stayed as late as five in order to catch somedeals on the Honolulu and Tokyo exchanges. Afterwards,dinner, a play or concert, always a handsome female com­panion. He tried to get to sleep, or at least to bed, by midnight.

 A man in Freddy Munson's positionhad to be orderly. Atany given time, his thefts from his clients ranged from six tonine million dollars, and he kept all the details of his jugglingsin his head. He couldn't trust putting them on paper, becausethere were scanner eyes everywhere; and he certainly didn'tdare employ the data net, since it was well known that any­thing you confided to one computer was bound to be accessibleto some other computer somewhere, no matter how tight a pri­vacy seal you slapped on it. So Munson had to remember theintricacies of fifty or more illicit transactions, a constantlychanging chain of embezzlements, and a man who practicessuch necessary disciplines of memory soon gets into the habit of extending discipline to every phase of his life.

 Helene snuggled close. Her faintly psychedelic perfumedrifted toward his nostrils. He locked the car into the Sau-salito circuit and leaned back comfortably as the traffic-con­trol computer took over the steering. Helene said, "At theBryce place last night I saw two sculptures by your bankrupt friend."

 "Paul Mueller?"

 "That's the one. They were very good sculptures. One ofthem buzzed at me."

 "What were you doing at the Bryces?"

 "I went to college with Lisa Bryce. She invited me overwith Marty."

 "I didn't realize you were that old," Munson said.

 Helene giggled. "Lisa's a lot younger than her husband,dear. How much does a Paul Mueller sculpture cost?"

 "Fifteen, twenty thousand, generally. More for specials."

 "And he's broke, even so?"

 "Paul has a rare talent for self-destruction," Munson said."He simply doesn't comprehend money. But it's his artistic salvation, in a way. The more desperately in debt he is, the

 finer his work becomes. He creates out of his despair, so tospeak. Though he seems to have overdone the latest crisis.He's stopped working altogether. It's a sin against humanitywhen an artist doesn't work."

 "You can be so eloquent, Freddy," Helena said softly.

 When The Amazing Montini woke Thursday morning, he did not at once realize that anything had changed. His mem­ory, like a good servant, was always there when he neededto call on it, but the array of perfectly fixed farts he carriedin his mind remained submerged until required, A librarianmight scan shelves and see books- missing; Montini could notdetect similar vacancies of his synapses. He had been up for half an hour, had stepped under the molecular bath and hadpunched for his breakfast and had awakened Nadia to tell her to confirm the pod reservations to Vegas, and finally, like a concert pianist running off a few arpeggios to limberhis fingers for the day's chores, Montini reached into his memory bank for a little Shakespeare and no Shakespearecame.

 He stood quite still, gripping the astrolabe that orna­mented his picture window, and peered out at the bridge insudden bewilderment. It had never been necessary for himto make a conscious effort to recover data. He merely lookedand it was there; but where was Shakespeare? Where wasthe left-hand column of page 136, and the right-hand columnof page 654, and the right-hand column of page 806, sixteen lines down? Gone? He drew blanks. The screen of his mind showed him only empty pages.

 Easy. This is unusual, but it isn't catastrophic. You mustbe tense, for some reason, and you're forcing it, that's all.Relax, pull something else out of storage-

 The New York Times, Wednesday, October 3, 1973. Yes,there it was, the front page, beautifully clear, the story onthe baseball game down in the lower right-hand corner, theheadline about the jet accident big and black, even the photo credit visible. Fine. Now let's try-

 The St. LouisPost-Dispatch, Sunday, April 19,1987. Mon­tini shivered. He saw the top four inches of the page, nothingelse. Wiped clean.

 He ran through the files of other newspapers he had mem­orized for his act. Some were there. Some were not. Some,like thePost-Dispatch, were obliterated in part. Color rose to his cheeks. Who had tampered with his memory?

 He tried Shakespeare again. Nothing.

 He tried the 1997 Chicago data-net directory. It was there.

 He tried his third-grade geography textbook. It was there,the big red book with smeary print.

 He tried last Friday's five-o'clock xerofax bulletin. Gone.

 He stumbled and sank down on a divan he had purchased in Istanbul, he recalled, on the nineteenth of May, 1985, for4,200 Turkish pounds. "Nadia!" he cried. "Nadia!" His voicewas little more than a croak. She came running, her eyesonly half frosted, her morning face askew.

 "How do I look?" he demanded. "My mouth-is my mouthright? My eyes?"

 "Your face is all flushed."

 "Aside from that!"

 "I don't know," she gasped. "You seem all upset, but-"

 "Half my mind is gone," Montini said. "I must have hada stroke. Is there any facial paralysis? That's a symptom.Call my doctor, Nadia! A stroke, a stroke! It's the end forMontini!"

 Paul Mueller, awakening at midnight on Wednesday andfeeling strangely refreshed, attempted to get his bearings.Why was he fully dressed, and why had he been asleep? Anap, perhaps, that had stretched on too long? He tried toremember what he had been doing earlier in the day, but hewas unable to find a clue. He was baffled but not disturbed;mainly he felt a tremendous urge to get to work. The images of five sculptures, fully planned and begging to be con­structed, jostled in his mind. Might as well start right now,he thought. Work through till morning. That small twittering silvery one-that's a good one to start with. I'll block out theschematics, maybe even do some of the armature-

 "Carole?" he called. "Carole, art you around?"

 His voice echoed through the oddly empty apartment.

 For the first time Mueller noticed how little furniturethere was. A bed-a cot, really, not their double bed-anda table, and a tiny insulator unit for food, and a few diehes.No carpeting. Where were his sculptures, his private collec­ tion of his own best work? He walked into his studio andfound it bare from wall to wall, all of his tools mysteriously swept away, just a few discarded sketches on the floor. Andhis wife? "Carole?Carole?"

 He could not understand any of this. While he dozed, itseemed, someone had cleaned the place out, stolen his fur-

 niture, his sculptures, even the carpet Mueller had heard ofsuch thefts. They came with a van, brazenly, posing as mov­ing men. Perhaps they had given him some sort of drug while they worked. He could not bear the thought that they had taken his sculptures; the rest didn't matter, but he had cher­ished those dozen pieces dearly. I'd better call the police, hedecided, and rushed toward the handset of the data unit, butit wasn't there either. Would burglars takethat too?

 Searching for some answers, he scurried from wall to wall,and saw a note in his own handwriting.Call Freddy Munsonin morning and borrow three bigs. Buy ticket to Caracas. Buysculpting stuff.

 Caracas? A vacation, maybe? And why buy sculptingstuff? Obviously the tools had been gone before he fell asleep, then. Why? And where was his wife? What was going on? Hewondered if he ought to call Freddy right now, instead ofwaiting until morning. Freddy might know. Freddy was al­ways home by midnight, too. He'd have one of his damnedgirls with him and wouldn't want to be interrupted, but tohell with that; what good was having friends if you couldn'tbother them in a time of crisis?

 Heading for the nearest public communicator booth, herushed out of his apartment and nearly collided with a sleek dunning robot in the hallway. The things show no mercy,Mueller thought. They plague you at all hours. No doubt this one was on its way to bother the deadbeat Nicholson family down the hall.

 The robot said, "Mr. Paul Mueller? I am a properly qual­ified respresentative of International Fabrication Cartel,Amalgamated. I am here to serve notice that there is anunpaid balance in your account to the extent of $9,150.55,which as of 0900 hours tomorrow morning will accrue com­ pounded penalty interest at the rate of 5 percent per month,since you have not responded to our three previous requestsfor payment. I must further inform you- ''

 "You're off your neutrinos," Mueller snapped. "I don't owea dime to I.F.C.! For once in my life I'm in the black, and don't try to make me believe otherwise."

 The robot replied patiently, "Shall I give you a printoutof the transactions? On the fifth of January, 2003, you or­dered the following metal products' from us: three 4-metertubes of antiqued iridium, six 10-centimeter spheres of-"

 "The fifth of January, 2003, happens to be three months from now," Mueller said, "and I don't have time to listen to

 crazy robots. I've got an Important call to make. Can I trust you to patch me into the data net without garbling things?"

 "I am not authorized to permit you to make use of myfacilities."

 "Emergency override," said Mueller. "Human being introuble. Go argue with that one!"

 The robot's conditioning was sound. It yielded at once tohis assertion of an emergency and set up a relay to the maincommunications net. Mueller supplied Freddy Munson'snumber. "I can provide audio only," the robot said, puttingthe call through. Nearly a minute passed. Then Freddy Mun­son's familiar deep voice snarled from the speaker grille inthe robot's chest, "Who is it and what do you want?"

 "It's Paul. I'm sorry to bust in on you, Freddy, but I'm inbig trouble. I think I'm losing my mind, or else everybodyelse is."

 "Maybe everybody elseis. What's the problem?"

 "All my furniture's gone. A dunning robot is trying toshake me down for nine bigs, I don't know where Carole is. I can't remember what I was doing earlier today. I've got anote here about getting tickets to Caracas that I wrote myself,and I don't know why. And-"

 "Skip the rest," Munson said. "I can't do anything for you. I've got problems of my own."

 "Can I come over, at least, and talk?"

 "Absolutely not!" In a softer voice Munson said, "Listen,Paul, I didn't mean to yell, but something's come up here,something very distressing-"

 "You don't need to pretend. You've got Helene with youand you wish I'd leave you alone. Okay."

 "No. Honestly," Munson said. "I've got problems, suddenly.I'm in a totally ungood position to give you any help at all.I need help myself."

 "What sort? Anything I can do for you?"

 "I'm afraid not. And if you'll excuse me, Paul-"

 "Just tell me one thing, at least. Where am I likely to find Carole. Do you have any idea?"

 "At her husband's place, I'd say."

 "I'mher husband."

 There was a long pause. Munson said finally, "Paul, shedivorced you last January and married Pete Castine in April."

 "No," Mueller said.

 "What, no?"

 "No, it isn't possible."

 "Have you been popping pills, Paul? Sniffing something?Smoking weed? Look, I'm sorry, but I can't take time nowto-"

 "At least tell me what day today is."

 "Wednesday,"

 "Which Wednesday?"

 "Wednesday the eighth of May. Thursday the ninth, ac­tually, by this time of night."

 "And the year?"

 "For Christ's sake, Paul-"

 "The year?"

 "2003."

 Mueller sagged. "Freddy, I've lost half a year somewhere!For me it's last October 2002, I've got some weird kind ofamnesia. It's the only explanation,"

 "Amnesia," Munson said. The edge of tension left his voice."Is that what you've got? Amnesia? Can there be such a thingas an epidemic of amnesia? Is it contagious? Maybe you bettercome over here after all. Because amnesia's my problem too."

 Thursday, May 9, promised to be as beautiful as the pre­vious day had been. The sun once again beamed on San Fran­cisco; the sky was clear, the air warm and tender, CommanderBraskett awoke early as always, punched for his usual spar­tan breakfast, studied the morning xerofax news, spent anhour dictating his memoirs, and, about nine, went out for a walk. The streets were strangely crowded, he found, when hegot down to the shopping district along Haight Street, Peoplewere wandering about aimlessly, dazedly, as though theywere sleepwalkers. Were they drunk? Drugged? Three timesin five minutes Commander Braskett was stopped by youngmen who wanted to know the date. Not the time, thedate. He told them, crisply, disdainfully; he tried to be tolerant,but it was difficult for him not to despise people who were soweak that they were unable to refrain from poisoning their minds with stimulants and narcotics and psychedelics andsimilar trash. At the corner of Haight and Masonic a forlorn-looking pretty girl of about seventeen, with wide blank blueeyes, halted him and said, "Sir, this city is San Francisco, isn't it? I mean, I was supposed to move here from Pittsburghin May, and if this is May, this is San Francisco, right?"Commander. Braskett nodded brusquely and turned away, pained. He was relieved to see an old friend, Lou Sandler, themanager of the Bank of America office across the way, San-

 dler was standing outside the bank door. Commander Bras-kett crossed to him and said, "Isn't it a disgrace, Lou, the waythis whole streetis filled with addicts this morning? Whatis it, some historical pageant of the 1960's?" And Sandlergave him an empty smile and said, "Is that my name? Lou?You wouldn't happen to know the last nametoo, would you? Somehow it's slipped my mind." In that moment CommanderBraskett realized that something terrible had happened to his city and perhaps to his country, and that the leftist take­over he had long dreaded must now be at hand, and that itwas time for him to don his old uniform again and do what he could to strike back at the enemy.

 In joy and in confusion, Nate Haldersen awoke that morn­ing realizing that he had been transformed in some strangeand wonderful way. His head was throbbing, but not pain­fully. It seemed to him that a terrible weight had been liftedfrom his shoulders, that the fierce dead hand about his throathad at last relinquished its grip.

 He sprang from bed, full of questions.

 Where am I? What kind of place is this? Why am I not athome? Where are my books? Why do I feel so happy?

 This seemed to be a hospital room.

 There was a veil across his mind. He pierced its filmy foldsand realized that he had committed himself to-to FletcherMemorial-last-August-no, the August before last-suf­fering with a severe emotional disturbance brought on by-brought on by-

 He had never felt happier than at this moment.

 He saw a mirror. In it was the reflected upper half ofNathaniel Haldersen, Ph.D. Nate Haldersen smiled at him­self. Tall, stringy, long-nosed man, absurdly straw-coloredhair, absurd blue eyes, thin lips, smiling. Bony body. Heundid his pajama top. Pale, hairless chest; bump of hone likean epaulet on each shoulder. I have been sick a long time,Haldersen thought. Now I must get out of here, back to my classroom. End of leave of absence. Where are my clothes?

 "Nurse? Doctor?" He pressed his call button three times."Hello? Anyone here?"

 No one came. Odd; they always came. Shrugging, Hald­ersen moved out into the hall. He saw three orderlies, headstogether, buzzing at the far end. They ignored him. A robot

 servitor carrying breakfast trays glided past, A moment laterone of the younger doctors came running through the hall,and would not stop when Haldersen called to him. Annoyed,he went back into his room and looked about for clothing. Hefound none, only a little stack of magazines on the closetfloor. He thumbed the call button three more times. Finally one of the robots entered the room.

 "I am sorry," it said, "but the human hospital personnelis busy at present. May I serve you, Dr. Haldersen?"

 "I want a suit of clothing. I'm leaving the hospital."

 "I am sorry, but there is no record of your discharge. With­out authorization from Dr. Bryce, Dr. Reynolds, or Dr. Ka-makura, I am not permitted to allow your departure."

 Haldersen sighed. He knew better than to argue with arobot. "Where are those three gentlemen right now?"

 "They are occupied, sir. As you may know, there is a med­ical emergency in the city this morning, and Dr. Bryce andDr. Kamakura are helping to organize the committee of pub­lic safety. Dr. Reynolds did not report for duty today and weare unable to trace him. It is believed that he is a victim ofthe current difficulty."

 "Whatcurrent difficulty?"

 "Mass loss of memory on the part of the human popula­tion," the robot said.

 "An epidemic of amnesia?"

 "That is one interpretation of the problem."

 "How can such a thing-" Haldersen stopped. He under­stood now the source of his own joy this morning. Only yes­terday afternoon he had discussed with Tim Bryce the ap­plication of memory-destroying drugs to his own trauma, andBryce had said-

 Haldersen no longer knew the nature of his own trauma,

 "Wait," he said, as the robot began to leave the room. "I need information. Why have I been under treatment here?"

 "You have been suffering from social displacements anddysfunctions whose origin, Dr. Bryce feels, lies in a situationof traumatic personal loss."

 "Loss of what?"

 "Your family, Dr. Haldersen."

 "Yes. That's right. I recall, now-I had a wife and twochildren. Emily. And a fittle girt-Margaret, Elizabeth,something like that. And a boy named John. What happenedto them?"

 "They were passengers aboard Intercontinental Airways

 Flight 103, Copenhagen to San Francisco, September 5,1991.The plane underwent explosive decompression over the ArcticOcean and there were no survivors,"

 Haldersen absorbed the information as calmly as thoughhe were hearing of the assassination of Julius Caesar.

 "Where was I when the accident occurred?"

 "In Copenhagen," the robot replied. "You had intended toreturn to San Francisco with your family on Flight 103; how­ever, according to your data file here, you became involvedin an emotional relationship with a woman named MarieRasmussen, whom you had met in Copenhagen, And failedto return to your hotel in time to go to the airport. Your wife,evidently aware of the situation, chose not to wait for you.Her subsequent death, and that of your children, produceda traumatic guilt reaction in which you came to regard your­self as responsible for their terminations."

 "Iwould take that attitude, wouldn't I?" Haldersen said."Sin and retribution. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I alwayshad a harsh view of sin, even while I was sinning. I should have been an Old Testament prophet."

 "Shall I provide more information, sir?"

 "Is there more?"

 "We have in the files Dr. Bryce's report headed,The Job Complex: A Study in the Paralysis of Guilt."

 "Spare me that," Haldersen said. "All right, go."

 He was alone. The Job Complex, he thought. Not really appropriate, was it? Job was a man without sin, and yet hewas punished grievously to satisfy a whim «f the Almighty. A little presumptuous, I'd say, to identify myself with him.Cain would have been a better choice. Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. But Cainwas a sinner. I was a sinner. I sinned and Emily died for it.When, eleven, eleven and a half years ago? And now I knownothing at all about it except what the machine just told me.Redemption through oblivion, I'd call it. I have expiated mysin and now I'm free. I have no business staying in this hos­pital any longer. Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way,which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. I've gotto get out of here. Maybe I can be of some help to others.

 He belted his bathrobe, took a drink of water, and wentout of the room. No one stopped him. The elevator did notseem to be running, but he found the stairs, and walked down,a little creakily. He had not been this far from his room inmore than a year. The lower floors of the hospital were in

 chaos-doctors, orderlies, robots, patients, all milling aroundexcitedly. The robots were trying tocalm people and get themback to their proper places. "Excuse me," Haldersen said se­renely. "Excuse me. Excuse me." He left the hospital, un­molested, by the front door. The air outside was as fresh as young wine; he felt like weeping when it hit his nostrils. He was free. Redemption through oblivion. The disaster high abpve the Arctic no longer dominated his thoughts. He lookedupon it precisely as if it had happened to the family of some other man, long ago. Haldersen began to walk briskly downVan Ness, feeling vigor returning to his legs with everystride. A young woman, sobbing wildly, erupted from a build­ing and collided with him. He caught her, steadied her, Wassurprised at his own strength as he kept her from toppling.She trembled and pressed her head against his chest, "CanI do anything for you?" he asked. "Can I be of any help?"

 Panic had begun to enfold Freddy Munson during dinner at Ondine's Wednesday night. He had begun to be annoyed with Helene inthe midst of the truffled chicken breasts, andso he had started to think about the details of business; andto his amazement he did not seem to have the details quiteright in his mind; and so he felt the early twinges of terror.

 The trouble was that Helene was going on and on aboutthe art of sonic sculpture in general and Paul Mueller inparticular. Her interest was enough to arouse faint jealousiesin Munson. Was she getting ready to leap from his bed to Paul's? Was she thinking of abandoning the wealthy, glam­orous, but essentially prosaic stockbroker for the irrespon­sible, impecunious, fascinatingly gifted sculptor? Of course, Helene kept company with a number of other men, but Mun­son knew them and discounted them as rivals; they werenonentities, escorts to fill her idle nights when he was-toobusy for her. Paul Mueller, however, was another Mun­son could not bear the thought that Helene might leave himfor Paul. So he shifted his concentration to the day's maneu­vers. He had extracted a thousand shares of the $5.87 con­vertible preferred of Lunar Transit from the Schaefferaccount, pledging it as collateral to cover his shortage in thematter of the Comsat debentures, and then, tapping the How­ard account for five thousand Southeast Energy Corporationwarrants, he had-or had those warrants come out of theBrewster account? Brewster was big on utilities. So was How­ard, but that account was heavy on Mid-Atlantic Power, so

 would it also be loaded with Southeast Energy? In any case,had he put those warrants up against the Zurich uraniumfutures, or were they riding as his markers in the Antarcticoil-lease thing? He could not remember.

 He could not remember.

 He could not remember.

 Each transaction had been in its own compartment. Thepartitions were down, suddenly. Numbers were spilling aboutin his mind as though his brain were in free fall. All of today'sdeals were tumbling. It frightened him. He began to gobblehis food, wanting now to get out of here, to get rid of Helene,to get home and try to reconstruct his activities of the after­noon. Oddly, he could remember quite clearly all that he haddone yesterday-the Xerox switch, the straddle on Steel-but today was washing away minute by minute.

 "Are you all right?" Helene asked.

 "No, I'm not," he said. "I'm coming down with something."

 "The Venus Virus. Everybody's getting it."

 "Yes, that must be it. The Venus Virus. You'd better keepclear of me tonight."

 They skipped dessert and cleared out fast. He droppedHelene off at her flat; she hardly seemed disappointed, which bothered him, but not nearly so much as what was happeningto his mind. Alone, finally, he tried to jot down an outline ofhis day, but even more had left him now. In the restauranthe had known which stocks he had handled, though he wasn'tsure what he had done with them. Now he couldn't even recallthe specific securities. He was out on the limb for millions of dollars of other people's money, and every detail was in hismind, and his mind was falling apart. By the time Paul Muel­ler called, a little after midnight, Munson was growing des­perate. He was relieved, but not exactly cheered, to learn thatwhatever strange thing had affected his mind had hit Muellera lot harder. Mueller had forgotten everything since lastOctober.

 "You went bankrupt," Munson had to explain to him, "Youhad this wild scheme for setting up a central clearing housefor works of art, a kind of stock exchange-the sort of thingonly an artist would try to start. You wouldn't let me dis­courage you. Then you began signing notes, and taking on contingent liabilities, and before the project was six weeks old you were hit with half a dozen lawsuits and it all beganto go sour."

 "When did this happen, precisely?"

 "You conceived the idea at the beginning of November, ByChristmas you were in severe trouble. You already had a bunch of personal debts that had gone unpaid from before, and your assets melted away, and you hit a terrible bind in your work and couldn't produce a thing. You really don'tremember a thing of this, Paul?"

 "Nothing."

 "After the first of the year the fastest-moving creditorsstarted getting decrees against you. They impounded every­thing you owned except the furniture, and then they took thefurniture. You borrowed from all of your friends, but theycouldn't give you nearly enough, because you were borrowingthousands and you owed hundreds of thousands."

 "How much did I hit you for?"

 "Eleven bigs," Munson said. "But don't worry about thatnow."

 "I'm not. I'm not worrying about a thing. I was in! a bind in my work, you say?" Mueller chuckled. "That's all gone, I'm itching to start making things. All I need are the tools- I mean, money to buy the tools."

 "What would they cost?"

 "Two and a half bigs," Mueller said.

 Munson coughed. "All right. I can't transfer the money toyour account, because your creditors would lien it right away.I'll get some cash at the bank. You'll have three bigs tomor­row, and welcome to it."

 "Bless you, Freddy." Mueller said, "This kind of amnesiais a good thing, eh? I was so worried about money that I couldn't work. Now I'm not worried at all. I guess I'm stillin debt, but I'm not fretting. Tell me what happened to mymarriage, now."

 "Carole got fed up and turned off," said Munson. "Sheopposed your business venture from the start. When it beganto devour you, she did what she could to untangle you fromit, but you insisted on trying to patch things together withmore loans, and she filed for a decree. When she was free, Pete Castine moved in and grabbed her."

 "That's the hardest part to believe. That she'd marry anart dealer, a totally noncreative person, a-a parasite,really-"

 "They were always good friends," Munson said. "I won'tsay they were lovers, because I don't know, but they were close. And Pete's not that horrible. He's got taste, intelli­gence, everything an artist needs except the gift. I think

 Carole may have been weary of gifted men, anyway."

 "How did I take it?" Mueller asked,

 "You hardly seemed to notice, Paul. You were so busy withyour financial shenanigans."

 Mueller nodded. He sauntered to one of his own works, athree-meter-high arrangement of oscillating rods that ranthe whole sound spectrum into the high kilohertzes, andpassed two fingers over the activator eye. The sculpture beganto murmur.

 After a few moments Mueller said, "You sounded awfully upset when I called, Freddy. You say you have some kind ofamnesia too?"

 Trying to be casual about it, Munson said, "I find I can'tremember some important transactions I carried out today.Unfortunately, my only record of them is in my head. Butmaybe the information will come back to me when I've slept on it."

 "There's no way I can help you with that."

 "No. There isn't."

 "Freddy, where is this amnesia coming from?"

 Munson shrugged. "Maybe somebody put a drug in thewater supply, or spiked the food, or something. These days,you never can tell. Look, I've got to do some work, Paul. If you'd like to sleep here tonight-"

 "I'm wide awake, thanks. I'll drop by again in the morn­ing."

 When the sculptor was gone, Munson struggled for a fe­verish hour to reconstruct his data, and failed. Shortly beforetwo he took a four-hour-sleep pill. When he awakened, herealized in dismay that he had no memories whatever for theperiod from April 1 to noon yesterday. During those five weeks he had engaged in countless securities transactions,using other people's property as his collateral, and countingon his ability to get each marker in his game back into itsproper place before anyone was likely to go looking for it. Hehad always been able to remember everything. Now he couldremember nothing. He reached his office at seven in themorning, as always, and out of habit plugged himself intothe data channels to study the Zurich and London quotes,but the prices on the screen were strange to him, and he knewthat he was undone.

 At the same moment of Thursday morning Dr. Timothy  Bryce's house computer triggered an impulse and the alarm

 voice in his pillow said quietly but firmly, "It's time to wakeup, Dr, Bryce." He stirred but lay still. After the prescribedten-second interval the voice said, a little more sharply, "It'stime to wake up, Dr. Bryce." Bryce sat up, just in time; the lifting of his head from the pillow cut off the third, much sterner, repetition, which would have been followed by the opening chords of theJupiter Symphony. The psychiatristopened his eyes.

 He was surprised to find himself sharing his bed with astrikingly attractive girl.

 She was a honey blonde, deeply tanned, with light-browneyes, full pale lips, and a sleek, elegant body. She looked to be fairly young, a good twenty years younger than he was-perhaps twenty-five, twenty-eight. She wore nothing, and shewas in a deep sleep, her lower lip sagging in a sort of invol­untary pout. Neither her youth nor her beauty nor her nuditysurprised him; he was puzzled simply because he had no no­tion who she was or how she had come to be in bed with him.He felt as though he had never seen her before. Certainly hedidn't know her name. Had he picked her up at some partylast night? He couldn't seem to remember where he had beenlast night. Gently he nudged her elbow.

 She woke quickly, fluttering her eyelids, shaking her head.

 "Oh," she said, as she saw him, and clutched the sheet upto her throat. Then, smiling, she dropped it again. "That'sfoolish. No need to be modestnow, I guess."

 "I guess. Hello."

 "Hello," she said. She looked as confused as he was.

 "This is going to sound stupid," he said, "buthave slipped me& weird weed last night, because I'm afraidI'm not sure how I happed to bring you home. Or what your name is."

 "Lisa," she said. "Lisa-Falk." She stumbled over the sec­ond name. "And you're-"

 'Tim Bryce."

 "You don't remember where we met?"

 "No," he said.

 "Neither do I."

 He got out of bed, feeling a little hesitant about his ownnakedness, and fighting the inhibition off. "They must have given us both the same thing to smoke, then. You know"- he grinned shyly-"I can't even remember if we had a goodtime together last night. I hope we did."

 "I think we did," she said, "I can't remember it either. ButI feel good inside-the way I usually do after I've-" Shepaused. "We couldn't have met only just last night, Tim."

 "How can you tell?"

 "I've got the feeling that I've known you longer than that."

 Bryce shrugged. "I don't see how. I mean, without being too coarse about it, obviously we were both high last night,really floating, and we met and came here and-"

 "No. I feel at home here. As if I moved in with you weeksand weeks ago."

 "A lovely idea. But I'm sure you didn't."

 "Why do I feel so much at home here, then?"

 "In what way?"

 "In every way." She walked to the bedroom closet and lether hand rest on the touchplate. The door slid open; evidentlyhe had keyed the house computer to her fingerprints. Had hedone that last night too? She reached in. "My clothing," shesaid. "Look. All these dresses, coats, shoes. A whole wardrobe.There can't be any doubt. We've been living together anddon't remember it!"

 A chill swept through him. "What have they done to us?Listen, Lisa, let's get dressed and eat and go down to thehospital together for a checkup. We-"

 "Hospital?"

 "Fletcher Memorial. I'm in the neurological department.Whatever they slipped us last night has hit us both with alacunary retrograde amnesia-a gap in our memories-and it could be serious. If it's caused brain damage, perhaps it's not'irreversible yet, but we can't fool around."

 She put her hand to her lips in fear. Bryce felt a suddenwarm urge to protect this lovely stranger, to guard and com­fort her, and he realized he must be in love with her, eventhough he couldn't remember who she was. He crossed theroom to her and seized her in a brief, tight embrace; sheresponded eagerly, shivering a little. By a quarter to eight they were out of the house and heading for the hospitalthrough unusually light traffic. Bryce led the girl quickly tothe staff lounge. Ted Kamakura was there already, in uni­form. The little Japanese psychiatrist nodded curtly and said,"Morning, Tim." Then he blinked. "Good morning, Lisa. How comeyou're here?"

 "You know her?" Bryce asked,

 "What kind of question is that?"

 "A deadly serious one."

 "Of course I know her," Kamakura said, and Ms smile ofgreeting abruptly faded. "Why? Is something wrong about that?"

 "You may know her, but I don't," said Bryce.

 "Oh, God. Not you too!"

 "Tell me who she is, Ted."

 "She's your wife, Tim. You married her five yearsago."

 By half past eleven Thursday morning the Gerards had everything set up and going smoothly for the lunch rush atthe Petit Pois. The soup caldron was bubbling, the escargot trays were ready to be popped in the oven, the sauces weretaking form. Pierre Gerard was a bit surprised when mostof the lunch-time regulars failed to show up. Even Mr. Mun-son, always punctual at half past eleven, did not arrive. Someof these men had not missed weekday lunch at the Petit Pois in fifteen years. Something terrible must have happened onthe stock market, Pierre thought, to have kept all these fi­nancial men at their desks, and they were too busy to call him and cancel their usual tables. That must be the answer.It was impossible that any of the regulars would forget to call him. The stock market must be exploding. Pierre made amental note to call his broker after lunch and find out whatwas going on.

 About two Thursday afternoon, Paul Mueller stopped intoMetchinkoff's Art Supplies in North Beach to try to get awelding pen, some raw metal, loudspeaker paint, and the rest of the things he needed for the rebirth of his sculpting career.Metchnikoff greeted him sourly with, "No credit at all, Mr.Mueller, not even a nickel!"

 "It's all right. I'm a cash customer this time."

 The dealer brightened. "In that case it's all right, maybe.You finished with your troubles?"

 "I hope so," Mueller said.

 He gave the order. It came to about $2,300; when the timecame to pay, he explained that he simply had to run downto Montgomery Street to pick up the cash from his friendFreddy Munson, who was holding three bigs for him. Metch­nikoff began to glower again. "Five minutes!" Mueller called."I'll be back in five minutes!" But when he got to Munson's office, he found the place in confusion, and Munson wasn'tthere. "Did he leave an envelope for a Mr. Mueller?" he asked

 a distraught secretary. "I was supposed to pick somethingimportant up here this afternoon. Would you please check?"The girl simply ran away from him. So did the next girl. Aburly broker told him to get out of the office. "We're closed, fellow," he shouted. Baffled, Mueller left.

 Not daring to return to Metchnikoff 's with the news that, he hadn't been able to raise the cash after all, Mueller simplywent home. Three dunning robots were camped outside hisdoor, and each one began to croak its cry of doom as he ap­proached. "Sorry," Mueller said, "I can't remember a thing about any of this stuff," and he went inside and sat down onthe bare floor, angry, thinking of the brilliant pieces he couldbe turning out if he could only get his hands on the tools ofhis trade. He made sketches instead. At least the ghouls hadleft him with pencil and paper. Not as efficient as a computerscreen and a light-pen, maybe, but Michelangelo and Ben-venuto Cellini had managed to make out all right withoutcomputer screens and light-pens.

  At four o'clock the doorbell rang.

 "Goaway," Mueller said through the speaker. "See myaccountant! I don't want to hear any more dunnings, and thenext time I catch one of you idiot robots by my door I'm goingto-"

 "It's me, Paul," a nonmeehanical voice said.

 Carole.

 He rushed to the door. There were seven robots out there, surrounding her, and they tried to get in; but he pushed themback so she could enter. A robot didn't dare lay a paw on ahuman being. He slammed the door in their metal faces andlocked it.

 Carole looked fine. Her hair was longer than he remem­bered it, and she had gained about eight pounds in all theright places, and she wore an iridescent peekaboo wrap thathe had never seen before, and which was really inappropriatefor afternoon wear, but which looked splendid on her. Sheseemed at least five years younger than she really was; ev­idently a month and a half of marriage to Pete Castine haddone more for her than nine years of marriage to Paul Muel­ler. She glowed. She also looked strained and tense, but thatseemed superficial, the product of some distress of the lastfew hours.

 "I seem to have lost my key," she said.

 "What are you doing here?"

 "I don't understand you, Paul."

 "I mean, why'd you come here?"

 "Ilive here."

 "Do you?" He laughed harshly. "Very funny,"

 "You always did havea weird sense of humor, Paul." Shestepped past him. "Only this isn't any joke. Where is every­thing? The furniture, Paul. My things." Suddenly she wascrying. "I must be breaking up. I wake up this morning ina completely strange apartment, all alone, and 1 spend thewhole day wandering ia a sort of daze that I don't understandat all, and now I finally come home and I find that you'vepawned every damn thing we own, or something, and-" Shebit her knuckles. "Paul?"

 She's got it too, he thought. The amnesia epidemic.

 He said quietly, "This is a funny thing to ask, Carole, butwill you tell me what today's date is?"

 "Why-the fourteenth of September-or is it the fif­teenth-"

 "2002?"

 "What do you think? 1776?"

 She's got it worse than I have, Mueller told himself. She's lost a whole extra month. She doesn't remember my business venture. She doesn't remember my losing all the money.Shedoesn't remember divorcing me.She thinks she's still my wife.

 "Come in here," he said, and led her to the bedroom. Hepointed to the cot that stood where their bed had been. "Sitdown, Carole. I'll try to explain. It won't make much sense,but I'll try to explain."

 Under the circumstances, the concert by the visiting New York Philharmonic for Thursday evening was canceled.Nevertheless the orchestra assembled for its rehearsal at halfpast two in the afternoon. The union required so many re­hearsals-with pay-a week; therefore the orchestra re­hearsed, regardless of external cataclysms. But there wereproblems. Maestro Alvarez, who used an electronic baton andproudly conducted without a score, thumbed the button for a downbeat and realized abruptly, with a sensation as ofdropping through a trapdoor, that the Brahms Fourth was wholly gone from his mind. The orchestra responded raggedlyto his faltering leadership; some of the musicians had nodifficulties, but the concertmaster stared in horror at his lefthand, wondering how to finger the strings for the notes his violin was supposed to be yielding, and the second oboe couldnot find the proper keys, and the first bassoon had not yet

 even managed to remember how to put his instrument to­gether.

 By nightfall, Tim Bryce had managed to assemble enoughof the story so that he understood what had happened, notonly to himself and to Lisa, but to the entire city. A drug, ordrugs, almost certainly distributed through the municipalwater supply, had leached away nearly everyone's memory.The trouble with modern life, Bryce thought, is that tech­nology gives us the potential for newer and more intricatedisasters every year, but doesn't seem to give us the abilityto ward them off. Memory drugs were old stuff, going backthirty, forty years. He had studied several types of them him­self. Memory is partly a chemical and partly an electricalprocess; some drugs went after the electrical end, jammingthe snyapses over which brain transmissions travel, and somewent after the molecular substrata in which long-term mem­ories are locked up. Bryce knew ways of destroying short-term memories by inhibiting synapse transmission, and heknew ways of destroying the deep long-term memories by washing out the complex chains of ribonucleic acid, brain-RNA, by which they are inscribed in the brain. But suchdrugs were experimental, tricky, unpredictable; he had hes­itated to use them on human subjects; he certainly had neverimagined that anyone would simply dump them into an aq­ueduct and give an entire city a simultaneous lobotomy.

 His office at Fletcher Memorial had become an improvisedcenter of operations for San Francisco. The mayor was there,pale and shrunken; the chief of police, exhausted and con­ fused, periodically turned his back and popped a pill; a dazed-looking representative of the communications net hovered ina corner, nervously monitoring the hastily rigged systemthrough which the committee of public safety that Bryce had summoned could make its orders known throughout the city.

 The mayor was no use at all. He couldn't even rememberhaving run for office. The chief of police was in even worseshape; he had been up all night because he had forgotten,among other things, his home address, and he had been afraidto query a computer about it for fear he'd lose his job fordrunkenness. By now the chief of police was aware that hewasn't the only one in the city having memory problemstoday, and he had looked up his address in the files and even telephoned his wife, but he was close to collapse. Bryce hadinsisted that both men stay here as symbols of order; he

 wanted only their faces and their voices, not their fumble-headed official services.

 A dozen or so miscellaneous citizens had accumulated inBryce's office too. At five in the afternoon he had broadcast an all-media appeal, asking anyone whose memory of recentevents was unimpaired to come to Fletcher Memorial. "If youhaven't had any city water in the past twenty-four hours, you're probably all right. Come down here. We need you." Hehad drawn a curious assortment. There was a ramrod-straight old space hero, Taylor Braskett, a pure-foods nutwho drank only mountain water. There was a family ofFrench restaurateurs, mother, father, three grown children,who preferred mineral water flown in from their native land.There was a computer salesman named McBurney who hadbeen in Los Angeles on business and hadn't had any of the drugged water. There was a retired cop named Adler whohved in Oakland, where there were no memory problems; hehad hurried across the bay as soon as he heard that SanFrancisco was in trouble. That was before all access to thecity had been shut off at Bryce's orders. And there were someothers, of doubtful value but of definitely intact memory.

 The three screens that the communications man hadmounted provided a relay of key points in the city. Right nowone was monitoring the Fisherman's Wharf district from acamera atop Ghirardelli Square, one was viewing the finan­cial district from a helicopter over the old Ferry BuildingMuseum, and one was relaying a pickup from a mobile truckin Golden Gate Park. The scenes were similar everywhere: people milling about, asking questions, getting no answers.There wasn't any overt sign of looting yet. There were nofires. The police, those of them able to function, were out inforce, and antiriot robots were cruising the bigger streets,just in case they might be needed to squirt their stiflingblankets of foam at suddenly panicked mobs.

 Bryce said to the mayor, "At half past six I want you togo on all media with an appeal for calm. We'll supply you with everything you have to say."

 The mayor moaned.

 Bryce said, "Don't worry. I'll feed you the whole speech bybone relay. Just concentrate on speaking clearly and lookingstraight into the camera. If you come across as a terrifiedman, it can be the end for all of us. If you look cool, we maybe able to pull through."

 The mayor put his face in his hands.

 Ted Kamakura whispered, "You can't put him on the chan­nels, Tim! He's a wreck, and everyone will see it!"

 "The city's mayor has to show himself," Bryce insisted. "Give him a double jolt of bracers. Let him make this onespeech and then we can put him to pasture."

 "Who'll be the spokesman, then?" Kamakura asked. "You? Me? Police Chief Dennison?"

 "1 don't know," Bryce muttered. "We need an authority-image to make announcements every half hour or so, and I'mdamned if I'll have time. Or you. And Dennison-"

 "Gentlemen, may I make a suggestion?" It was the oldspaceman, Braskett. "I wish to volunteer as spokesman. Youmust admit I havea certain look of authority. And I'm ac­customed to speaking to the public."

 Bryce rejected the idea instantly. That right-wing crack­pot, that author of passionate nut letters to every news me­dium in the state, that latter-day Paul Revere? Him, spokes­man for the committee? But in the moment of rejection cameacceptance. Nobody really paid attention to far-out politicalactivities like that; probably nine people out of ten in SanFrancisco thought of Braskett, if at all, simply as the heroof the First Mars Expedition. He wass handsome old horse,too, elegantly upright and lean. Deep voice; unwavering eyes.A man of strength and presence.

 Bryce said, "Commander Braskett, if we were to make youchairman of the committee of public safety-"

 Ted Kamakura gasped.

 "--would I have your assurance thst such public an­nouncements as you would make would be confined entirelyto statements of the policies arrived at by the entire com­mittee?"

 Commander Braskett smiled glacially. "You want me tobe a figurehead, is that it?"

 "To be our spokesman, with the official title of chairman."

 "As I said: to be a figurehead. Very well, I accept. I'llmouth my lines like an obedient puppet, and I won't attemptto inject any of my radical, extremist ideas into my state-

 ments. Is that what you wish?"

 "I think we understand each other perfectly," Bryce said,and smiled, and got a surprisingly warm smile in return.

 He jabbed now at his data board. Someone in the path lab
eight stories below his office answered, and Bryce said, "Is
there an up-to-date analysis yet?"                                                   

 "I'll switch you to Dr. Madison."                                                 

 Madison appeared on the screen. He ran the hospital'sradioisotope department, normally: a beefy, red-faced manwho looked as though he ought to be a beer salesman. He knew his subject. "It's definitely the water supply, Tim," hesaid at once. "We tentatively established that an hour anda half ago, of course, but now there's no doubt. I've isolatedtraces of two different memory-suppressant drugs, and there'sthe possibility of a third. Whoever it was was taking nochances."

 "What are they?" Bryce asked.

 "Well, we've got a good jolt of acetylcholine terminase,"Madison said, "which will louse up the synapses and interferewith short-term memory fixation. Then there's somethingelse, perhaps a puromycin-derivative protein dissolver, whichis going to work on the brain-RNA and smashing up oldermemories. I suspect also that we've been getting one of thenewer experimental amnesifacients, something that I haven't isolated yet, capable of working its way deep andcutting out really basic motor patterns. So they've hit us high, low, and middle."

 'That explains a lot. The guys who can't remember whatthey did yesterday, the guys who've lost a chunk out of then-adult memories, and the ones who don't even remember theirnames-this thing is working on people at all different lev­els."

 "Depending on individual metabolism, age, brain struc­ture, and how much water they had to drink yesterday, yes."

 "Is the water supply still tainted?" Bryce asked.

 "Tentatively, I'd say no. I've had water samples brought me from the upflow districts, and everything's okay there.The water department has been running its own check; theysay the same. Evidently the stuff got into the system earlyyesterday, came down into the city, and is generally gone bynow. Might be some residuals in the pipes; I'd be careful aboutdrinking water even today."

 "And what does the pharmacopoeia say about the effec­tiveness of these drugs?"

 Madison shrugged. "Anybody's guess. You'd know thatbetter than I, Do they wear off?"

 "Not in the normal sense," said Bryce. "What happens isthe brain cuts in a redundancy circuit and gets access to aduplicate set of the affected memories, eventually-shifts toanother track, so to speak-provided a duplicate of the sectorin question was there in the first place, and provided that the

 duplicate wasn't blotted out also. Some people are going to get chunks of their memories back, in a few days or a few weeks. Others won't."

 "Wonderful," Madison said. "I'll keep you posted, Tim."

 Bryce cut off the call and said to the communications man,"You have that bone relay? Get it behind His Honor's ear,"

 The mayor quivered. The little instrument was fastenedin place.

 Bryce said, "Mr. Mayor, I'm going to dictate a speech, andyou're going to broadcast it on all media, and it's the last thing I'm going to ask of you until you've had a chance topull yourself together. Okay? Listen carefully to what I'msaying, speak slowly, and pretend that tomorrow is electionday and your job depends on how well you come across now.You won't be going on live. There'll be a fifteen-second delay,and we have a wipe circuit so we can correct any stumbles,and there's absolutely no reason to be tense. Are you withme? Will you give it all you've got?"

 "My mind is all foggy."

 "Simply listen to me and repeat what I say into thecamera's eye. Let your political reflexes take over. Here'syour chance to make a hero of yourself. We're living historyright now, Mr. Mayor. What we do here today will be studiedthe way the events of the 1906 fire were studied. Let's go,now. Follow me.People of the wonderful city of San Fran­cisco-"

 The words rolled easily from Bryce's lips, and, wonder ofwonders, the mayor caught them and spoke them in a clear,beautifully resonant voice. As he spun out his speech, Brycefelt a surging flow of power going through himself, and heimagined for the moment that he were the elected leader of the city, not merely a self-appointed emergency dictator. Itwas an interesting, almost ecstatic feeling. Lisa, watchinghim in action, gave him a loving smile.

 He smiled at her. In this moment of glory he was almostable to ignore the ache of knowing that he had lost his entirememory archive of his life with her. Nothing else gone, ap­parently. But, neatly, with idiot selectivity, the drug in the water supply had sliced away everything pertaining to hisfive years of marriage. Kamakura had told him, a few hoursago, that it was the happiest marriage of any he knew. Gone.At least Lisa had suffered an identical loss, against all prob­abilities. Somehow that made it easier to bear; it would havebeen awful to have one of them remember the good times and

 the other know nothing. He was almost able to ignore thetorment of loss, while he kept busy. Almost,

 "The mayor's going to be on in a minute," Nadia said.''Will you listen to him? He'll explain what's been going on."

 "I don't care," said The Amazing Montini dully.

 "It's some kind of epidemic of amnesia. When I was outbefore, I heard all about it.Everyone's got it. It isn't just you!And you thought it was a stroke, but it wasn't. You're allright"

 "My mind is a ruin."

 "It's only temporary." Her voice was shrill and uncon­vincing. "It's something in the air, maybe. Some drug theywere testing that drifted in." We're all in this together. I can'tremember last week at all."

 "What do I care?" Montini said. "Most of these people, theyhave no memories even when they are healthy. But me? Me?I am destroyed. Nadia, I should lie down in my grave now.There is no sense in continuing to walk around."

 The voice from the loudspeaker said, "Ladies and gentle­men, His Honor Elliot Chase, the Mayor of San Francisco."

 "Let's listen," Nadia said.

 The mayor appeared on the wallscreen, wearing his sol­emn face, his we-face-a-grave-challenge-citizens face. Mon­tini glanced at him, shrugged, looked away.

 The mayor said, "People of the wonderful city of San Fran­cisco, we have just come through the most difficult day innearly a century, since the terrible catastrophe of April,1906,The earth has not quaked today, nor have we been smitten'by fire, yet we have been severely tested by sudden calamity.

 "As all of you surely know, the people of San Franciscohave been afflicted since last night by what can best betermed an epidemic of amnesia. There has been mass loss of memory, ranging from mild cases of forgetfulness to near-total obliteration of identity. Scientists working at FletcherMemorial Hospital have succeeded in determining the causeof this unique and sudden disaster.

 "It appears that criminal saboteurs contaminated the mu­nicipal water supply with certain restricted drugs that havethe ability to dissolve memory structures.The effect of thesedrugs is temporary.There should be no cause for alarm. Even those who are most severely affected will find their memoriesgradually beginning to return, and there is every reason toexpect full recovery in a matter of hours or days."

 "He's lying," said Montini,

 "The criminals responsible have not yet been apprehend­ed, but we expect arrests momentarily. The San Franciscoarea is the only affected region, which means the drugs wereintroduced into the water system just beyond city limits.Everything is normal in Berkeley, in Oakland, in Marin County, and other outlying areas. -

 "In the name of public safety I have ordered the bridgesto San Francisco closed, as well as the Bay Area Rapid Transitand other means of access to the city. We expect to maintain these restrictions at least until tomorrow morning. The pur­pose of this is to prevent disorder and to avoid a possibleinflux of undesirable elements into the city while the trouble persists. We San Franciscans are self-sufficient and can look after our own needs without outside interference. However, I have been in contact with the President and with the Gov­ernor, and they both have assured me of all possible assis­tance.

 "The water supply is at present free of the drug, and everyprecaution is being taken to prevent a recurrence of this crimeagainst one million innocent people. However, I am told thatsome lingering contamination may remain in the pipes fora few hours. I recommend that you keep your consumptionof water low until further notice, and that you boil any wateryou wish to use.

  "Lastly. Police Chief Dennison, myself, and your other city officials will be devoting full time to the needs of the city solong as the crisis lasts. Probably we will not have the oppor­tunity to go before the media for further reports. Therefore, I have taken the step of appointing a committee of public safety, consisting of distinguished laymen and scientists ofSan Francisco, as a coordinating body that will aid in gov­erning the city and reporting to its citizens. The chairmanof this committee is the well-known veteran of so many ex­ploits in space, Commander Taylor Braskett. Announcementsconcerning the developments in the crisis will come from Commander Braskett for the remainder of the evening, andyou may consider his words to be those of your city officials. Thank you."

 Braskett came on the screen. Montini grunted. "Look at the man they find. A maniac patriot!"

 "But the drug will wear off," Nadia said. "Your mind willbe all right again."

 "I know these drugs. There is no hope. I am destroyed."

 The Amazing Montini moved toward the door, "I need freshair. I will go out. Good-bye, Nadia."

 She tried to stop him. He pushed her aside. Entering Mar­ina Park, he made his way to the yacht dub; the doormanadmitted him, and took no further notice. Montini walkedout on the pier. The drug, they say, is temporary. It will wearoff. My mind will clear. I doubt this very much. Montinipeered at the dark, oily water, glistening with light reflectedfrom the bridge. He explored his damaged mind, scanningfor gaps. Whole sections of memory were gone. The walls had crumbled, slabs of plaster falling away to expose bare lath.He could not live this way. Carefully, grunting from the ex­ertion, he lowered himself via a metal ladder into the water, and kicked himself away from the pier. The water was ter­ribly cold. His shoes seemed immensely heavy. He floatedtoward the island of the old prison, but he doubted that hewould remain afloat much longer. As he drifted, he ran through an inventory of his memory, seeing what remainedto him and finding less than enough. To test whether even his gift had survived, he attempted to play back a recall ofthe mayor's speech, and found the words shifting and melting.It is just as well, then, he told himself, and drifted on, and went under.

 Carole insisted on spending Thursday night with him.

 "We aren't man and wife any more," he had to tell her,"You divorced me."

 "Since when are you so conventional? We lived togetherbefore we were married, and now we can live together afterwe were married. Maybe we're inventing a new sin, Paul. Post-marital sex."

 "That isn't the point. The point is that you came to hateme because of my financial mess, and you left me. If you tryto come back to me now, you'll be going against your ownrational and deliberate decision of last January."

 "For me last January is still four months away," she said. "I don't hate you. I love you. I always have and always will.I can't imagine how I would ever have come to divorce you,but in any case I don't remember divorcing you, and you don'tremember being divorced by me, and so why can't we just keep going from the point where our memories leave off?"

 "Among other things, because you happen to be Pete Cas-tine's wife now,"

 "That sounds completely unreal to me. Something you dreamed."

 "Freddy Munson told me, though. It's true."

 "If I went back to Pete now," Carole said, "I'd feel sinful.Simply because I supposedly married him, you want me tojump into bed with him? I don't want him I want you. Can't I stay here?"

 "If Pete-"

  "If Pete, if Pete, if Pete! In my mind I'm Mrs. Paul Mueller,and in your mind I am too, and to hell with Pete, and withwhatever Freddy Munson told you, and everything else. This is a silly argument, Paul. Let's quit it. If you want me to get out, tell me so right now in that many words. Otherwise let me stay."

 He couldn't tell her to get out.

 He had only the one small cot, but they managed to shareit. It was uncomfortable, but in an amusing way. He felttwenty years old again for a while. In the morning they tooka long shower together, and then Carole went out to buysome things for breakfast, since his service had been cut off and he couldn't punch for food. A dunning robot outside thedoor told him, as Carole was leaving, "The decree of personalservice due has been requested, Mr. Mueller, and is nowpending a court hearing."

 "I know you not," Mueller said. "Be gone!"

 Today, he told himself, he would hunt up Freddy Munsonsomehow and get that cash from him, and buy the tools heneeded, and start working again. Let the world outside gocrazy; so long as he was working, all was well. If he couldn't find Freddy, maybe he could swing the purchase on Carole'scredit. She was legally divorced from him and none of hiscredit taint would stain her; as Mrs. Peter Castine she should surely be able to get hold of a couple of bigs to pay Metch-nikoff. Possibly the banks were closed on account of the mem­ory crisis today, Mueller considered; but Metchnikoff surely.wouldn't demand cash from Carole. He closed his eyes andimagined how good it would feel to be making things oncemore.

 Carole was gone an hour. When she came back, carryinggroceries, Pete Castine was with her.

 "He followed me," Carole explained. "He wouldn't let mealone."

 He was a slim, poised, controlled man, quite athletic, sev­eral years older than Mueller-perhaps into his fifties al-

 ready-but seemingly very young. Calmly he said, "I wassure that Carole had come here. It's perfectly understandable,Paul. She was here all night, I hope?"

 "Does it matter?" Mueller asked.

 "To some extent. I'd rather have had her spending thenight with her former husband than with some third partyentirely."

 "She was here all night, yes," Mueller said wearily.

 "I'd like her to come home with me now. Sheis my wife,after all,"

 "She has no recollection of that. Neither do I."

 "I'm aware of that." Castine nodded amiably. "In my owncase, I've forgotten everything that happened to me beforethe age of twenty-two. I couldn't tell you my father's firstname. However, as a matter of objective reality, Carole's mywife, and her parting from you was rather bitter, and I feel she shouldn't stay here any longer."

 "Why are you telling all this to me?" Mueller asked. "Ifyou want your wife to go home with you, ask her to go homewith you."

 "So I did. She says she won't leave here unless you direct her to go."

 "That's right," Carole said, "I know whose wife Ithink Iam. If Paul throws me out, I'll go with you. Not otherwise,"

 Mueller shrugged. "I'd be a fool to throw her out, Pete. Ineed her and I want her, and whatever breakup she and Ihad isn't real to us. I know it's tough on you, but I can't helpthat. I imagine you'll have no trouble getting an annulmentonce the courts work out some law to cover cases like this."

 Castine was silent for a long moment,

 At length he said, "How has your work been going, Paul?"

 "I gather that I haven't turned out a thing all year."

 "That's correct."

 "I'm planning to start again. You might say that Carolehas inspired me."

 "Splendid," said Castine without intonation of any kind."I trust this little mixup over our-ah-shared wife won't interfere with the harmonious artist-dealer relationship weused to enjoy?"

 "Not at all," Mueller said. "You'll still get my whole out­put. Why the hell should I resent anything you did? Carolewas a free agent when you married her. There's only one little trouble."

 "Yes?"

 "I'm broke. I have no tools, and I can't work without tools,and I have no way of buying tools."

 "How much do you need?"

 "Two and a half bigs."

 Castine said, "Where's your data pickup? I'll make a credittransfer."

 "The phone company disconnected it a long time ago."

 "Let me give you a check, then. Say, three thousand even?An advance against future sales." Castine fumbled for awhile before locating a blank check. "First one of these I'vewritten in five years, maybe. Odd how you get accustomedto spending by telephone. Here you are, and good luck. Toboth of you." He made a courtly, bitter bow. "I hope you'll behappy together. And call me up when you've finished a fewpieces, Paul. I'll send the van. I suppose you'll have a phoneagain by then." He went out.

 "There's a blessing in being able to forget," Nate Hald-ersen said. "The redemption of oblivion, I call it. What's hap­pened to San Francisco this week isn't necessarily a disaster.For some of us, it's the finest thing in the world."

 They were listening to him-at least fifty people, cluster­ing near his feet. He stood on the stage of the bandstand inthe park, just across from theDe Young Museum. Shadowswere gathering. Friday, the second full day of the memorycrisis, was ending. Haldersen had slept in the park last night, and he planned to sleep there again tonight; he had realizedafter his escape from the hospital that his apartment hadbeen shut down long ago and his possessions were in storage.It did not matter. He would live off the land and forage forfood. The flame of prophecy was aglow in him.

 "Let me tell you how it was with me," he cried. "Threedays ago I was in a hospital for mental illness. Some of youare smiling, perhaps, telling me I ought to be back there now,but no! You don't understand. I was incapable of facing the world. Wherever I went, I saw happy families, parents andchildren, and it made me sick with envy and hatred, so thatI couldn't function in society. Why? Why? Because my own wife and children were killed in an air disaster in 1991, that's why, and I missed the plane because I was committing sin that day, and for my sin they died, and I lived thereafter inunending torment! But now all that is flushed from my mind.I have sinned, and I have suffered, and now I am redeemedthrough merciful oblivion!"

 A voice in the crowd called, "If you've forgotten all aboutit, how come you're telling the story to us?"

 "A good question! An excellent question!" Haldersen feltsweat bursting from his pores, adrenaline pumping in hisveins. "I know the story only because a machine in the hos­pital told it to me, yesterday morning. But it came to mefrom the outside, a secondhand tale. The experience of itwithin me, the scars, all that has been washed away. Thepain of it is gone. Oh, yes, I'm sad that my innocent familyperished, but a healthy man learns to control his grief aftereleven years, he acceptshis loss and goes on. I was sick, sickrighthere, and I couldn't live with my grief, but now I can, I look on it objectively, do you see? And that's why I say there's a blessing in being able to ferget. What about you, out there? There must be some of you who suffered painfullosses too, and now can no longer remember them, now havebeen redeemed and released from anguish, Are there any?Are there? Raise your hands. Who's been bathed in holy ob­livion? Who out there knows that he's been cleansed, even if he can't remember what it is he's been cleansed from?"

 Hands were starting to go up.

 They were weeping, now, they were cheering, they werewaving at him. Haldersen felt a little like a charlatan, Butonly a little. He had always had the stuff of a prophet in him,even while he was posing as a harmless academic, a stuffyprofessor of philosophy. He had had what every prophetneeds, a sharp sense of contrast between guilt and purity, an awareness of the existence of sin. It was that awareness that had crushed him for eleven years. It was that awareness that now drove him to celebrate his joy in public, to seek for companions in liberation-no, for disciples-to found the Church of Oblivion here in Golden Gate Park. The hospital could have given him these drugs years ago and spared himfrom agony. Bryce had refused, Kamakura, Reynolds, aH thesmooth-talking doctors; they were waiting for more tests,experiments on chimpanzees, God knows what. And God had said, Nathaniel Haldersen has suffered long enough for hissin, and so He had thrust a drug into the water supply of SanFrancisco, the same drug that the doctors had denied him,and down the pipes from the mountains had come the sweet draught of oblivion.

 "Drink with me!" Haldersen shouted. "All you who are inpain, you who live with sorrow! We'll get this drug ourselves!

 We'll purify our suffering souls! Drink the blessed water, andsing to the glory of God who gives us oblivion!"

 Freddy Munson had spent Thursday afternoon, Thursday night, and all of Friday holed up in his apartment with everycommunications link to the outside turned off. He neithertook nor made calls, ignored the telescreenstand hadswitched on the xerofax only three times in the thirty-sixhours.

 He knew that he was finished, and he was trying to decidehow to react to it.

 His memory situation seemed to have stabilized. He wasstill missing only five weeks of market maneuvers. There wasn't any further decay-not that that mattered; he was introuble enough-and, despite an optimistic statement last night by Mayor Chase, Munson hadn't seen any evidence that the memory loss was reversing itself. He was unable toreconstruct any of the vanished details.

 There was no immediate peril, he knew. Most of the clientswhose accounts he'd been juggling were wealthy old bats whowouldn't worry about their stocks until they got next month'saccount statements. They had given him discretionary pow­ers, which was how he had been table to tap their resourcesfor his own benefit in the first place. Up to now, Munson had always been able to complete each transaction within a single month, so the account balanced for every statement. He had dealt with the problem of the securities withdrawals that thestatements ought to show by gimmicking the house computerto delete all such withdrawals provided there was no neteffect from month to month; that way he could borrow 10,000shares of United Spaceways or Comsat or IBM for two weeks,use the stock as collateral for a deal of his own, and get it back into the proper account in time with no one the wiser. Three weeks from now, though, the end-of-the-month state­ments were going to go out showing all of his accounts pep­pered by inexplicable withdrawals, and he was going to catch  hell.

 The trouble might even start earlier, and come from adifferent direction. Since the San Francisco trouble had be­gun, the market had gone down sharply, and he would prob­ably be getting margin calls on Monday. The San Francisco exchange was closed, of course; it hadn't been able to open Thursday morning because so many of the brokers had been hit hard by amnesia. But New York's exchanges were open,

 and they had reacted badly to the news from San Francisco,probably out of fear that a conspiracy was afoot and the wholecountry might soon be pushed into chaos. When the localexchange opened again on Monday, if it opened, it wouldmost likely open at the last New York prices, or near them,and keep on going down. Munson would be asked to put upcash or additional securities to cover his loans. He certainlydidn't have the cash, and the only way he could get additionalsecurities would be to dip into still more of his accounts,compounding his offense; on the other hand, if he didn't meetthe margin calls they'd sell him out and he'd never be able to restore the stock to the proper accounts, even if he suc­ceeded in remembering which shares went where,

 He was trapped. He could stick around for a few weeks,waiting for the ax to fall, or he could get out right now. Hepreferred to get out right now.

 And go where?

 Caracas? Reno? Sao Paulo? No, debtor sanctuaries wouldn'tdo him any good, because he wasn't an ordinary debtor. Hewas a thief, and the sanctuaries didn't protect criminals, onlybankrupts. He had to go farther, all the way to Luna Dome.There wasn't any extradition from the Moon. There'd be nohope of coming back, either.

 Munson got on the phone, hoping to reach his travel agent.Two tickets to Luna, please. One for him, one for Helene; if she didn't feel like coming, he'd go alone. No, not round trip.But the agent didn't answer. Munson tried the number sev­eral times. Shrugging, he decided to order direct, and calledUnited Spaceways next. He got a busy signal. "Shall we wait­list your call?" the data net asked. "It will be three days, atthe present state of the backlog of calls, before we can put it through."

 "Forget it," Munson said.

 He had just realized that San Francisco was closed off,anyway. Unless he tried to swim for it, he couldn't get out of the city to go to the spaceport, even if he did manage tobuy tickets to Luna. He was caught here until they opened the transit routes again. How long would that be? Monday,Tuesday, next Friday? They couldn't keep the city shut for­ever-could they?

 What it came down to, Munson saw, was a contest of prob­abilities. Would someone discover the discrepancies in hisaccounts before he found a way of escaping to Luna, or wouldhis escape access become available too late? Pat on those

 terms, it became an interesting gamble instead of a panicsituation. He would spend the weekend trying to find a wayout of San Francisco, and if he failed, he would try to be a stoic about facing what was to come.

 Calm, now, he remembered that he had promised to lendPaul Mueller a few thousand dollars, to help him equip his studio again. Munson was unhappy over having let that sliphis mind. He liked to be helpful. And, even now, what weretwo or three bigs to him? He had plenty of recoverable assets. Might as well let Paul have a little of the money before thelawyers start grabbing it.

 One problem. He had less than a hundred in cash on him-who bothered carrying cash?-and he couldn't telephone atransfer of funds to Mueller's account, because Paul didn'thave an account with the data net any more, or even a phone. There wasn't any place to get that much cash, either, at thishour of evening, especially with the city paralyzed. And the weekend was coming. Munson had an idea, though. What ifhe went shopping with Mueller tomorrow, and simply charged whatever the sculptor needed to his own account? Fine, Hereached for the phone to arrange the date, remembered thatMueller could not be called, and decided to tell Paul about it in person. Now. He could use some fresh air, anyway.

 He half expected to find robot bailiffs outside, waiting toarrest him. But of course no one was after him yet. He walkedto the garage. It was a fine night, cool, starry, with perhapsjust a hint of fog in the east. Berkeley's lights glittered through the haze, though. The streets were quiet. In time of crisis people stay home, apparently. He drove quickly toMueller's place. Four robots were in front of it. Munson eyedthem edgily, with the wary look of the man who knows thatthe sheriff will be after him too, in a little while. But Mueller, when he came to the door, took no notice of the dunners.

 Munson said, "I'm sorry I missed connections with you.The money I promised to lend you-"

 "It's all right, Freddy. Pete Castine was here this morningand I borrowed the three bigs from him. I've already got mystudio set up again. Come in and look."

 Munson entered. "Pete Castine?"

 "A good investment for him. He makes money if he haswork of mine to sell, right? It's in his best interest to helpme get started again. Carole and I have been hooking thingsup all day."

 "Carole?" Munson said. Mueller showed him into the stu-

 dio. The paraphernalia of a sonic sculptor sat on the floor-a welding pen, a vacuum bell, a big texturing vat, some ingotsand strands of wire, and such things, Carole was feedingdiscarded packing cases into the wall disposal unit. Lookingup, she smiled uncertainly and ran her hand through herlong dark hair.

 "Hello, Freddy."

 "Everybody good friends again?" he asked; baffled.

 "Nobody remembers being enemies," she said. She laughed."Isn't it wonderful to have your memory blotted out like this?"

 "Wonderful," Munson said bleakly.

 Commander Braskett said, "Can I offer you people any water?"

 Tim Bryce smiled. Lisa Bryce smiled. Ted Kamakurasmiled. Even Mayor Chase, that poor empty husk, smiled.Commander Braskett understood those smiles. Even now,after three days of close contact under pressure, they thoughthe was nuts.

 He had had a week's supply of bottled water brought fromhis home to the command post here at the hospital. Every­body kept telling him that the municipal water was safe todrink now, that the memory drugs were gone from it; butwhy couldn't they comprehend that his aversion to publicwater dated back to an era when memory drugs were un-known? There were plenty of other chemicals in the reservoir,after all.

 He hoisted bis glass in a jaunty toast and winked at them.

 Tim Bryce said, "Commander, we'd like you to address thecity again at half past ten this morning. Here's your text,"

 Braskett scanned the sheet. It dealt mostly with the re­laxation of the order to boil water before drinking it. "Youwant me to go on all media," he said, "and tell the people ofSan Francisco that it's now safe for them to drink from thetaps, eh? That's a bit awkward for me. Even a figureheadspokesman is entitled to some degree of personal integrity."

 Bryce looked briefly puzzled, Then he laughed and tookthe text back. "You're absolutely right, Commander. I can'task you to make this announcement, in view of-ah-yourparticular beliefs. Let's change the plan. You open the spotby introducing me, andI'll discuss the no-boiling thing. Willthat be all right?"

 Commander Braskett appreciated the tactful way they

 deferred to his special obsession. "I'm at your service, Doctor,"he said gravely.

 Bryce finished speaking and the camera lights left him. He said to Lisa, "What about lunch? Or breakfast, or what­ever meal it is we're up to now."

 "Everything's ready, Tim. Whenever you" are."

 They ate together in the holograph room, which had be­come the kitchen of the command post. Massive cameras andtanks of etching fluid surrounded them. The others thought­fully left them alone. These brief shared meals were the onlyfragments of privacy he and Lisa had had, in the fifty-twohours since he had awakened to find her sleeping beside him.

 He stared across the table in wonder at this delectableblond girl who they said was his wife. How beautiful her softbrown eyes were against that backdrop of golden hair! Howperfect the line of her lips, the curve of her earlobes! Bryce knew that no one would object if he and Lisa went off andlocked themselves into one of the private rooms for a few hours. He wasn't that indispensable; and there was so muchhe had to begin relearning about his wife. But he was unable to leave his post. He hadn't been out of the hospital or evenoff this floor for the duration of the crisis; he kept himself going by grabbing the sleep wire for half an hour every six hours. Perhaps it was an illusiop born of too little sleep and too much data, but he had come to believe that the survival of the city depended on him. He had spent his career tryingto heal individual sick minds; now he had a whole city to tend to.

 "Tired?" Lisa asked.

 "I'm in that tiredness beyond feeling tired. My mind is soclear that my skull wouldn't cast a shadow. I'm nearing nir­vana."

 "The worst is over, I think. The city's settling down."

 "It's still bad, though. Have you seen the suicide figures?"

 "Bad?"

 "Hideous. The norm in San Francisco is 220 a year. We've had close to five hundred in the last two and a half days. Andthat's just the reported cases, the bodies discovered, and soon. Probably we can double the figure. Thirty suicides re­ ported Wednesday night, about two hundred on Thursday, the same on Friday, and about fifty so far this morning. Atleast it seems as if the wave is past its peak."

 "Butwhy, Tim?"

 "Some people react poorly to loss. Especially the loss of asegment of their memories. They're indignant-they'recrashed-they're scared--and they reach for the exit pill.Suicide's too easy now, anyway. In the old days you reacted to frustration by smashing the crockery; now you go a dead­lier route. Of course, there are special cases. A namedMontini they fished out of the bay-a professional mnemon-ist, who did a trick act in nightclubs, total recall. I can hardly blame him for caving in. And I suppose there were a lot ofothers who kept their business in their heads-gamblers,stock-market operators, oral poets, musicians-who mightdecide to end it all rather than try to pick up the pieces."

 "But if the effects of the drug wear off-"

 "Do they?" Bryce asked.

 "You said so yourself."

 "I was making optimistic noises for the benefit of the cit­izens. We don't have any experimental history for these drugsand human subjects. Hell, Lisa, we don't even know the dos­age that was administered; by the time we were able to get water samples most of the system had been flushed clean, and the automatic monitoring devices at the city pumpingstations were rigged as part of the conspiracy so they didn'tshow a thing out of the ordinary. I've got no idea at all if there's going to be any measurable memory recovery."

 "But there is, Tim. I've already started to get some thingsback."

 "What?"

 "Don't scream at me like that! You scared me."

 He clung to the edge of the table. "Are you really recover­ing?"

 "Around the edges. I remember a few things already.About us."

 "Like what?"

 "Applying for the marriage license. I'm standing starknaked inside a diagnostat machine and a voice on the loud­speaker is telling me to look straight into the scanners. AndI remember the ceremony, a little. Just a small group offriends, a civil ceremony. Then we took the pod to Acapulco."

 He stared grimly. "When did this start to come back?"

 "About seven this morning, I guess."

 "Is there more?"

   "A bit. Our honeymoon. The robot bellhop who came blun­dering in on our wedding night. You don't-"

 "Remember it? No. No. Nothing. Blank."

 "That's all I remember, this early stuff."  "Yes, of course," he said. "The older memories are alwaysthe first to return in any form of amnesia. The last stuff inis the first to go." His hands were shaking, not entirely fromfatigue. A strange desolation crept over him. Lisa remem­bered. He did not. Was it a function of her youth, or of the chemistry of her brain, or-?

 He could not bear the thought that they no longer sharedan oblivion. He didn't want the amnesia to become one-sided for them; it was humiliating not to remember his own mar­riage, when she did. You're being irrational, he told himself.Physician, heal thyself!

 "Let's go back inside," he said.

 "You haven't finished your-"

 "Later."

 He went into the command room. Kamakura had phonesin both hands and was barking data into a recorder. Thescreens were alive with morning scenes, Saturday in the city,crowds in Union Square. Kamakura hung up both calls and said, "I've got an interesting report from Dr. Klein at Let-terman General. He says they're getting the first traces ofmemory recovery this morning. Women under thirty, only."

 "Lisa says she's beginning to remember too," Bryce said.

 "Women under thirty," said Kamakura. "Yes. Also thesuicide rate is definitely tapering. We may be starting tocome out of it."

 "Terrific," Bryce said hollowly.

 Haldersen was living in a ten-foot-high bubble that oneof his disciples had blown for him in the middle of GoldenGate Park, just west of the Arboretum. Fifteen similar bub­bles had gone up around his, giving the region the look of an up-to-date Eskimo village in plastic igloos. The occupants of the camp, aside from Haldersen, were men and women whohad so little memory left that they did not know who theywere or where they lived. He had acquireda dozen of theselost ones on Friday, and by late afternoon on Saturday hehad been joined by some forty more. The news somehow was moving through the city that those without moorings werewelcome to take up temporary residence with the group inthe park. It had happened that way during the 1906 disaster,too.

 The police had been around a few times to check on them.The first time, a portly lieutenant had tried to persuade the

 whole group to move to Fletcher Memorial, "That's wheremostof the victims are getting treatment, you see. The doc­ tors give them something, and then we try to identify them and find their next of kin-"

 "Perhaps it's best for these people to remain away from their next of kin for a while," Haldersen suggested. "Somemeditation in the park-an exploration of the pleasures ofhaving forgotten-that's all we're doing here," He would notgo to Fletcher Memorial himself except under duress. As for the others, he felt he could do more for them in the park than anyone in the hospital could.

 The second time the police came, Saturday afternoan whenhis group was much larger, they brought a mobile commu­nications system. "Dr. Bryce of Fletcher Memorial wants totalk to you," a different lieutenant said.  Haldersen watched the screen come alive. "Hello, Doctor,Worried about me?"

 "I'm worried about everyone, Nate. What the hell are youdoing in the park?"

 "Founding a new religion, I think."

 "You're a sick man. You ought to come back here."

 "No, Doctor. I'm not sick any more. I've had my therapyand I'm fine. It was a beautiful treatment: selective obliter­ation, just as I prayed for. The entire trauma is gone."

 Bryce appeared fascinated by that; his frowning expres­sion of official responsibility vanished a moment, giving placeto a look of professional concern. "Interesting," he said."We'vegot people who've forgotten only nouns, and peoplewho've forgotten who they married, and people who've for­gotten how to play the violin. But you're the first one who'sforgotten a trauma. You still ought to come back here,though. You aren't the best judge of your fitness to face theoutside environment,"

 "Oh, but I am," Haldersen said, "I'm doing fine. And mypeople need me."

 "Your people?"

 "Waifs. Strays. The total wipeouts."

 "We want those people in the hospital, Nate. We want toget them back to their families."

 "Is that necessarily a good deed? Maybe some of them canuse a spell of isolation from their families. These people lookhappy, Dr. Bryce. I've heard there are a lot of suicides, but not here. We're practicing mutually supportive therapy.Looking for the joys to be found in oblivion. It seems to work,"

 Bryce stared silently out of the screen for a long moment.Then he said impatiently, "All right, have it your own wayfor now. But I wish you'd stop coming on like Jesus and Freudcombined, and leave the park. You're still a sick man, Nate,and the people with you are in serious trouble, I'll talk to youlater."

 The contact broke. The police, stymied, left.

 Haldersen spoke briefly to his people at five o'clock. Thenhe sent them out as missionaries to collect other victims."Save as many as you can," he said. "Find those who are in complete despair and get them into the park before they cantake their own lives. Explain that the loss of one's past is notthe loss of all things."

 The disciples went forth. And came back leading thoseless fortunate than themselves. The group grew to more than one hundred by nightfall. Someone found the extruder againand blew twenty more bubbles as shelters for the night. Hald­ersen preached his sermon of joy, looking out at the blankeyes, the slack faces of those whose identities had washed away on Wednesday. "Why give up?" he asked them. "Nowis your chance to create new lives for yourself. The slate isclean! Choose the direction you will take, define your new selves through the exercise of free will-you are reborn in holy oblivion, all of you. Rest, now, those who have just cometo us. And you others, go forth again, seek out the wanderers,the drifters, the lost ones hiding in the corners of the city-"

 As he finished, he saw a knot of people bustling toward him from the direction of the South Drive. Fearing trouble,Haldersen went out to meet them; but as he drew close hesaw half a dozen disciples, clutching a scruffy, unshaven,terrified little man. They hurled him at Haldersen's feet. Theman quivered like a hare ringed by hounds. His eyes glis­tened; his wedge of a face, sharp-chinned, sharp of cheek­bones, was pale.

 "It's the one who poisoned the water supply!" someone called. "We found him in a rooming house on Judah Street.With a stack of drugs in his room, and the plans of the water system, and a bunch of computer programs. He admits it. Headmits it!"

 Haldersen looked down. "Is this true?" he asked. "Are youthe one?"

 The man nodded.

 "What's your name?"

 "Won't say. Want a lawyer."

 "Kill him now!" a woman shrieked. "Pull his arms andlegs off!"

 "Kill him!" came an answering cry from the other side ofthe group. "Kill him!"

 The congregation, Haldersen realized, might easily turninto a mob.

 He said, "Tell me your name, and I'll protect you. Oth­erwise I can't be responsible."

 "Skinner," the man muttered miserably.

 "Skinner. And you contaminated the water supply."

 Another nod.

 "Why?"

 "To get even."

 "With whom?"

 "Everyone. Everybody."

 Classic paranoid. Haldersen felt pity. Not the others; they were calling out for blood.

 A tall man bellowed, "Make the bastard drink his owndrug!"

 "No, kill him! Squash him!"

 The voices became more menacing. The angry faces camecloser.

 "Listen to me," Haldersen called, and his voice cut throughthe murmurings. "There'll be no killing here tonight,"

 "What are you going to do, give him to the police?"

 "No," said Haldersen, "We'll hold communion together.We'll teach this pitiful man the blessings of oblivion, andthen we'll share new joys ourselves. We are human beings. We have the capacity to forgive even the worst of sinners.Where are the memory drugs? Did someone say you hadfound the memory drugs? Here. Here. Pass it up here. Yea,Brothers, sisters, let as show this dark and twisted soul thenature of redemption. Yes, Yes. Fetch some water, pleasfe.Thank you. Here, Skinner. Stand him up, will you? Hold hisarms. Keep him from falling down. Wait a second, until Ifind the proper dose. Yes. Yes, Here, Skinner, Forgiveness,Sweet oblivion."

 It was so good to be working again that Mueller didn'twant to stop. By early afternoon on Saturday his studio was ready; he had long since worked out the sketches of the first piece; now it was just a matter of time and effort, and he'dhave something to show Pete Castine. He worked on far intothe evening, setting up his armature and running a few tests

 of the sound sequences that he proposed to build into thepiece. He had some interesting new ideas about the sonictriggers, the devices that would set off the sound effect whenthe appreciator came within range. Carole had to tell him,finally, that dinner was ready. "I didn't want to interruptyou," she said, "but it looks like I have to, or you won't everstop."

 "Sorry. The creative ecstasy."

 "Save some of that energy. There are other ecstasies. Theecstasy of dinner, first."

 She had cooked everything herself. Beautiful, He wentback to work again afterward, but at half past one in themorning Carole interrupted him. He was willing to stop, now.He had done an honest day's work, and he was sweaty withthe noble sweat of a job well done. Two minutes under themolecular cleanser and the sweat was gone, but the goodache of virtuous fatigue remained. He hadn't felt this wayin years.

 He woke to Sunday thoughts of unpaid debts.

 'The robots are still there," he said. "They won't go away,will they? Even though the whole city's at a standstill, no­body's told the robots to quit."

 "Ignore them," Carole said.

 "That's what I've been doing. But I can't ignore the debts.Ultimately there'll be a reckoning."

 "You're working again, though! You'll have an incomecoming in."

 "Do you know what I owe?" he asked. "Almost a million.If I produced one piece a week for a year, and sold each piecefor twenty bigs, I might pay everything off. But I can't workthat fast, and the market can't possibly absorb that many Muellers, and Pete certainly can't buy them all for futuresale."

 He noticed the way Carole's face darkened at the mentionof Pete Castine.

 He said, "You know what I'll have to do? Go to Caracas,like I was planning before this memory thing started. I canwork there, and ship my stuff to Pete. And maybe in two orthree years I'll have paid off my debt, a hundred cents on the dollar, and I can start-fresh back here. Do you know if that's possible? I mean, if you jump to a debtor sanctuary, are you blackballed for credit forever, even if you pay off what youowe?"

 "I don't know," Carole said distantly.

 "I'll find that out later. The important thing is that I'mworking again, and I've got to go someplace where I can workwithout being hounded. And then I'll pay everybody off.You'll come with me to Caracas, won't you?"

 "Maybe we won't have to go," Carole said.

 "But how-"

 "You should be working now, shouldn't you?"

 He worked, and while he worked he made lists of creditorsin his mind, dreaming of the day when every name on everylist was crossed off. When he got hungry he emerged from the studio and found Carole sitting gloomily in the livingroom. Her eyes were red and puffy-lidded.

 "What's wrong?" he asked. "You don't want to go to Ca­racas?"

 "Please, Paul-let's not talk about it-"

 "I've really got no alternative. I mean, unless we pick oneof the other sanctuaries. Sao Paulo? Spalato?"

 "It isn't that, Paul."

 "What, then?"

 "I'm starting to remember again."

 The air went out of him. "Oh," he said.

 "I remember November, December, January. The crazythings you were doing, the loans, the financial juggling. Andthe quarrels we had. They were terrible quarrels."

 "Oh."

 "The divorce. I remember, Paul. It started coming backlast night, but you were so happy I didnt want to say any­thing. And this morning it's much clearer. You still don'tremember any of it?"

 "Not a thing past last October."

 "I do," she said, shakily. "You hit me, do you know that?You cut my lip. You slammed me against that wall, rightover there, and then you threw the Chinese vase at me andit broke."

 "Oh. Oh."

 She went on, "I remember how good Pete was to me, too. I think I can almost remember marrying him, being his wife.Paul, I'm scared, I feel everything fitting into place in mymind, and it's as scary as if my mind was breaking intopieces. It was so good, Paul, these last few days. It was likebeing a newly wed with you again, But now all the sour partsare coming back, the hate, the ugliness, it's all alive for meagain. And I feel so bad about Pete. The two of us, Friday, shutting him out. He was a real gentleman about it. But the

 fact is that he saved me when I was going under, and I owehim something for that."

 "What do you plan to do?" he asked quietly.

 "I think I ought to go back to him, I'm his wife, I've gotno right to stay here."

 "But I'm not the same man you came to hate," Muellerprotested. "I'm the old Paul, the one from last year and before. The man you loved. All the hateful stuff is gone from me."

 "Not from me, though. Not now."

 They were both silent,

 "I think I should go back, Paul."

 "Whatever you say."

 "I think I should. I wish you all kinds of luck, but I can'tstay here. Will it hurt your work if I leave again?"

 "I won't know until you do."

 She told him three or four more times that she felt sheought to go back to Castine, and then, politely, he suggestedthat she should go back right now, if that was how she felt,and she did. He spent half an hour wandering around theapartment, which seemed so awfully empty again. He nearlyinvited one of the dunning robots in for company. Instead,he went back to work. To his surprise, he worked quite well, and in an hour he had ceased thinking about Carole entirely.

 Sunday afternoon, Freddy Munson set up a credit transferand managed to get most of his liquid assets fed into an oldaccount he kept at the Bank of Luna. Toward evening, hewent down to the wharf and boarded a three-man hovercraftowned by a fisherman willing to take his chances with thelaw. They slipped out into the bay without running lights and crossed the bay on a big diagonal, landing some timelater a few miles north of Berkeley. Munson found a cab totake him to the Oakland airport, and caught the midnightshuttle to L.A., where, after a lot of fancy talking, he wasable to buy his way aboard the next Luna-bound rocket, lift­ing off at ten o'clock Monday morning. He spent the night in the spaceport terminal. He had taken with him nothingexcept the clothes he wore; his fine possessions, his paintings,his suits, his Mueller sculptures, and all the rest remainedin his apartment, and ultimately would be sold to satisfy the judgments against him. Too bad. He knew that he wouldn'tbe coming back to Earth again, either, not with a larcenywarrant or worse awaiting him. Also too bad. It had been sonice for so long, here, and who needed a memory drug in the

 water supply? Munson had only one consolation. It was an article of his philosophy that sooner or later, no matter howneatly you organized your life, fate opened a trapdoor un­derneath your feet and catapulted you into something un­ known and unpleasant. Now he knew that it was true, evenfor him.

 Too, too bad. He wondered what his chances were of start­ing over up there. Did they need stockbrokers on the Moon?

 Addressing the citizenry on Monday night, CommanderBraskett said, 'The committee of public safety is pleased toreport that we have come through the worst part of the crisis.As many of you have already discovered, memories are be­ginning to return. The process of recovery will be more swift for some than others, but great progress has been made. Ef­fective at sixam tomorrow, access routes to and from SanFrancisco will reopen. There will be normal mail service and many businesses will return to normal. Fellow citizens, wehave demonstrated once again the real fiber of the Americanspirit. The Founding Fathers must be smiling down upon ustoday! How superbly we avoided chaos, and how beautifully we pulled together to help one another in what could havebeen an hour of turmoil and despair!

 "Dr. Bryce requests me to remind you that anyone stillsuffering severe impairment of memory-especially thoseexperiencing loss of identity, confusion of vital functions, orother disability-should report to the emergency ward at Fletcher Memorial Hospital. Treatment is available there,and computer analysis is at the service of those unable tofind their homes and loved ones. I repeat-"

 Tim Bryce wished that the good commander hadn't slippedin that plug for the real fiber of the American spirit, espe­cially in view of the necessity to invite the remaining victimsto the hospital with his next words. But it would be unchar­itable to object. The old spaceman had done a beautiful joball weekend as the Voice of the Crisis, and some patrioticembellishments now were harmless.

 The crisis, of course, was nowhere near as close to beingover as Commander Braskett's speech had suggested, butpublic confidence had to be buoyed.

 Bryce had the latest figures. Suicides now totaled 900 since the start of trouble on Wednesday; Sunday had beenan unexpectedly bad day. At least 40,000 people were stillunaccounted for, although they were tracing 1,000 an hourand getting them back to their families or else into an in-

 tensive-care section. Probably 760,000 more continued tohave memory difficulties. Most children had fully recovered, and many of the women were mending; but older people, andmen in general, had experienced scarcely any memory re­capture. Even those who were nearly healed had no recallof events of Tuesday and Wednesday, and probably neverwould; for large numbers of people, though, big blocks of thepast would have to be learned from the outside, like historylessons.

 Lisa was teaching him their marriage that way.

 The trips they had taken-the good times, the bad-theparties, the friends, the shared dreams-she described every­ thing, as vividly as she could, and he fastened on each an­ecdote, trying to make it a part of himself again. He knewit was hopeless, really. He'd know the outlines, never thesubstance. Yet it was probably the best he could hope for.

 He was so horribly tired, suddenly.

 He said to Kamakura, "Is there anything new from thepark yet? That rumor that Haldersen's actually got a supplyof the drug?"

 "Seems to be true, Tim. The word is that he and his friendscaught the character who spiked the water supply, and re­lieved him of a roomful of various amnesifacients,"

 "We've got to seize them," Bryce said.

 Kamakura shook his head. "Not just yet. Police are afraidof any actions in the park. They say it's a volatile situation."

 "But if those drugs are loose-"

 "Let me worry about it, Tim. Look, why don't you and Lisa 'go home for a while? You've been here without a break sinceThursday."

 "So have-"

 "No. Everybody else has had a breather. Go on, now. We'reover the worst. Relax, get some real sleep, make some love.Get to know that gorgeous wife of yours again a little."

 Bryce reddened. "I'd rather stay here until I feel I canafford to leave."

 Scowling, Kamakura walked away from him to conferwith Commander Braskett. Bryce scanned the screens, tryingto figure out what was going on in the park. A moment later,Braskett walked over to him,

 "Dr. Bryce?"

 "What?"

 "You're relieved of duty until sundown Tuesday."

 "Wait a second-"

 That's an order, Doctor. I'm chairman of the committeeof public safety, and I'm telling you to get yourself out of thishospital. You aren't going to disobey an order, are you?"

 "Listen, Commander-"

 "Out, No mutiny, Bryce. Out! Orders."

 Bryce tried to protest, but he was too weary to put upmuch of a. fight. By noon, he was on his way home, soupy-headed with fatigue. Lisa drove. He sat quitestill,, strugglingto remember details of his marriage. Nothing came.

 She put him to bed. He wasn't sure how long he slept; butthen he felt her against him, warm, satin-smooth,

 "Hello," she said. "Remember me?"

 "Yes," he lied gratefully. "Oh, yes, yes, yes!"

 Working right through the night, Mueller finished hisarmature by dawn on Monday. He slept a while, and in earlyafternoon began to paint the inner strips of loudspeakers on:a thousand speakers to the inch, no more than a few mole­cules thick, from which the sounds of his sculpture wouldissue in resonant fullness. When that was done, he pausedto contemplate the needs of his sculpture's superstructure,and by seven that night was ready to move to the next phase.The demons of creativity possessed him; he saw no reason toeat and scarcely any to sleep.

 At eight, just as he was getting up momentum for the longnight's work, he heard a knock at the door. Carole's signal.He had disconnected the doorbell, and robots didn't have thesense to knock. Uneasily, he went to the door. She was there.

 "So?" he said.

 "So I came back. So it starts all .over."

 "What's going on?"

 "Can I come in?" she asked.

 "I suppose. I'm working, but come in."

 She said, "I talked it all over with Pete, We both decidedI ought to go back to you."

 "You aren't much for consistency, are you?" he asked.

 "I have to take things as they happen. When I lost my memory, I came to you. When I remembered things again,I felt I ought to leave, I didn'twant to leave. I felt Iought to leave. There's a difference."

 "Really," he said.

 "Really. I went to Pete, but I didn't want to be with him.I wanted to be here."

 "I hit you and made your lip bleed. I threw the Ming vaseat you."

 "It wasn't Ming, it was K'ang-hsi."

 "Pardon me. My memory still isn't so good. Anyway, I didterrible things to you, and you hated me enough to want adivorce. So why come back?"

 "You were right, yesterday. You aren't the man I came tohate. You're the old Paul."

 "And if my memory of the past nine months returns?"

 "Even so," she said. "People change. You've been throughhell and come out the other side. You're working again. Youaren't sullen and nasty and confused. We'll go to Caracas, or wherever you want, and you'll do your work and pay yourdebts, just as you said yesterday."

 "And Pete?"

 "He'll arrange an annulment. He's being swell about it."

 "Good old Pete," Mueller said. He shook his head. "Howlong will the neat happy ending last, Carole? If you thinkthere's a chance you'll be bounding back in the other directionby Wednesday, say so now. I'd rather not get involved again,in that case."

 "No chance. None."

 "Unless I throw the Ch'ien-lung vase at you."

 "K'ang-hsi," she said.

 "Yes. K'ang-hsi." He managed to grin. Suddenly he feltthe accumulated fatigue of these days register all at once."I've been working too hard," he said. "An orgy of creativityto make up for lost time. Let's go for a walk,"

 "Fine," she said.

 They went out, just as a dunning robot was arriving. "Topof the evening to you, sir," Mueller said.

 "Mr. Mueller, I represent the accounts receivable depart-       j ment of the Acme Brass and-"

 "See my attorney," he said.

 Fog was rolling in off the sea now. There were no stars.The downtown lights were invisible. He and Carole walked       twest, toward the park. He felt strangely light-headed, not       fentirely from lack of sleep. Reality and dream had merged;these were unusual days. They entered the park from thePanhandle and strolled toward the museum area, arm inarm, saying nothing much to one another. As they passed      |the conservatory Mueller became aware of a crowd up ahead, thousands of people staring in the direction of the music shell.

 "What do you think is going on?" Carole asked. Muellershrugged. They edged through the crowd,

 Ten minutes later they were close enough to see the stage.A tall, thin, wild-looking man with unruly yellow hair wason the stage. Beside him was a small, scrawny man in raggedclothing, and there were a dozen other flanking them, car­rying ceramic bowls.

 "What's happening?" Mueller asked someone in the crowd.

 "Religious ceremony."

 "Eh?"

 "New religion. Church of Oblivion. That's the headprophet up there. You haven't heard about it yet?"

 "Not a thing."

 "Started around Friday. You see that ratty-looking char­acter next to the prophet?"

 "Yes."

 "He's the one that put the stuff in the water supply. Heconfessed and they made him drink his own drug. Now hedoesn't remember a thing, and he's the assistant prophet.Craziest damn stuff!"

 "And what are they doing up there?"

 "They've got the drug in those bowls. They drink and for­get some more. They drink and forget some more."

 The gathering fog absorbed the sounds of those on thestage. Mueller strained to listen. He saw the bright eyes offanaticism; the alleged contaminator of the water looked pos­itively radiant. Words drifted out into the night.

 "Brothers and sisters . .. the joy, the sweetness of forget­ting . . . come up here with us, take communion with us...oblivion ,.. redemption ,.. even the most wicked . . . forget. . . forget. . ."

 They were passing the bowls around on stage, drinking,smiling. People were going up to receive communion, takinga bowl, sipping, nodding happily. Toward the rear of the stagethe bowls were being refilled by three sober-looking func­ tionaries.

 Mueller felt a chill. He suspected that what had been bornin this park during this week would endure, somehow, long after the crisis of San Francisco had become part of history;and it seemed to him that something new and frighteninghad been loosed upon the land.

 "Take ,,, drink ... forget..," the prophet cried.

 And the worshipers cried,"Take . . . drink . . . forget..."

 The bowls were passed.

 "What's it allabout?" Carole whispered.

 "Take . . . drink . . . forget . . ."

 "Take . . . drink . . . forget . . ."

 "Blessed is sweet oblivion."

 "Blessed is sweet oblivion."

 "Sweet it is to lay down the burden of one's soul."

 "Sweet it is to lay down the burden of one's soul."

 "Joyous it is to begin anew."

 "Joyous it is to begin anew."

 The fog was deepening. Mueller could barely see the aquarium building just across the way. He clasped his hand tightly around Carole's and began to think about getting out of the park.

 He had to admit, though, that these people might have hiton something true. Was he not better off for having taken a chemical into his bloodstream, and thereby shedding a por­tion of his past? Yes, of course. And yet-to mutilate one's mind this way, deliberately, happily, to drink deep of obliv­ion-

 "Blessed are those who are able to forget," the prophetsaid.

 "Blessed are those who are able to forget,"the crowd roaredin response.

 "Blessed are those-who are able to forget," Mueller heardhis own voice cry. And he began to tremble. And he feltsudden fear. He sensed the power of this strange new move­ment, the gathering strength of the prophet's appeal to un­reason. It was time for a new religion, maybe, a cult thatoffered emancipation from all inner burdens. They wouldsynthesize this drug and turn it out by the ton, Muellerthought, and repeatedly dose cities with it, so that everyonecould be converted, so that everyone might taste the joys ofoblivion. No one will be able to stop them. After a while, noone willwant to stop them. And so we'll go on, drinking deep,until we're washed clean of all pain and all sorrow, of all sadrecollection, we'll sip a cup of kindness and part with auldlang syne, we'll give up the griefs we carry around, and we'llgive up everything else, identity, soul, self, mind. We willdrink sweet oblivion. Mueller shivered. Turning suddenly,tugging roughly at Carole's arm, he pushed through the joy­ful worshiping crowd, and hunted somberly in the fog-wrapped night, trying to find some way out of the park.

 Shark Ship

 CM. KORNBLUTH

 It was the spring swarming of the plankton; every man andwoman and most of the children aboard Grenville's Convoyhad a job to do, As the seventy-five gigantic sailing ships ploughed their two degrees of the South Atlantic, the fluid that foamed beneath their cutwaters seethed also with life.In the few weeks of the swarming, in the few meters-of surfacewater where sunlight penetrated in sufficient strengthtotrigger photosynthesis, microscopic spores burst into micro­scopic plants, were devoured by minute animals which inturn were swept into the maws of barely visible sea monstersalmost a tenth of an inch from head to tail; these in turnwere fiercely pursued and gobbled in shoals by the fierce littlebrit, the tiny herring and shrimp that could turn a hundredmiles of green water to molten silver before your eyes.

 Through the silver ocean of the swarming the Convoyscudded and tacked in great controlled zigs and zags, reapingthe silver of the sea in the endlessly reeling bronze nets each,ship payed out behind.

 The Commodore inGrenville did not sleep during theswarming; he and his staff dispatched cutters to scout theswarms, hung on the meteorologists' words, digested the end­less reports from the scout vessels, and toiled through thenight to prepare the dawn signal. The mainmast flags mighttell the captains "Convoy course five degrees right," or "Twodegrees left," or only "Convoy course; no change." On those dawn signals depended the life for the next six months of themillion and a quarter souls of the Convoy. It had not happened often, but it had happened that a succession of blunders re­duced a convoy's harvest below the minimum necessaryto sustain life. Derelicts were sometimes sighted and salvagedfrom such convoys; strong-stomached men and women were

 needed for the first boarding and clearing away of human debris. Cannibalism occurred, an obscene thing one had nightmares about.

 The seventy-five captains had their own particular pur­gatory to endure throughout the harvest, the Sail-SeineEquation. It was their job to balance the push on the sailsand the drag of the ballooning seines so that push exceeded drag by just the number of pounds that would keep the shipon course and in station, given every conceivable variationof wind force and direction, temperature of water, consistency of brit, and smoothness of hull. Once the catch was salteddown it was customary for the captains to converge onGren-villefor a roaring feast by way of letdown.

 Rank had its privileges. There was no such relief for thecaptains' Net Officers or their underlings in Operations andMaintenance, or for their Food Officers under whom served the Processing and Stowage people. They merely worked,streaming the nets twenty-four hours a day, keeping thembellied out with lines from mast and outriding gigs, keepingthem spooling over the great drum amidships, tending the blades that had to scrape the brit from the nets, without damaging the nets, repairing the damage when it did occur;and without interruption of the harvest, flash-cooking the part of the harvest to be cooked, drying the part to be dried, pressing oil from the harvest as required, and stowing whatwas cooked and dried and pressed where it would not spoil,where it would not alter the trim of the ship, where it would not be pilfered by children. This went on for weeks after the silver had gone thin and patchy against the green, and afterthe silver had altogether vanished.

 The routines of many were not changed at all by theswarming season. The blacksmiths, the sailmakers, the car­penters, the watertenders, to a degree the storekeepers, func­ tioned as before, tending to the fabric of the ship, renewing,replacing, reworking. The ships were things of brass, bronze, and unrusting steel. Phosphor-bronze strands were woveninto net, lines, and cables; cordage, masts and hull were metal; all were inspected daily by the First Officer and hismen and women for the smallest pinhead of corrosion. The smallest pinhead of corrosion could spread; it could send a ship to the bottom before it had done spreading, as the chap­lains were fond of reminding worshipers when the shipsrigged for church on Sundays. To keep the hellish red of ironrust and the sinister blue of copper rust from invading, the

 squads of oilers were always on the move, with oil distilled from the catch. The sails and the clothes alone could not be preserved; they wore out. It was for this that the felting ma­chines down below chopped wornout sails and clothing intonew fibers and twisted and rolled them with kelp and glue from the catch into new felt for new sails and clothing.

 While the plankton continued to swarm twice a year,Grenville's Convoy could continue to sail the South Atlantic, from ten-mile limit to ten-mile limit. Not one of the seventy- five ships in the Convoy had an anchor.

 The Captains' Party that followed the end of Swarming283 was slow getting under way. McBee, whose ship was PortSquadron 19, said to Salter of Starboard Squadron 30: "Tobe frank, I'm too damned exhausted to care whether I ever go to another party, but I didn't want to disappoint the OldMan."

 The Commodore, trim and bronzed, not showing his eightyyears, was across the great cabin from them greeting new arrivals.

 Salter said: "You'll feel differently after a good sleep. Itwas a great harvest, wasn't it? Enough weather to make ittricky and interesting. Remember 276?That was the one thatwore me out. A grind, going by the book. But this time, onthe fifteenth day my foretopsail was going to go about noon,big rip in her, but I needed her for my S-S balance. What todo? I broke out a balloon spinnaker-now wait a minute, letme tell it first before you throw the book at me-and pumpedmy fore trim tank out. Presto! No trouble; foretopsail replaced in fifteen minutes."

 McBee was horrified. "You could have lost your net!""My weatherman absolutely ruled out any sudden squalls.""Weatherman. You could have lost your net!"Salter studied him. "Saying that once was thoughtless,McBee. Saying it twice is insulting. Do you think I'd gamblewith twenty thousand lives?"

 McBee passed his hands over his tired face. “I'm sorry”he said. "I told you I was exhausted. Of course under specialcircumstances, it can be a safe maneuver." He walked to aporthole for a glance at his own ship, the nineteenth in thelong echelon behindGrerwille. Salter stared after him, "Los­ing one's net," was a phrase that occurred in several proverbs;it stood for abysmal folly. In actuality a ship that lost itsphosphor-bronze wire mesh was doomed, and quickly. One could improvise with sails or try to jury-rig a net out of the

 remaining rigging, but not well enough to feed twenty thou­sand hands, and no fewer than that were needed, for main­tenance. Grenville's Convoy had met a derelict which lost itsnet back before 240; children still told horror stories about it, how the remnants of port and starboard watches, mad toa man, were at war, a war of vicious night forays with knives and clubs.

 Salter went to the bar and accepted from the Commodore'ssteward his first drink of the evening, a steel tumbler ofcolorless fluid distilled from a fermented mash of sargassumweed. It was about forty percent alcohol and tasted pleasantlyof iodides.

 He looked up from his sip and his eyes widened. Therewas a man in captain's uniform talking with the Commodoreand he did not recognize his face. But there had been nopromotions lately!

 The Commodore saw him looking and beckoned him over.He saluted and then accepted the old man's handclasp, "Cap­tain Slater," the Commodore said, "my youngest and rashest,and my best harvester; Salter, this is Captain Degerand of the White Fleet."

 Salter frankly gawked. He knew perfectly well that Gren­ville's Convoy was far from sailing alone upon the seas. Onwatch he had beheld distant sails from time to time. He wasaware that cruising the two-degree belt north of theirs wasanother convoy and that in the belt south of theirs was stillanother, in fact that the seaborne population of the world wasa constant one billion, eighty million. But never had he ex­pected to meet face to face any of them except the one and a quarter million who sailed under Grenville's flag,

 Degerand was younger than he, all deeply tanned skinand flashing pointed teeth. His uniform was perfectly ordi­nary and very queer. He understood Salter's puzzled look. "It's woven cloth," he said. 'The White Fleet was launchedseveral decades after Grenville's. By then they had machin­ery to reconstitute fibers suitable for spinning and they equipped us with it. It's six of one and half a dozen of theother. I think our sails may last longer than yours, but thelooms require a lot of skilled labor when they break down."

 The Commodore had left them.

 "Are we very different from you?" Salter asked.

 Degerand said: "Our differences are nothing. Against the dirt men we are brothers-blood brothers."

 The term "dirt men" was discomforting; the juxtaposition

 with "blood" more so. Apparently he was referring to whoeverit was that lived on the continents and islands-a shockingbreach of manners, of honor, of faith. The words of the Chartercircled through Salter's head: "... return for the sea and itsbounty... renounce and abjure the land from which we-"Salter had been ten years old before he knew that therewere continents and islands. His dismay must have shown on hisface.

 "They have doomed us," the foreign captain said. "We can­not refit. They have sent us out, each upon our two degrees of ocean in larger or smaller convoys as the richness of thebrit dictated, and they have cut us off. To each of us will comethe catastrophic storm, and bad harvest, the lost net, and death."

 It was Salter's impression that Degerand had said thesame words many times before, usually to large audiences.

 The Commodore's talker boomed out: "Now hear this!" Hishuge voice filled the stateroom easily; his usual job was toroar through a megaphone across a league of ocean, supple­menting flag and lamp signals, "Now hear this!" he boomed."There's tuna on the table-big fish for big sailors'."

 A grinning steward whisked a felt from the sideboard, andthere by Heaven it lay! A great baked fish as long as your leg, smoking hot and trimmed with kelp! A hungry roargreeted it; the captains made for the stack of trays and beganto file past the steward, busy with knife and steel.

 Salter marveled to Degerand:"I didn't dream there wereany left that size. When you think of the tons of brit that old-timer must have gobbled!"

 The foreigner said darkly: "We slew the whales, thesharks, the perch, the cod, the herring-everything that used the sea but us. They fed on brit and one another and concen­trated it in firm savory flesh like that, but we were jealousof the energy squandered in the long food chain; we decreedthat the chain would stop with the link brit-to-man."

 Salter by then had filled a tray. "Brit's more reliable," hesaid. "A convoy can't take chances on fisherman's luck." He happily bolted a steaming mouthful.

 "Safety is not everything," Degerand said. He ate, moreslowly than Salter. "Your Commodore said you were a rash seaman."

 "He was joking. If he believed that, he would have to re­move me from command."

 The Commodore walked up to them, patting his mouth

 with a handkerchief and beaming "Surprised, eh?" he de­manded. "Glasgow's lookout spotted that big fellow yesterday half a kilometer away. He signaled me and I told him to lowerand row for him. The boat crew sneaked up while he wasbrowsing and gaffed him clean. Very virtuous of us. By killinghim we economize on brit and provide a fitting celebrationfor my captains. Eat hearty! It may be the last we'll ever see."

 Degerand rudely contradicted his senior officer. "Theycan't be wiped out clean, Commodore, not exterminated. Thesea is deep. Its genetic potential cannot be destroyed We merely make temporary alterations of the feeding balance."

 "Seen any sperm whale lately?" the Commodore asked,raising his white eyebrows. "Go get yourself another helping, captain, before it's gone." It was a dismissal; the foreignerbowed and went to the buffet.

 The Commodore asked: "What do you think of him?"

 "He has some extreme ideas," Salter said.

 "The White Fleet appears to have gone bad," the old mansaid. "That fellow showed up on a cutter last week in themiddle of harvest wanting my immediate, personal attention.He's on the staff of the White Fleet Commodore. I gatherthey're all like him. They've got slack; maybe rust has got ahead of them, maybe they're overbreeding. A ship lost itsnet and they didn't let it go. They cannibalized rigging fromthe whole fleet to make a net for it."

 "But-"

 "But-but-but. Of course it was the wrong thing and nowthey're all suffering. Now they haven't the stomach to draw lots and cut their losses." He lowered his voice. "Their idea is some sort of raid on the Western Continent, that America thing, for steel and bronze and whatever else they find notwelded to the deck. It's nonsense, of course, spawned by a few silly-clever people on the staff. The crews will never go alongwith it. Degerand was sent to invite us in!"

 Salter said nothing for a while and then: "I certainly hopewe'll have nothing to do with it."

 "I'm sending him back at dawn with my compliments, anda negative, and my sincere advice to his Commodore'that hedrop the whole thing before his own crew hears of it and hashim bowspritted." The Commodore gave him a wintry smile. "Such a reply is easy to make, of course, just after concludingan excellent harvest. It might be more difficult to signal anegative if we had a couple of ships unnetted and only enough

 catch in salt to feed sixty per cent of the hands. Do you think you could give the hard answer under those circumstances?"

 "I think so, sir."

 The Commodore walked away, his face enigmatic. Salter thought he knew what was going en. He had been given onesmall foretaste of top command. Perhaps he was beinggroomed for Commodore-not to succeed the old man, surely,but his successor.

 McBee approached, full of big fish and drink. "Foolishthing I said," he stammered. "Let's have drink, forget about it, eh?"

 He was glad to.

 "Damn fine seaman'" McBee yelled after a couple more drinks. "Best little captain in the Convoy! Not a scared oldcrock like poor old McBee, 'fraid of every puff of wind!"

 And then he had to cheer up MeBee until the party beganto thin out. McBee fell asleep at last and Salter saw him tohis gig before boarding his own for the long row to the bobbingmasthead lights of his ship.

 Starboard Squadron 30-was at rest in the night. Only theslowly moving oil lamps of the women on their ceaseless rustpatrol were alive. The brit catch, dried, came to some seven thousand tons. It was a comfortable margin over the 5670tons needed for six months full rations before the autumnalswarming and harvest. The trim tanks along the keel had been pumped almost dry by the ship's current prison popu­lation as the cooked and dried and salted cubes were storedin the glass-lined warehouse tier; the gigantic vessel rodeeasily on a swelling sea before a Force One westerly breeze.

 Salter was exhausted. He thought briefly of having hiscox'n whistle for a bosun's chair so that he might be hauledat his ease up the fifty-yard cliff that was the "hull beforethem, and dismissed the idea with regret. Rank hath its priv­ileges and also its obligations. He stood up in the gig, jumped for the ladder, and began the long climb. As he passed theportholes of the cabin tiers he virtuously kept eyes front, on the bronze plates of the hull inches from Ms nose. Manycouples in the privacy of their double cabins would be cele­brating the end of the back-breaking, night-and-day toil. Onevalued privacy aboard the ship; one's own 648 cubic feet ofcabin, one's own porthole, acquired an almost religious mean­ ing, particularly after the weeks of swarming cooperativelabor.

 Taking care not to pant, he finished the climb with a floor-

 ish, springing onto the flush deck. There was no audience.Feeling a little ridiculous and forsaken, he walked aft in thedark with only the wind and the creak of the rigging in hisears. The five great basket masts strained silently behindtheir breeze-filled sails; he paused a moment beside Wednes­day mast, huge as a redwood, and put his hands on it to feelthe power that vibrated in its steel latticework.

 Six intent women went past, their hand lamps sweepingthe deck; he jumped, though they never noticed him. Theywere in something like a trance state while on their tour ofduty. Normal courtesies were suspended for them; with theirwork began the job of survival. One thousand women, five percent of the ship's company, inspected night and day for corrosion. Seawater is a vicious solvent and the ship had tolive in it; fanaticism was the answer.

 His stateroom above the rudder waited; the hatchway toit glowed a hundred feet down the deck with the light of awasteful lantern. After harvest, when the tanks brimmedwith oil, one type acted as though the tanks would brimforever. The captain wearily walked around and over a dozen stay ropes to the hatchway and blew out the lamp. Beforedescending he took a mechanical look around the deck; allwas well-

 Except for a patch of paleness at the fantail.

 "Will this day never end?" he asked the darkened lanternand went to the fantail. The patch was a little girl in a night­dress wandering aimlessly over the deck, her thumb in hermouth. She seemed to be about two years old and was morethan half asleep. She could have gone over the railing in a moment; a small wail, a small splash-

 He picked her up like a feather. "Who's your daddy, prin­cess?" he asked.

 "Dunno," she grinned. The devil she didn't! It was too darkto read her ID necklace and he was too tired to light thelantern. He trudged down the deck to the crew of inspectors.He said to their chief: "One of you get this child back to herparents' cabin," and held her out.

 The chief was indignant. "Sir, we are on watch!"

 "File a grievance with the Commodore if you wish. Takethe child."

 One of the rounder women did, and made cooing noises while her chief glared. "Bye-bye, princess," the captain said."You ought to be keel-hauled for this, but I'll give you another chance."

 "Bye-bye," the little girl said, waving, and the captainwent yawning down the hatchway to bed.

 His stateroom was luxurious by the austere standards ofthe ship. It was equal to six of the standard nine-by-ninecabins in volume, or to three of the double cabins for couples.These however had something he did not. Officers above therank of lieutenant were celibate. Experience had shown thatthis was the only answer to nepotism, and nepotism was aluxury which no convoy could afford. It meant, sooner or later,inefficient command. Inefficient command meant, sooner orlater, death.

 Because he thought he would not sleep, he did not.

 Marriage. Parenthood. What a strange business it mustbet To share a bed with a wife, a cabin with two childrendecently behind their screen for sixteen years... what did one talk about in bed? His last mistress had hardly talked at all, except with her eyes. When these showed signs that was falling in love with him, Heaven knew why, he broke withher as quietly as possible and since then irritably rejectedthe thought of acquiring a successor. That had been two years ago when he was thirty-eight and already beginning to feellike a cabin-crawler fit only to be dropped over the fantail into the wake. An old lecher, a roue, auser of women. Ofcourse she had talked a little; what did they have in commonto talk about? With a wife ripening beside him, with children to share, it would have been different. That pale, tall, quiet girl deserved better than he could give; he hoped she was decently married now in a double cabin, perhaps already heavy with the first of her two children.

 A whistle squeaked above his head; somebody was blowinginto one of the dozen speaking tubes clustered against thebulkhead. Then a push-wire popped open the steel lid of TubeSeven, Signals, He resignedly picked up the flexible replytube and said into it: "This is the captain. Go ahead."

 "Grenvillesignals Force Three squall approaching fromastern, sir."

 "Force Three squall from astern. Turn out the fore-star­board watch. Have them reef sail to Condition Charlie."

 "Fore-starboard watch, reef sail to Condition Charlie, aye-aye."

 "Execute."

 "Aye-aye, sir." The lid of Tube Seven, Signals, popped shut.At once he heard the distant, penetrating shrill of the pipe,the faint vibration as one-sixth of the deck crew began to stir

 in their cabins, awaken, hit the deck bleary-eyed, begin,to trample through the corridors and up the hatchways to thedeck. He got up himself and pulled on clothes, yawning. Reef­ing from Condition Fox to Condition Charlie was no seriousmatter, not even in the dark, and Walters on watch was agood officer. But he'd better have a look.

 Being flush-decked, the ship offered him no bridge. He conned her from the "first top" of Friday mast, the rearmostof her five. The "first top" was a glorified crow's nest fifty feetup the steel basketwork of that great tower; it afforded him a view of all masts and spars in one glance.

 He climbed to his command post too far gone for fatigue. A full moon now lit the scene, good. That much less chanceof a green topman stepping on a ratline that would prove tobe a shadow and hurtling two hundred feet to the deck. Thatmuch more snap in the reefing; that much sooner it would be over. Suddenly he was sure he would be able to sleep if he ever got back to bed again.

 He turned for a look at the bronze, moonlit heaps of the great net on the fantail. Within a week it would be cleanedand oiled, within two weeks stowed below in the cable tier, safe from wind and weather.

 The regiments of the fore-starboard watch swarmed up themasts from Monday to Friday, swarmed out along the spars as bosun's whistles squealed out the drill-

 The squall struck.

 Wind screamed and tore at him; the captain flung his armsaround a stanchion. Rain pounded down upon his head andthe ship reeled in a vast, slow curtsey, port to starboard.Behind him there was a metal sound as the bronze net shiftedinches sideways, back.

 The sudden clouds had blotted out the moon; he could notsee the men who swarmed along the yards but with suddenterrible clarity he felt through the soles of his feet what they were doing. They were clawing their way through the sail-reefing drill, blinded and deafened by sleety rain and wind.They were out of phase by now; they were no longer tryingto shorten sail equally on each mast; they were trying to get the thing done and descend. The wind screamed in hisfaceas he turned and clung. Now they were ahead of the job onMonday and Tuesday masts, behind the job on Thursday andFriday masts.

 So the ship was going to pitch. The wind would catch itunequally and it would kneel in prayer, and cutwater plung-

 ing with a great, deep stately obeisance down into the fathomsof ocean, the stern soaring slowly, ponderously, into the air until the topmost rudder-trunnion streameda hundred-foot cascade into the boiling froth of the wake.

 That was half the pitch. It happened, and the captainclung, groaning aloud. He heard above the screaming wind loose gear rattling on the deck, clashing forward in an ava­lanche. He heard a heavy clink at the stern and bit his lowerlip until it ran with blood that the tearing cold rain flooded from his chin.

 The pitch reached its maximum and the second half began,after interminable moments when she seemed frozen at afive-degree angle forever. The cutwater rose, rose, rose, thebowsprit blocked out horizon stars, the loose gear counter­ charged astern in a crushing tide of bales, windlass cranks,water-breakers, stilling coils, steel sun reflectors, lashingtails of bronze rigging-

 Into the heaped piles of the net, straining at its retainerson the two great bollards that took root in the keel itself fourhundred feet below. The energy of the pitch hurled the bellyof the net open crashing, into the sea. The bollards held fora moment.

 A retainer cable screamed and snapped like a man's back,and then the second cable broke. The roaring slither of thebronze links thundering over the fantail shook the ship.

 The squall ended as it had come; the clouds scudded onand the moon bared itself, to shine on a deck scrubbed clean. The net was lost.

 Captain Salter looked down the fifty feet from the rim ofthe crow's nest and thought: I should jump. It would bequicker that way.

 But he did not. He slowly began to climb down the ladderto the bare deck.

 Having no electrical equipment, the ship was necessarilya representative republic rather than a democracy. Twentythousand people can discuss and decide only with the aid ofmicrophones, loudspeakers, and rapid calculators to balance the ayes and noes. With lungpower the only means of com­munication and an abacus in a clerk's hands the only tallyingdevice, certainly no more than fifty people can talk togetherand make sense, and there are pessimists who say the number

 is closer to five than fifty. The Ship's Council that met atdawn on the fantail numbered fifty.

 It was a beautiful dawn; it lifted the heart to see salmonsky, iridescent sea, spread white sails of the Convoy rangedin a great slanting line across sixty miles of oceanic blue.

 It was the kind of dawn for which one lived-a full catchsalted down, the water-butts filled, the evaporators tricklingfrom their thousand tubes nine gallons each sunrise to sunset,wind enough for easy steerageway, and a pretty spread ofsail. These were the rewards. One hundred and forty-oneyears ago Grenville's Convoy had been launched at NewportNews, Virginia, to claim them.

 Oh, the high adventure of the launching! The men andwomen who had gone,aboard thought themselves heroes, con­querors of nature, self-sacrificers for the glory ofnemet; Butnemetmeant only Northeastern Metropolitan Area, one dense warren that stretched from Boston to Newport, builtup and dug down, sprawling westward, gulping Pittsburgh -without a pause, beginning to peter out past Cincinnati.

 The first generation asea clung and sighed for the cultureofnemet, consoled itself with its patriotic sacrifice; any reliefwas better than none at all, and Grenville's Convoy haddrained one and a quarter million population from the huddle.They were immigrants into the sea; like all immigrants theylonged for the Old Country. Then the second generation. Likeall second generations they had no patience with the oldpeople or their tales.This was real, this sea, this gale, this rope! Then the third generation. Like all third generationsit felt a sudden desperate hollowness and lack of identity.What was real? Who are we? What isnemet which we havelost? But by then grandfather and grandmother could onlymumble vaguely; the culture heritage was gone, squanderedin three generations, spent forever. As always, the fourthgeneration did not care.

 And those who sat in counsel on the fantail were membersof the fifth and sixth generations. They knew all there wasto know about life. Life was the hull and masts, the sail andrigging, the net and the evaporators. Nothing more.Nothingless.Without masts there was no life. Nor was there life without the net.

 The Ship's Council did. not command; command was re­served to the captain and his officers. The Council governed,and on occasion tried criminal cases. During the black WinterWithout Harvest eighty years before it had decreed euthan­asia for all persons over sixty-three years of age and for one

 out of twenty of the other adults aboard. It had renderedbloody judgment on the ringleaders of Peale's Mutiny. It hadsent them into the wake and Peale himself had been bowsprit-ted, given the maritime equivalent of crucifixion. Since thenno megalomaniacs had decided to make life interesting fortheir shipmates, so Peale's long agony had served its purpose.

 The fifty of them represented every department of the shipand every age group. If there was wisdom aboard, it wasconcentrated there on the fantail. But there was little to say.

 The eldest of them, Retired Sailmaker Hodgins, presided.Venerably bearded, still strong of voice, he told them:

 "Shipmates, our accident has come. We are dead men. Decency demands that we do not spin out the struggle andsink into-unlawful eatings. Reason tells us that we cannot survive. What I propose is an honorable voluntary death forus all, and the legacy sf our ship's fabric to be divided amongthe remainder of the Convoy at the discretion of the Com­modore."

 He had little hope of his old man's viewpoint prevailing.The Chief Inspector rose at once. She had only three words to say:"Not my children."

 Women's heads nodded grimly and men's with resignation.Decency and duty and common sense were all very well untilyou ran up against that steel bulkhead.Not my children.

 A brilliant young chaplain asked: "Has the question everbeen raised as to whether a collection among the fleet might not provide cordage enough to improvise a net?"

 Captain Salter should have answered that, but he, mur­derer of the twenty thousand souls in his care, could notspeak. He nodded jerkily at his signals officer.

 Lieutenant Zwingli temporized by taking out his signalsslate and pretending to refresh his memory. He said: "At 0035today a lamp signal was made toGrenville advising that ournet was lost.Grenville replied as follows: 'Effective now, yourship no longer part of Convoy. Have no recommendations. Personal sympathy and regrets. Signed, Commodore.'"

 Captain Salter found his voice. "I've sent a couple of othermessages toGrenville and to our neighboring vessels. Theydo not reply. This is as it should be. We are no longer partof the Convoy. Through our own-lapse-we have become adrag on the Convoy. We cannot look to it for help. I have no word of condemnation for anybody. This is how life is."

 And then a council member spoke whom Captain Salterknew in another role. It was Jewel Flyte, the tall, pale girl

 who had been his mistress two years ago. She must be servingas an alternate, he thought, looking at her with new eyes.He did not know she was even that; he had avoided her sincethen. And no, she was not married; she wore no ring. Andneither was her hair drawn back in the semiofficial style ofthe semiofficial voluntary celibates, the superpatriots (or sim­ply sex-shy people, or dislikers of children) who surrendered their right to reproduce for the good of the ship (or their ownconvenience). She was simply a girl in the uniform of a-awhat? He had to think hard before he could match the badgeover her breast to a department. She was Ship's Archivist with her crossed key and quill, an obscure clerk and shelf-duster under-far under!-the Chief of Yeomen Writers. Shemust have been elected alternate by the Yeomen in a spasm of sympathy for her blind-alley career.

 "My job," she said in her calm, steady voice, "is chiefly tosearch for precedents in the Log when unusual events mustbe recorded and nobody recollects offhand the form in whichthey should be recorded. It is one of those provoking jobswhich must be done by someone but which cannot absorb thefull time of a person. I have therefore had many free hoursof actual working time. I have also remained unmarried andam not inclined to sports or games. I tell you this so you may believe me when I say that during the past two years I haveread the Ship's Log in its entirety."

 There was a little buzz. Truly an astonishing, and an as­tonishingly pointless, thing to do! Wind and weather, stormsand calms, messages and meetings and censuses, crimes,trials, and punishments of a hundred and forty-one years;what a bore!

 "Something I read," she went on, "may have some bearingon our dilemma." She took a slate from her pocket and read: "Extract from the Log dated June 30, Convoy Year 72. "TheShakespeare-Joyce-Melville Party returned after dark in thegig. They had not accomplished any part of their mission. Sixwere dead of wounds; all bodies were recovered. The remain­ing six were mentally shaken but responded to our last atar-actics. They spoke of a new religion ashore and its conse­quences on population. I am persuaded that we seabornes canno longer relate to the continentals. The clandestine shoretrips will cease.' The entry is signed 'Scolley, Captain.'"

 A man named Scolley smiled for a brief proud moment.His ancestor! And then like the others he waited for the

 extract to make sense. Like the others he found that it wouldnot do so,

 Captain Salter wanted to speak and wondered how to ad­dress her. She had been "Jewel" and they all knew it; could he call her "Yeoman Flyte" without looking like, being, afool? Well, if he was fool enough to lose his net he was foolenough to be formal with an ex-mistress. "Yeoman Flyte," he said, "where does the extract leave us?"

 In her calm voice she told them all: "Penetrating the fewobscure words, it appears to mean that until Convoy Year 72the Charter was regularly violated, with the connivance of successive captains. I suggest that we consider violating itonce more, to survive."

 The Charter, It was a sort of ground swell of their ethicallife, learned early, paid homage every Sunday when theywere rigged for church. It was inscribed in phosphor-bronze plates on Monday mast of every ship at sea, and the wordingwas always the same.

 INRETURN FOR THE SEA AND ITS BOUNTY WERENOUNCE AND ABJURE FOR OURSELVES ANDOUR DESCENDANTS THE LAND FROM WHICHWE SPRUNG: FOR THE COMMON GOOD OFWE SET SAIL FOREVER.

 At least half of them were unconsciously murmuring thewords.

 Retired Sailmaker Hodgins rose, shaking, "Blasphemy!"he said. "The woman should be bowspritted!"

 The chaplain said thoughtfully: "I know a little more aboutwhat constitutes blasphemy than Sailmaker Hodgins, I be­lieve, and assure you that he is mistaken. It is a superstitiouserror to believe that there is any religious sanction for theCharter. It is no ordinance of God but a contract between men."

 "It is a Revelation!" Hodgins shouted. "A Revelation! It isthe newest testament! It is God's finger pointing the way to the clean hard life at sea, away from the grubbing and filth, from the overbreeding and the sickness!"

 That was a common view.

 "What about my children?"demanded the Chief Inspector."Does God want them to starve or be-be-" She could notfinish the question, but the last unspoken word of it rang inall their minds.

 Eaten.

 Aboard some ships with an accidental preponderance of the elderly, aboard other ships where some blazing person­ality generations back had raised the Charter to a powerfulcult, suicide might have been voted. Aboard other ships wherenothing extraordinary had happened in six generations, where things had been easy and the knack and tradition of hard decision making had been lost, there might have beenconfusion and inaction and the inevitable degeneration into savagery. Aboard Salter's ship the Council voted to send a small party ashore to investigate. They used every imagi­nable euphemism to describe the action, took six hours tomake up their minds, and sat at last on the fantail cringinga little, as if waiting for a thunderbolt.

 The shore party would consist of Salter, Captain; Plyte, Archivist; Pemberton, Junior Chaplain; Graves, Chief In­spector.

 Salter climbed to his conning top on Friday mast, consulteda chart from the archives, and gave the order through speak­ing tube to the tiller gang: "Change course red four degrees."

 The repeat came back incredulously.

 "Execute," he said. The ship creaked as eighty men heavedthe tiller; imperceptibly at first the wake began to curvebehind them.

 Ship Starboard 30 departed from its ancient station; acrossa mile of sea the bosun's whistles could be heard from Star­board 31 as she put on sail to close the gap.

 "They might have signaled something." Salter thought, dropping his glasses at last on his chest. But the mastheadof Starboard 31 remained bare of all but its commission pen­nant.

 He whistled up his signals officer and pointed to their ownpennant. "Take that thing down," he said hoarsely, and wentbelow to his cabin.

 The new course would find them at last riding off a placethe map described as New York City.

 Salter issued what he expected would be his last commandsto Lieutenant Zwingli; the whaleboat was waiting in its dav­its; the other three were in it.

 "You'll keep your station here as well as you're able," saidthe captain. "If we live, we'll be back in a couple of months.Should we not return, that would be a potent argumentagainst beaching the ship and attempting to live off the con­tinent-but it will be your problem then and not mine."

 They exchanged salutes. Salter sprang into the whaleboat,signaled the deck hands standing by at the ropes, and thelong creaking descent began.

 Salter, Captain, age forty; unmarriedex offlcio; parentsClayton Salter, master instrument maintenanceman, andEva Romano, chief dietician; selected from dame school age ten for A Track training; seamanship school eertifieate at agesixteen, navigation certificate at age twenty, First Lieuten­ants School age twenty-four, commissioned ensign age twenty-four, lieutenant at thirty, commander at thirty-two, com­missioned captain and succeeded to command of Ship Star­board 30 the same year.

 Flyte, Archivist, age twenty-five; unmarried; parents Jo-sepy Flyte, entertainer, and Jessie Waggoner, entertainer;completed dame school age fourteen, B Track training; Yeo­man's School certificate at age sixteen, Advanced Yeoman'sSchool certificate at age eighteen; efficiency rating, 3.5.

 Pemberton, Chaplain, age thirty; married to Riva Shields,nurse; no children by choice; parents Will Pemberton, masterdistiller-watertender, and Agnea Hunt, felter-machinist'smate; completed dame school age twelve, B Track training;Divinity School Certificate at age twenty; midstarboardwatch curate, later fore-starboard chaplain.

 Graves, Chief Inspector, age thirty-four; married to George Omany, blacksmith third class; two children; completed dameschool age fifteen; Inspectors School Certificate at age six­teen; inspector third class, second class, first class, masterinspector, then chief; efficiency rating, 4.0; three commend­ations.

 Versus the Continent of North America.

 They all rowed for an hour; then a shoreward breeze came up and Salter stepped the mast. "Ship your oars," he said andthen wished he dared countermand the order. Now they wouldhave time to think of what they were doing.

 The very water they sailed was different in color from thedeep water they knew, and different in its way of moving.The life in it-

 "Great God!" Mrs. Graves cried, pointing astern,

 It was a huge fish, half the size of their boat. It surfacedlazily and slipped beneath the water in an uninterrupted arc,They had seen steel-gray skin, not scales, and a great slit of a mouth.

 Slater said, shaken: "Unbelievable. Still, I suppose in the

 unfished offshore waters a few of the large forms survive. And the intermediate sizes to feed them- And foot-longsmaller sizes to feedthem, and-"

 Was it mere arrogant presumption that Man had per­manently changed the life of the sea?

 The afternoon sun slanted down and the tip of Mondaymast sank below the horizon's curve astern; the breeze thatfilled their sail bowled them toward a mist which wrappedvague concretions they feared to study too closely. A shad­owed figure huge as a mast with one arm upraised; behindit blocks and blocks of something solid.

 "This is the end of the sea," said the captain.

 Mrs. Graves said what- she would have said if a silly un-derinspector had reported to her blue rust on steel: "Non­sense!" Then, stammering: "I beg your pardon, captain. Ofcourse you are correct."

 "But it sounded strange," Chaplain Pemberton said help­fully. "I wonder where they all are?"

 Jewel Flyte said in her quiet way: "We should have passedover the discharge from waste tubes before now. They usedto pump their waste through tubes under the sea and dis­charge it several miles out. It colored the water and it stank.During the first voyaging years the captains knew it wastime to tack away from land by the color and the bad smell."

 "They must have improved their disposal system by now,"Salter said. "It's been centuries."

 His last word hung in the air.

 The chaplain studied the mist from the bow. It was im­possible to deny it; the huge thing was an Idol. Rising from the bay of a great city, an Idol, and a female one-the worstkind! "I thought they had them only in High Places," hemuttered, discouraged.

 Jewel Flyte understood. "I think it has no religious sig­nificance," she said. "It's a sort of-huge piece of scrimshaw."

 Mrs. Graves studied the vast thing and saw in her mindthe glyphic arts as practiced at sea: compacted kelp shavedand whittled into little heirloom boxes, miniature portraitbusts of children. She decided that Yeoman Flyte had a dan­gerously wild imagination. Scrimshaw? Tall as a mastF

 There should be some commerce, thought the captain.Boats going to and fro. The Place ahead was plainly an island,plainly inhabited; goods and people should be going to it andcoming from it. Gigs and cutters and whaleboats should be plying this bay and those two rivers; at that narrow bit they

 should be lined up impatiently waiting, tacking and ridingunder sea anchors and furled sails. There was nothing but a few white birds that shrilled nervously at their solitaryboat.

 The blocky concretions were emerging from the haze; theywere sunset-red cubes with regular black eyes dotting them;they were huge dice laid down side by side by side, each aslarge as a ship, each therefore capable of holding twentythousand persons.

 Where were they all?

 The breeze and the tide drove them swiftly through theneck of water where a hundred boats should be waiting, "Furlthe sail," said Salter. "Out oars,"

 With no sounds but the whisper of the oarlocks, the criesof the white birds, and the slapping of the wavelets, theyrowed under the shadow of the great red dice to a dock, oneof a hundred teeth projecting from the island's rim.

 "Easy the starboard oars," said Salter; "handsomely theport oars. Up oars. Chaplain, the boat hook," He had broughtthem to a steel ladder; Mrs. Graves gasped at the red rustthick on it. Salter tied the painter to a corroded brass ring."Come along," he said, and began to climb.

 When the four of them stood on the iron-plated dock Pem-berton, naturally, prayed. Mrs. Graves followed the prayer with half her attention or lees; the rest she could riot divertfrom the shocking slovenliness of the prospect-rust, dust, litter, neglect. What went on in the mind of Jewel Flyte hercalm face did not betray. And the captain scanned those blackwindows a hundred yards inboard-no; inland!-and waited and wondered.

 They began to walk to them at last, Salter leading. The sensation under foot was strange and dead, tiring to the arches and the thighs.

 The huge red dice were not as insane close-up as they hadappeared from the distance. They were thousand-foot cubesof brick, the stuff that lined ovens. They were set back within squares of green, cracked surfacing which Jewel Flyte named"cement" or "concrete" from some queer corner of her eru­dition.

 There was an entrance, and written over it:the herbertbrownell jr. memorial houses.A bronze plaque shot a pangof guilt through them all as they thought of The Compact,but its words were different and ignoble.

 NOTICE TO ALL TENANTS

 A project Apartment is a Privilege and not a Right.Daily Inspection is the Cornerstone of the Project. At- tendance at Least Once a Week at the Church or Syn­agogue of your Choice is Required for Families wishingto remain in Good Standing; Proof of Attendance mustbe presented on Demand. Possession of Tobacco or Al­cohol will be considered Prime Facie Evidence of Un-desirability. Excessive Water Use, Excessive EnergyUse and Food Waste will be Grounds for DesirabilityReview. The speaking of Languages other than Amer­ican by persons over the Age of Six will be considered Prima Facie Evidence of Nonassimilability, though thisshall not be construed to prohibit Religious Ritual in Languages other than American.

 Below it stood another plaque in paler bronze, an after­thought:

 None of the foregoing shall be construed to condone thePractice of Depravity under the Guise of Religion byWhatever Name, and all Tenants are warned that anyFailure to report the Practice of Depravity will resultin summary Eviction and Denunciation.

 Around this later plaque some hand had painted with crudestrokes of a tar brush a sort of anatomical frame at whichthey stared in wondering disgust.

 At last Pemberton said: "They were a devout people." No­body noticed the past tense, it sounded so right.

 "Very sensible," said Mrs. Graves. "No nonsense aboutthem."

 Captain Salter privately disagreed. A ship run with suchdour coercion would founder in a month; could land peoplebe that much different?

 Jewel Flyte said nothing, but her eyes were wet. Perhapsshe was thinking of scared little human rats dodging andtwisting through the inhuman maze of great fears and minuterewards.

 "After- all," said Mrs. Graves, "it's nothing but a Cabin Tier. We have cabins and so had they. Captain, might wehave a look?"

 "Thisis a reconnaissance," Salter shrugged. They wentinto a littered lobby and easily recognized an elevator which

 had long ago ceased to operate; there were many hand-run dumbwaiters at sea.

 A gust of air flapped a sheet of printed paper across thechaplain's ankles; he .stooped to pick it up with a kind ofinstinctive outrage-leaving paper unsecured, perhaps toblow overboard and be lost forever to the ship's economy!Then he flushed at his silliness. "So much to unlearn," he said, and spread the paper to look at it. A moment later he crumpled it in a ball and hurled it from him as hard and as far as he could and wiped his hands with loathing on his jacket. His face was utterly shocked.

 The others stared. It was Mrs. Graves who went for thepaper.

 "Don't look at it," said the chaplain.

 "Ithink she'd better," Saiter said.

 The maintenancewoman spread the paper, studied it, andsaid: "Just some nonsense. Captain, what do you make of it?"

 It was a large page torn from a book, and on it were simplypolychrome drawings and some lines of verse in the style ofa child's first reader. Saiter repressed a shocked guffaw. Thepicture was of a little boy and a little girl quaintly dressed,locked in murderous combat, using teeth and nails."Jackand Jill went up the hill"said the text,"to fetch a pail ofwater. She threw Jack down and broke his crown; it was alovely slaughter."

 Jewel Flyte took the page from his hands. All she saidwas, after a long pause: "I suppose they couldn't start them too young," She dropped the page and she too wiped herhands.

 "Come along," the captain said. "We'll try the stairs."

 The stairs were dust, rat dung, cobwebs, and two humanskeletons. Murderous, knuckledusters fitted loosely the bonesof the two right hands, Saiter hardened himself to pick upone of the weapons but could not bring himself to try it on. Jewel Flyte said apologetically: "Please be careful, captain. It might be poisoned. That seems to be the way they were."

 Saiter froze. By God, but the girl was right! Delicately,handling the spiked steel thing by its edges, he held it up.Yes; stains-itwould be stained, and perhaps with poisonalso. He dropped it into the thoracic of one skeletonsaid: "Come on." They climbed in quest of a dusty light fromabove; it was a doorway onto a corridor of many doors. There was evidence of fire and violence. A barricade of queer pudgychairs and divans had been built to block the corridor and

  

 had been breached. Behind it were sprawled three more heapsof bones.

 "They have no heads," the chaplain said hoarsely. "Cap­tain Salter, this is not a place for human beings. We mustgo back to the ship, even if it means honorable death. Thisis not a place for human beings."

 'Thank you, chaplain," said Salter. "You've cast your vote.Is anybody with you?"

 "Kill youfown children, chaplain," said Mrs. Graves. "Not mine."

 Jewel Flyte gave the chaplain a sympathetic shrug andsaid: "No."

 One door stood open, its lock shattered by blows of a fireaxe. Salter said: "We'll try that one." They entered into thehome of an ordinary middle-class death-worshiping family as it had been a century ago, in the one hundred and thirty-first year of Merdeka the Chosen.

 Merdeka the Chosen, the All-Foreigner, the Ur-Alien, hadnever intended any of it. He began as a retail mail-ordervendor of movie and television stills, eight-by-ten glossies forthe fan trade. It was a hard dollar; you had to keep an im­mense stock to cater to a tottery Mae Bush admirer, to thepony-tailed screamer over flip Torn, and to everybody in be­tween. He would have no truck with pinups. "Dirty, lasciviouspictures!" he snarled when broadly hinting letters arrived."Filth! Men and women kissing, ogling, pawing each other!Orgies! Bah!" Merdeka kept a neutered dog, a spayed cat,and a crumpled, uncomplaining housekeeper who was tech­nically his wife. He was poor; he was very poor. Yet he neverneglected his charitable duties, contributing every year to the Planned Parenthood Federation and the Midtown Hys­terectomy Clinic.

 They knew him in the Third Avenue saloons where hetalked every night, arguing with Irishmen, sometimes get­ ting asked outside to be knocked down. He let them knock him down and sneered from the pavement, Wasthis theirargument?He could argue. He spewed facts and figures and cliches in unanswerable profusion. Hell, man, the Russians'll have a bomb base on the moon in two years and in two yearsthe army and the air force will still be beating each otherover the head with pigs' bladders. Just a minute, let me tellyou; the goddammycin's making idiots of us all; do you knowof any children born in the past two years that're healthy?And: 'flu be go to hell; it's our own germ warfare from Camp

 Crowder right outside Baltimore that got out of handr andit happened the week of the twenty-fourth. And: the human animal's obsolete; they've proved at M.I.T., Steinwitz and Kohlmann proved that the human animal cannot survive thecurrent radiation levels. And: enjoy your lung cancer, friend;for every automobile and its stinking exhaust there will betwo-point-seven-oh-three cases of lung cancer, and we've gotto have our automobiles, don't we? And: delinquency my foot;they're insane and it's got to the point where the economycannot support mass insanity; they've got to be castrated; it'sthe only way. And: they should dig up the body of Metehnikoffand throw it to the dogs; he's the degenerate who inventedvenereal prophylaxis and since then vice without punishment has run hogwild through the world; what we need on thestreets is a few of those old-time locomotor ataxia cases limp­ing and drooling to show the kids where vice leads.

 He didn't know where he came from. The delicate NewYork way of establishing origins is to ask: "Merdeka, hah?What kind of a name is that now?" And to this he would replythat he wasn't a lying Englishman or a loudmouthed Irish­man or a perverted Frenchman or a chiseling Jew or a bar­barian Russian or a toadying German or a thick-headed Scan-dihoovian, and if his listener didn't like it, what did he'have to say in reply?

 He was from an orphanage, and the legend at the or­phanage was that a policeman had found him, two hours old,in a garbage can coincident with the death by hemorrhageon a trolley car of a luetic young woman whose name appearedto be Merdeka and who had certainly been recently delivered of a child. No other facts were established, but for generationafter generation of orphanage inmates there was great solacein having one of their number who indisputably had got offto a worse start than they.

 A watershed of his career occurred when he noticed thathe was, for the seventh time that year, reordering prints ofscenes from Mr. Howard Hughes' productionThe Outlaw. These were not the off-the-bust stills of Miss Jane Russell,surprisingly, but were group scenes of Miss Russell suspendedby her wrists and about to be whipped. Merdeka studied the scene, growled "Give it to the bitch!" and doubled the order. It sold out. He canvassed his files for other whipping andtorture stills fromDesert Song-type movies, made up a specialassortment, and it sold out within a week. Then he knew.

 The man and the opportunity had come together, for per-

 haps the fiftieth timein history. He hired a model and tookthe first specially posed pictures himself. They showed her cringing from a whip, tied to a chair with a clothesline, and herself brandishing the whip.

 Within two months Merdeka had cleared six thousanddollars and he put every cent of it back into more photographsand direct-mail advertising. Within a year he was big enoughto attract the postoffice obscenity people. He went to Wash­ington and screamed in their faces: "My stuff isn't obscene and I'll sue you if you bother me, you stinking bureaucrats!You show me one breast, you show me one behind, you showme one human being touching another in my pictures! Youcan't and you know you can't! I don't believe in sex and I don't push sex, so you leave me the hell alone! Life is painand suffering and being scared so people like to look at my pictures; my pictures are aboutthem, the scared little jerks! You're just a bunch of goddam perverts if you think there's anything dirty about my pictures!"

 He had them there; Merdeka's girls always wore at leastfull panties, bras, and stockings; he had them there. Thepostoffice obscenity people were vaguely positive that there wassomething wrong with pictures of beautiful women tieddown to be whipped or burned with hot irons, but what?

 The next year they tried to get him on his income tax;those deductions for the Planned Parenthood Federation andthe Midtown Hysterectomy Clinic were preposterous, but heproved them with canceled checks to the last nickel. "In fact,"he indignantly told them, "I spend a lot of time at the Clinicand sometimes they let me watch the operations.That's howhighly they think of me at the Clinic."

 The next year he startedDEATH: The Weekly PictureMagazinewith the aid of a half-dozen bright young gradsfrom the New Harvard School of Communicationeering. AsDEATH'S Communicator in Chief (only yesterday he would have been its Publisher, and only fifty years before he wouldhave been its Editor) he slumped biliously in a pigskin-paneled office, peering suspiciously at the closed-circuit TVscreen which had a hundred wired eyes throughoutDEATH'S  offices, sometimes growling over the voice circuit:

 "You! What's your name? Boland? You're through, Boland.Pick up your time at the paymaster." For any reason; for no reason. He was a living legend in his narrow-lapel charcoal

 flannelsuit and stringy bullfighter neckties; the bright yoang men in their Victorian Revival frock coats and pearl-pinnedcravats wondered at his-not "obstinacy"; not when there might be a mike even in the corner saloon; say, his "time-lessness,"

 The bright young men became bright young-old men, andthe magazine which had been conceived as a vehicle for dead­heading house ads of the mail-order picture business wentinto the black. On the cover of every issueof DEATH was apictured execution-of-the-week, and no price for one was evertoo high. A fifty-thousand-dollar donation to a mosqae hadpurchased the right to secretly snap the Bread Ordeal bywhich perished a Yemenite suspected of tapping an oil pipe­line. An interminable illustrated "History of Flagellation"was a staple of the reading matter, and the "Medical Section"(in color) was tremendously popular. So too was the weekly"Traffic Report."

 When the last of the Compact Ships was launched into thePacific the event madeDEATH because of the several fatalaccidents which accompanied the launching; otherwise Mer-deka ignored the ships. It was strange that he who had unor-thodoxies about everything had no opinion at all about theCompact Ships and their crews. Perhaps it was that he reallyknew he was the greatest man-slayer who ever lived, andeven so could not face commanding total extinction, includingthat of the seaborne leaven. The more articulate Sokei-an,who in the name of Rinzei Zen Buddhism was at that time depopulating the immense area dominated by China, madeno bones about it: "Even I in my Hate may err; let the celestialvessels be." The opinions of Dr, Spat. European member ofthe trio, are forever beyond recovery due to his advocacy ofthe "one-generation" plan.

 With advancing years Merdeka's wits cooled and gelled. There came a time when he needed a theory and was forcedto stab the button of the intercom for his young-old ManagingCommunicator and growl at him: "Give me a theory!" Andthe M.C. reeled out: "The structural intermesh ofDEATH:The Weekly Picture Magazine with Western culture is no ran­dom point-event but a rising world-line. Predecessor attitudessuch as the Hollywood dogma 'No breasts-blood!' and the tabloid press's exploitation of violence were floundering andempirical. It was Merdeka who sigma-ized the convergenttraits of our times and asymptotically eongruentizes with them publicationwise. Wrestling and the roller derby as blood

 sports, the routinization of femicide in the detective tale, thestandardization at one million per year of traffic fatalities, the wholesome interest of our youth in gang rumbles, allpoint toward the Age of Hate and Death. The ethic of Love and Life is obsolescent, and who is to say that Man is theloser thereby? Life and death compete in the marketplace ofideas for the Mind of Man-"

 Merdeka growled something and snapped off the set. Mer-deka leaned back. Two billion circulation this week, and theauto ads were beginning to Tip. Last year only the suggestionof a dropped shopping basket as the Dynajetic 16 roaredacross the page, this year a hand, limp on the pictured pave­ment. Next year, blood. In February the Sylphella Salonchain ads had Tipped, with a crash: "-and the free optional judo course for slenderized Madame or Mademoiselle: learnhow to kill a man with your lovely bare hands, with or withoutmess as desired." Applications had risen twenty-eight per­cent. ByGod there was a structural intermesh for you!

 It was too slow; it was still too slow. He picked up a direct-line phone and screamed into it: "Too slow? What am I payingyou people for? The world is wallowing in filth! Movies are dirtier than ever! Kissing! Pawing! Ogling! Men and womentogether-obscene! Clean up the magazine covers! Clean upthe ads!"

 The person at the other end of the direct line was ExecutiveSecretary of the Society for Purity in Communications; Mer­deka had no need to announce himself to him, for Merdekawas S.P.C.'s principal underwriter. He began to rattle off atonce: "We've got the Mothers' March on Washington thisweek, sir, and a mass dummy pornographic mailing ad­ dressed to every Middle Atlantic State female between theages of six and twelve next week, sir; I believe this one-two punch will put the Federal Censorship Commission over thegoal line before recess-"

 Merdeka hung up. "Lewd communications," he snarled."Breeding, breeding, breeding, like maggots in a garbage can.Burning and breeding. But we will make them clean."

 He did not need a Theory to tell him that he could not takeaway Love without providing a substitute.

 He walked down Sixth Avenue that night, for the firsttime in years. In this saloon he had argued; outside thatsaloon he had been punched in the nose. Well, he was winningthe argument, all the arguments. A mother and daughterwalked past uneasily, eyes on the shadows. The mother was

 dressed Square; she wore a sheath dress that showed herneck and clavicles at the top and her legs from mid-shin atthe bottom. In some parts of town she'd be spat on, but thedaughter, never. The girl was Hip; she was covered from neckto ankles by a loose, unbelted sack-culotte. Her mother's hairfloated, hers was hidden by a cloche. Nevertheless the bothof them were abruptly yanked into one of those shadows they prudently had eyed, for they had not watched the well-litsidewalk for waiting nooses.

 The familiar sounds of a Working Over came from theshadows as Merdeka strolled on, "I mean cool!" an ecstaticyoung voice-boy's, girl's, what did it matter?-breathed be­tween crunching blows.

 That year the Federal Censorship Commission was cre-atedtand the next year the old Internment Camps in thesouthwest were tilled to capacity by violators, and the nextyear the First Church of Merdeka was founded in Chicago. Merdeka died of an aortal aneurism five years after that, but his soul went marchingfat.

 "The Family That Prays Together Slays Together," was.the wall motto in the apartment, but there was no evidencethat the implied injunction had been observed. The bedroomof the mother and the father was secured by steel doors andterrific-locks, but Junior had got them all the same; somehowhe had burned through the steel.

 "Thermite?" Jewel Flyte asked herself softly, trying toremember. First he had got the father, quickly and quietlywith a wire garotte as he lay sleeping, so as not to alarm hismother. To her he had taken her own spiked knobkerry and got in a mortal stroke, but not before she reached under her pillow for a pistol, Junior's teenage bones testified by their arrangement to the violence of that leaden blow.

 Incredulously they looked at the family library of comicbooks, published in a series called "The Merdekan Five-FootShelf of Classics." Jewel Flyte leafed slowly through onecalledMoby Dick and found that it consisted of a near-brain­ing in a bedroom, agonizingly depicted deaths at sea, and fora climax the eating alive of one Ahab by a monster. "Surely there must have been more," she whispered.

 Chaplain Pemberton put downHamlet quickly and heldonto a wall. He was quite sure that he felt his sanity slippingpalpably away, that he would gibber in a moment. He prayed

 and after a whilefelt better; he rigorouslykept his eyes awayfrom the Classics after that.

 Mrs. Graves snorted at the waste of it all, at the pictureof the ugly, pop-eyed, busted-nose man labeledmerdeka THEchosen, the pure, the purifier. There were two tables, whichwas a Ally. Who needed two tables? Then she looked closer,saw that one of them was really a blood-stained flogging bench and felt slightly ill. Its nameplate saidCorrectional Furniture Corp. Size 6, Ages 10-14. She had, God knew,slapped her children more than once when they deviated fromher standard of perfection, but when she saw those stains she felt a stirring of warmth for the parricidal bones in the nextroom.

 Captain Salter said: "Let's get organized. Does anybody think there are any of them- left?"

 "I think not," said Mrs. Graves. "People like that can'tsurvive. The world must have been swept clean. They, ah,killed one another but that's not the important point. Thiscouple had one child, age ten to fourteen. This cabin of theirsseems to be built for one child. We should look at a few more cabins to learn whether avone-child family is-was-normal.If we find out that it was, we can suspect that they are-gone. Or nearly so." She coined a happy phrase: "By racesuicide."

 "The arithmetic of it is quite plausible," Salter said. "Ifno factors work except the single-child factor, in one century of five generations a population of two billion will have bred itself down to 125 million. In another century, the populationis just under four million. In another, 122 thousand.. .by the thirty-second generation the last couple descended from theoriginal two billion will breed one child, and that's the end. And there are the other factors. Besides those who do notbreed, by choice"-his eyes avoided Jewel Flyte-"there arethe things we have seen on the stairs, and in the corridor,and in these compartments."

 "Then there's our answer," said Mrs. Graves. She smackedthe obscene table with her hand, forgetting what it was. "Webeach the ship and march the ship's company onto dry land.We clean up, we learn what we have to do to get along-"Her words trailed off. She shook her head. "Sorry," she said gloomily. "I'm talking nonsense."

 The chaplain understood her, but he said: "The land ismerely another of the many mansions. Surely they couldlearn!"

 "It's not politically feasible," Saiter said. "Not in its pres­ent form." He thought of presenting the proposal to the Ship'sCouncil in the shadow of the mast that bore the Compact,and twitched his head in-an involuntary negative.

 "There is a formula possible," Jewel Flyte said.

 The Browneils burst in on them then, all eighteen of theBrownells, They had been stalking the shore party sinseitslanding. Nine sack-culotted women in clothes and nine menin penitential black, they streamed through the gaping doorand surrounded the sea people with a ring of spears. Other factors had indeed operated, but this was not yet the thirty-second generation of extinction.

 The leader of the Brownells, a male, said with satisfaction;"Just when we needed-new blood." Saiter understood thathe was not speaking in genetic terms.

 The females, more verbal types, said critically: "Evildoers,obviously. Displaying their limbs without shame, brazenlyflaunting the rotted pillars of the temple of lust. Come from the accursed sea itself, abode of infamy, to seduce us fromour decent and regular lives."

 "We know what to do with the women," said the maleleader. The rest took up the antiphon.

 "We'll knock them down."

 "And roll them on their backs."

 "And pull one arm out and tie it fast."

 "And pull the other arm out and tie it fast."

 "And pull one limb out and tie it fast."

 "And pull the other limb out and tie it fast."

 "And then-"

 "We'll beat them to death and Merdeka will smile."

 Chaplain Pemberton stared incredulously. "You mast tookinto your hearts," he told them in a reasonable voice. "Youmust look deeper than you have, and you will find that you have been deluded. This is not the way for human beings toact. Somebody has misled you dreadfully. Let me explain-"

 "Blasphemy," the leader of the females said, and put herspear expertly into the chaplain's intestines. The shock of thebroad, cold blade pulsed through him and felled him. JewelFlyte knelt beside him instantly, checking heartbeat andbreathing. He was alive.

 "Get up," the male leader said. "Displaying and offeringyourself to such as we is useless. We are pure in heart."

 A male child ran to the door. "Wagners!" he screamed'Twenty Wagners coming up the stairs'"

 His father roared at him: "Stand straight and don't mum­ble!" and slashed out with the butt of his spear, catching himhard in the ribs. The child grinned, but only after the pure-hearted eighteen had run to the stairs.

 Then he blasted a whistle down the corridor while the seapeople stared with what attention they could divert from the bleeding chaplain. Six doors popped open at the whistle andmen and women emerged from them to launch spears into the backs of the Brownells clustered to defend the stairs."Thanks, pop!" the boy kept screaming while the pure-hearted Wagners swarmed over the remnants of the pure-hearted Brownells; at last his screaming bothered one of the Wagners and the boy was himself speared.

 Jewel Flyte said: "I've had enough of this. Captain, pleasepick the chaplain up and come along."

 "They'll kill us."

 "You'll have the chaplain," said Mrs. Graves. "One mo­ment." She darted into a bedroom and came back hefting thespiked knobkerry.

 "Well, perhaps," the girl said. She began undoing the long row of buttons down the front of her coveralls and shruggedout of the garment, then unfastened and stepped out of herunderwear. With the clothes over her arm she walked into the corridor and to the stairs, the stupefied captain and in­spector following.

 To the pure-hearted Merdekans she was not Phryne win­ning her case; she was Evil incarnate. They screamed, broke,and ran wildly, dropping their weapons. That a human beingcould do such a thing was beyond their comprehension; Mer-deka alone knew what kind of monster this was that drewthem strangely and horribly, in violation of all sanity. Theyran as she had hoped they would; the other side of the coinwas spearing even more swift and thorough than would have been accorded to her fully clothed. But they ran, gibberingwith fright and covering their eyes, into apartments and cor­ ners of the corridor, their backs turned on the awful thing.

 The sea-people picked their way over the shambles at thestairway and went unopposed down the stairs and to thedock. It was a troublesome piece of work for Salter to passthe chaplain down to Mrs. Graves in the boat, but in tenminutes they had cast off, rowed out a little, and set sail to catch the land breeze generated by the differential twilightcooling of water and brick. After playing her part in steppingthe mast, Jewel Flyte dressed.

 "It won't always be that easy," she said when the lastbutton was fastened. Mrs. Graves had been thinking the samething, but had not said it to avoid the appearance of envying that superb young body.

 Salter was checking the chaplain as well as he knew how."I think he'll be all right," he said. "Surgical repair and along rest. He hasn't lost much blood. This is a strange story we'll have to tell the Ship's Council."

 Mrs. Graves said: 'They've no choice. We've lost our netand the land is there waiting for us. A few maniacs opposeus-what of it?"

 Again a huge fish lazily surfaced; Salter regarded itthoughtfully. He said: "They'll propose scavenging bronzeashore and fashioning another net and going on just as ifnothing had happened. And really, we could do that, youknow."

 Jewel Flyte said: "No, Not forever. This time it was thenet, at the end of harvest. What if it were three masts in midwinter, in mid-Atlantic?"

 "Or," said the captain, "the rudder-anytime. Anywhere. But can you imagine telling the Council they've got to walkoff the ship onto land, take up quarters in those brick cabins,changeeverything? And fight maniacs, and learn tofarm?"

 "There must be a way," said Jewel Flyte. "Just as Mer-
deka, whatever it was, was a way. There were too many
people, and Merdeka was the answer to too many people.
There's always an answer, Man is a land mammal in spite
of brief excursions at sea. We were seed stock put aside, wait­
ing for the land to be cleared so we could return. Just as these
offshore fish are waiting very patiently for us to step har­
vesting twice a year so they can return to deep water and
multiply. What's the way, captain?"                              "

 He thought hard. "We eould," he said slowly, "begin bysimply sailing in close and fishing the offshore waters for bigstuff. Then tie up and build a sort of bridge from the ship to the shore. We'd continue to live aboard the ship but we'd goout during daylight to try farming."

 "It sounds right,"

 "And keep improving the bridge, making it more and moresolid, until before they notice it it's really a solid part of theship and a solid part of the shore. It might take... mmm,.,ten years?"

 "Time enough for the old shellbacks to make up theirminds," Mrs. Graves unexpectedly snorted.

 "And we'd relax the one-to-one reproduction rule, andsome young adults will simply be crowded over the bridge tolive on the land-" His face suddenly fell. "And then thewhole damned farce starts all over again, I suppose. I pointedout that it takes thirty-two generations bearing one childapiece to run a population of two billion into zero. Well, Ishould have mentioned that it takes thirty-two generationsbearing four children apiece to run a population of two into two billion. Oh, what's the use, Jewel?"

 She chuckled. "There was an answer last time," she said."There will be an answer the next time."

 "It won't be the same answer as Merdeka," he vowed. "Wegrew up a little at sea. This time we can do it with brainsand not with nightmares and superstition."

 "I don't know," she said. "Our ship will be the first, andthen the other ships will have their accidents one by one andcome and tie up and build their bridges hating every minute of it for the first two generations and then not hating it, justliving it... and who will be the greatest man who ever lived?"

 The captain looked horrified.

 "Yes, you! Salter, the Builder of the Bridge; Tommy, do you know an old word for 'bridge-builder'?Pontifex."

 "Oh, my God!" Tommy Salter said in despair.

 A flicker of consciousness was passing through the woundedchaplain; he heard the words and was pleased that somebodyaboard was praying.

 Afterword

 Despite the gloom of potential catastrophe that we mast face,there is no reason to give up. If we think about catastropheswith the sober scientific speculationof A Choice of Catastro­phes, we must conclude that:

 1)    Some catastrophes are high-probability and even in­
evitable, but will take place so far in the future that it makes
no sense to worry about them now,

 2)    Some catastrophes may take place in the near future,
even tomorrow, but are so extremely low-probability that it
makes no sense to worry about them excessively.

 3)    Some catastrophes are high-probabilityand may take
place in the near-future, even tomorrow. It is only these which
must concern us now.

 In every case, however, the catastrophes that are bothhigh-probability and near-future are human-caused: nuclearwar, overpopulation, overpollution, resource depletion, andsoon. And if they are human-caused, they could, conceivably,be human-cured.

 As Isaac Asimov stated inA Choice of Catastrophes, themost significant meaning of the title is that "We can delib­erately choose to have no catastrophes at all."