The Greater Thing

Illustrated by Kelly Freas

The thing in the dead city was conceived the night the city died. It was created by chance, but unlike that first life on Earth, it was not mothered by the calm earth and water and fathered by the young sun. Its mother was the blasted, riven soil and the screaming winds of concussion, and its father was the fierce radiation of the shattered atomic pile.

It began somewhere under the ruins as a single-celled speck of protoplasm; insensate and without purpose, hardly more than a chemical change. But there was a difference—it grew. It grew, and the radiations hastened its evolution, contracting millennia into days. As it grew it changed form in parts. Parts of it died, unsuited for survival, while the remainder grew stronger and more complex. It acquired the first beginnings of intelligence, and its intelligence became greater as its body became more complex. It developed extensions that crept along the subterranean ruins then explored upward into the sunlight. It expanded, its blobs and webs reaching outward; constantly evolving until it could change form at will, and parts of it could separate from the whole for a while, then merge again with it.

And it thought. At first its thoughts had been merely sensations; the awareness of itself, the will to live, the form of the shattered city. But as its physical body grew more complex, its thoughts became more complex. At last its blobs and webs reached throughout the city and it had attained physical maturity. It stopped growing and had nowhere to go and nothing to do—but think.

It constructed a multitude of eyes and other organs to examine its world. It studied, and learned, the laws of matter and energy. Its mind knew the secrets of the physical universe, but its great body knew only the city and it, alone, moved there.

It studied the skeletal remains of the beings who had built the city and learned their physical structure. It studied their records and learned their way of life, but it could not understand. It knew only absolute logic; the precisely predictable, unvarying reactions of physical things. It could not understand how the builders of the city had thought, nor why they had destroyed themselves, and it wondered. It did not care, for it was as devoid of emotion as the physical things it knew so well. It merely wondered, and waited for the day these beings might come to it and enable it to learn the reasons for their actions.

It waited patiently, for the problem was of only minor importance to it. It was fully aware of the power of the weapons that had destroyed the city, but it felt no fear of the coming of the beings who possessed these weapons. It knew that in its knowledge of physical forces it was invincible. It was neither vain nor proud, for such emotions do not spring from cold logic. It knew that it was invincible and, to it, the knowledge was no more than a commonplace fact.

It realized its tremendous powers for destruction or construction, but it had no motive for either. It had but two instincts: the will to live, and the curiosity without which its great intelligence would have remained an unused, and useless, potential.

It was fifteen years old when the first humans entered the city. It was telepathic and could read their thoughts but it could not comprehend the emotions that drove them. It learned that the first two were to die at the hands of the others who followed and its interest increased. But it was content to remain unseen and merely observe; it had no reason to interfere.

The long ridge in the distance was sharp against the sunset’s afterglow and Thorne waited, watching the saddle where their pursuers would cross—if they were as near as he feared.

A black dot appeared in the saddle, tiny but distinct against the sky. He focused his eyes on the spot until all else blurred, counting the dots as they appeared for a moment, then disappeared down the near side of the ridge. He counted nine, then the saddle was empty again.

He turned away, his face bleak and grim. Nine little black dots against the sky; nine sweating, eager State police closing in for the kill. But they had been too eager, they had betrayed their nearness by not waiting for darkness to conceal them as they crossed the ridge. They should have restrained their impatience for a few minutes, then taken up the trail. They were fools. In their eagerness they had delayed the moment when they could crowd in with the lean bloodhound straining at its leash and anticipation glistening in their eyes.

He hurried into the trees where the girl lay sleeping. She was lying as he had left her, the yellow hair tumbled about her shoulders and her breathing tired and slow.

He shook her shoulder. “Time to go, Lorrine—they’re coming.”

She came to her feet at once, her eyes wide-awake and alert. “How far?” she asked.

“Not over a mile. They must have followed all day without a break.”

She brushed the leaves from her hair, trying to comb it with her fingers. The links of broken chain dangling from the manacles on her wrists tinkled metallicly. “Still only four of them?” she asked, then ceased trying to comb her hair as she read the answer in his face. “Nine?”

He nodded.

“Then… they’ve killed all the others, already. They didn’t take any of them back alive.”

“They never do—not escaped Underground prisoners,” he answered shortly. “We can’t help the others, now—and our turn is next. Let’s go!”

She followed silently as he struck out through the shadowy woods. They came to an open field as darkness fell and a glow in the eastern sky heralded the rising of the full moon. He set as fast a pace as he dared, aware that the long day’s march had told on the girl more than she would admit but with the certainty in his mind that her only chance for survival this one more night lay in forcing her tired legs to carry her on, lengthening the distance between themselves and the snuffling bloodhound for so long as they could.

They came to a creek as the moon lifted above the horizon, a creek running nearly at right angles to their own course. Its swift, shallow waters would erase their tracks and leave no scent for the hound and they splashed down it until it turned too far away from their own course.

The countryside began to change after they left the creek, the shells of houses appearing in the distance. They came to a road and followed it. It came to a junction with a highway and they followed the highway, their footsteps sharp and quick on the broken pavement. The houses became more closely grouped together as they walked on, and when the moon had climbed halfway to its zenith they came to the outskirts of the city; the first broken and fallen walls.

The girl’s breath was coming hard, and she stumbled with increasing fre-quéncy as they hurried. He watched her without comment or softening of the bleak hardness of his face, but he called a halt when the first turn of the highway into the city hid them from the country behind. She dropped to the ground, her back against the concrete wall of the roofless shell beside the highway, the hard laboring of her lungs fast and desperate in the stillness.

“We’ll rest a while,” he said. “You’ve about reached your limit, and I think we may have lost them for a few hours by taking to that creek.”

He moved out a little way from her, where he could watch back down the long ribbon of moonlit highway. It was clear, and he turned his attention to the short distance he could see into the city. Some of the buildings were almost untouched by the bombing, but there was no sign of any inhabitation; a thing to be expected with the population reduced to one third by the bacteriological warfare that had followed the bombing. The State found it best to concentrate the remaining population in the more industrially and agriculturally productive areas, both for greater production and for its more rigid control over them.

He unslung the police carbine and laid it across his knees, making sure once again that the extra clip of cartridges was still in his pocket. Two cartridges left in the magazine, five in the clip. Seven shots and nine police. A regulation rifle would have been better, with the vicious jut of its bayonet to rip at their guts when the rifle was empty, but beggars and Undergrounders can’t be choosers. He had been lucky to get his hands on the carbine during the brief, wild turmoil of the escape.

The girl’s hard breathing died away as they rested and she smiled at him with a rueful shake of her head. “That was quite a pace you set. Walking is supposed to be healthful; in our case most decidedly so. But how long can we keep on with this forever running?”

“Well—” He shrugged his shoulders. “We can run, or we can take the alternative.”

She toyed with the chain on her wrist, staring unseeingly across the street. “Yes, we could take the alternative,” she said. “The knife and the whip and the fist until they were satisfied we had told all we knew, and then the bullet. So—we keep running.”

“You could have had safety and the benevolent regard of the State,” he remarked, watching her curiously. “Only volunteers are in the Underground.”

“Benevolent!” Her lip curled with distaste.

“How long have you been in the Underground?” he asked.

“Three years.”

“Why did you join?”

“For the same reason you did, and everyone else—because humans should be more than helpless automatons obeying every whim of the State.”

“What was your job in the Underground?” he asked.

“The State would say I was a propagandist—I prefer to think of myself as teacher of the truth. This was once a great, free nation where a man could cross it from east to west, north to south, without question or interference. It was his country, and he was proud of it. He was proud, not afraid. His home was his own, inviolable, and his family was his to care for and love. Children were taught to respect right and decency, and to hate oppression and cruelty. People were proud and free—not humble and afraid as they are now. And, above all, there was a mutual trust and kindness between people, not the suspicion of each other and the indifference that the State tries so hard to sow.

“Now, only the State is to be trusted or loved; the State is good and all else is evil. My job was to help show the lie of this, and to prove the lie of the State when it says that all was poverty and evil before the coming of the State; that only the great, benevolent State stands between the people and decadence and starvation. My job was to prove these lies were lies, and to show that people can be free again, to show them that no man has the right to dictate the lives of other men. And to show them that the State is not omnipotent; show them, and never let them forget, that the great all-powerful, all-wise State is one man, one scheming, bloated little ego-maniac. The older people know these things, but they don’t dare speak. The younger ones can be shown and, when they see, all will have a unity of purpose. All will have a common goal, freedom. The State will fall before their unity and people can once again be more than obedient sheep.”

Her eyes flashed with the intensity of her convictions and Thorne smiled faintly. She saw it and demanded challengingly, “Is it funny?”

Thorne continued to regard her with the faint, humorless smile. “Did you ever try to convince a herd of sheep that the only reason they were being taken from pasture to pasture was to condition them for the slaughter?”

“People aren’t sheep!” she retorted. “People are as fine as they ever were. The older ones know, but they don’t dare speak or the State will hear. The younger ones are the same, at heart—they don’t know, they’ve never had the chance to know, but they will believe when they’re shown.”

“So we of the Underground devote our lives to trying to show them until one of them informs the police, and wins the little gilded ‘Loyal Citizen’ medal.”

“You’re judging them all by the few rats among them,” she said coldly. “And the others—do you think they want those medals? When the lives of a man’s family are at stake he has to talk. He doesn’t want to—he doesn’t want to tell the police what he knows of the Underground—but the life of one Undergrounder can’t balance against the lives of his family. So he has to tell what he knows, and he has to take the gilded medal. And he hates the thing—it’s a badge of dishonor in the eyes of all but the State. He wants to throw it back in their faces and kill them. But he can’t; he has to take it and let the shame and guilt of what he’s done be with him the rest of his life.”

“I know,” he answered, no longer smiling. “Some of them have no choice. I joined the Underground for the same reason you did, but a long time before you did. I felt as you do, at first, but as the years go by and we make so little progress against the State—well, it takes the fine edge off your hopes.”

“We’re making progress,” she insisted. “We can’t expect to undo in a few years what was so long in the making. The last war was only the culmination of the leader’s plans that they had laid years before. It gave them the complete emergency powers they needed to make our country into a State. They got a head start on us, but we’ll become stronger as time goes by.”

“I hope so,” he said, without conviction. “When I joined the Underground I believed as you do; I believed that people should, and could, be free. I hated the State and I believed that the people could be awakened to its murderous rottenness. Now, I’m not so sure about awakening the people, but I hate the State more than ever.”

“The people know what the State is—all the older ones and most of the younger ones. But they’re afraid to speak against it, yet; the penalty is death for such treason against the State. And, if they escape to the Underground, the penalty will be inflicted on their families. But the State can’t stamp out their wish to be friends with all others—it can’t replace human sympathy and understanding with nothing but suspicion and distrust for each other. The human heart wasn’t made to hold only hate—it was made to hold kindness and understanding for others, and all the guns and whips in the State can’t change it. And, in the end, this will be what unites the people and the State will fall.”

Thorne smiled at her again, gently, as one might smile at a child. Her faith was her own, and not his to discourage. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “I hope so. And now—rest as best you can. We’ll go on after a little while and we’ll find some way to lose them before the night is over.”

He looked again up the road, listening and watching for the tiny black dots that would eventually come. It was silent and clear, so far as he could see, and he turned back to the girl, conscious of her stare. She had not relaxed, but was sitting straight against the wall, watching him. She was toying with the chain on her wrist again, her jingling of it reflecting the troubled uncertainty on her face.

“You’d better rest while you can,” he advised again.

“There’s something I have to know, first,” she said. “And a promise I want you to make. Do you really think we’ll be able to lose them tonight?”

“I think so,” he lied without hesitation.

“I think you’re a liar,” she replied calmly. “It’s a good, white lie, but it’s a lie. I’ve had a feeling all day that something was going to happen, and it keeps growing stronger. And I think you have, too… I think you’re as sure as I am that this will be the last lap of our little race.”

“Maybe so… maybe not,” he answered. “We can only try, and take what comes.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m not crying or feeling sorry for myself. I knew, when I joined the Underground, that it might end like this. But this feeling keeps getting stronger and there’s this promise I want you to make. I’m not afraid to die; not yet, anyway, and I don’t think I’ll be afraid when the end comes.”

In the face of her seriousness Thorne found he did not have the heart to belittle her fears with the hollow bluff of false optimism. And, despite her words, it seemed to him she was just a little frightened. A verse from Omar came to his mind, unbidden, from where it had lain forgotten so long:

“We won’t be the first, nor the last, to die for what we think is right,” she went on, “and I don’t regret the kind of life I chose. I don’t wan’t to die, but I’m not afraid. And I know that others will carry on our work—I know my faith in people is true, that the good in people can never be destroyed. Only”—she paused as though searching for the right words—“there are different ways to die, and I don’t want to die the police way. And there’s an alternative to the alternative.”

“I know.”

“It would be better, wouldn’t it?” she asked, her eyes on his. “You would rather take it, yourself, wouldn’t you?”

“I suppose so. It would be better than the other.”

“Then I want you to promise me, when you see it’s really the end, that you won’t let them get me.”

He could take his own life as the least, unpleasant of two unpleasant choices. It would be cruel and illogical to not do the same for her, but the thought of deliberately taking her life was painfully disturbing to contemplate.

“Will you promise?” she asked again.

“Of course,” he said, keeping his voice flat and impersonal. “But they haven’t got us yet.”

“Of course not!” She smiled up at his bleakness. “I only wanted your promise because I have that feeling. It’s a bridge we haven’t reached yet—maybe it won’t be there.”

“Bridges should never be crossed until you get to them,” he said. “One of the best ways to keep that bridge from being there is for you to rest while you can.”

She obeyed meekly, drawing her knees up close and pillowing her forehead on her crossed forearms. He watched her a moment, knowing that she was only pretending to be almost asleep but satisfied that she was relaxed with the burden of the way of her dying lifted from her mind.

He searched the road once more, and found it empty. He looked again into the city but it was as still as ever, with the moonlight whitewashing its deserted streets. A two-story building stood across the street from him, with a yawning blackness where the show window of the first floor had been. The glass remained in the two windows of the second floor, giving them the appearance of two eyes staring blankly above a gaping mouth. Part of the sign over the show window was visible: …GR…… T………

It was not enough to give a clue as to the name of the city, and he doubted that knowing the name would help any. This was a section of country far removed from the centers of population, and unknown to him. And it was only a dead city, with nothing to offer them, despite his words to Lorrine. They could hide in the city, but for how long? Even if, by some miracle, they eluded the police until morning it would gain them no more than another day’s respite, then the helicopter patrol would appear on the scene. In this land of open plains they could not escape both the bloodhound behind and the eyes watching from the air above. There could be only one way for it to end—

His thought broke as he saw something gray and shapeless move in the darkness behind the empty show window. It was there for a moment, long enough for the carbine to come to his shoulder and the sights to catch it, then it was gone. He held his breath and waited, his finger on the trigger, but there was nothing more to see other than the empty blackness under the staring, glassy eyes of the windows; nothing to hear but the soft sound of his own heart, the breathing of Lorrine and, from a long way off, the sleepy chirping of a bird.

He lowered the rifle and glanced at Lorrine. She was in the same position as before and had not seen him move. Nerves, he thought. Nerves and imagination. Or a puff of wind had stirred the dust in the old building—but there was no wind.

He watched the blackness again, listening. Nothing moved there but, as he listened, he heard another sound. It was the sound he had known he would hear too soon, coming from far back along the road and carrying faintly through the night air—the sound of human voices.

It was content to remain unseen and merely observe; it had no reason to interfere and it had no desire to serve as the catalysis that might deflect the human reactions from their norm. Its curiosity was as great as its intelligence and it found, in the thoughts and behavior of the humans, a problem more intricate than any it had ever encountered. It read their minds and tried to analyze what it found there, correlating the data with all its vast intelligence. It found that correlation was impossible, that the two humans were motivated by incomprehensible nonphysical things; many different things which seemed to stem from one basic human characteristic.

Into its analysis of the problem went all its tremendous wisdom, but it could find no solution. Something motivated the humans, driving them on to do illogical things that would result in their deaths, but the motivating force was nonphysical. It was a human characteristic, intangible and nonmaterial, and the thing in the city could not define it. It was a factor vital to its solution of the problem, but it was as impalpable as smoke.

So it continued to observe as the two humans resumed their flight into the city, waiting for their further actions to reveal the missing factor of the analysis. And it would, before long, observe another reaction it had never observed before—it had never watched a living thing die.

Thorne turned to the girl, reluctant to arouse her and lead her again in the futile flight, but there was no choice.

“Lorrine.”

She raised her head with the alertness of the hunted animal. “They’re coming,” she said, not making it a question.

“Too far away to see them in the moonlight, but I heard their voices. Keep to the shadows until we get farther in the city.”

The street curved, hiding the road behind them, and they walked down the center of it, away from the broken masonry that littered the walks. Their course was erratic, zigzagging at random but drawing nearer the heart of the city. At times they walked down streets almost untouched, their footsteps echoing loudly from the walls, while other sections were littered with heaps of rubble which they climbed over. Occasionally a section was so completely destroyed that they were forced to detour whole blocks.

They came to another section almost untouched, where the street ran east as far as they could see. It would do as well as any, Thorne decided, and Lorrine wouldn’t be able to take much more of the climbing over the bombed areas. There was still no plan, other than the aimless fleeing, and this clean street would have as much to offer them in the way of a miracle as any other. He had hoped that they might find something, anything, which might offer them a chance for survival, but there was nothing but the empty, dead streets and the cold, blank stare of the dark doorways.

If he could know where they were and what lay beyond—but the street signs gave no clue. ELM 34—CENTRAL ROAD 265—NO LEFT TURNS.

They passed what had been a bank. An inclosure inside, with six steel-grated windows, faced the front. The street window was broken but one section, larger than the others, was lying on the walk. The dim gold lettering was still visible: GREEN CIT—FIR—NA-IO.

Green City. He remembered the name vaguely. Too far from the centers of population to be of any value to the State. One of the first cities bombed—center of atomic research work. He had seen a map of it once, at Underground headquarters. A topographic map which he had glanced at and laid aside.

As they walked on he tried to recall the features of the map. It had meant nothing to him at the time, but something about the map kept gnawing at the back of his mind. There was something the map had shown in the city—or was it beyond the city? The thing stirred deep in his memory and demanded to be recognized. It had not interested him at the time, but it was something of vital importance, now.

He tried to visualize the map. It had been white, with brown for the topographic lines and black for the roads. And blue—that was it—blue! A small river east of the city—at the very eastern edge of the city. A river, and freedom!

“Lorrine!” There was almost jubilance in his voice. “I know now where we are. There’s a river just beyond the city—it will take us away. We can use something for a raft, anything that will float. They can’t float down the river any faster than we can, and we’ll have a head start on them. And they’ll never know where we left the river.”

Some of the weariness left her at the words and she laughed, the moonlight bright on her upturned face. “Maybe I did try to cross a bridge too soon. I think a raft would be much better. Maybe this feeling I have is silly imagination, and we can laugh about it, tomorrow.”

The river was east of the city and they followed the street they were on. Its canyon stretched straight and clean before them, the moon shining down its length. The blocks fell behind them until it angled to the right and another took its place, the full moon still straight before them. There was a street sign at the junction and it read: RIVERSIDE DRIVE.

“Riverside Drive—it can’t be far, now,” he said. “It won’t be long until we can be on our way down the river and Harker and his little army will find the trail comes to a dead end at the river’s bank.”

“This will set him back, if we escape,” Lorrine observed. “It takes the capture of a lot of Undergrounders to win a promotion, but the loss of only two can set a Section Supervisor back to a one-stripe Squad Leader.”

“No, the State doesn’t let incompetence go unpunished,” he said. “But, to get to be Section Supervisor, Harker must have been an exceptionally thorough butcher up till now. I was never in his section before… do you know anything about him?”

Her answer was like a vicious, unexpected blow to the stomach.

“It seems he made a name for himself when he was in the Helicopter Scouts.”

He kept his face expressionless, not letting her see the effect of her words. The Helicopter Scouts—they were a roving patrol, unattached to any section. As a former Scout, Harker would have known of the river and conjectured that it would be their objective. While he and Lorrine wandered through the city and his memory lay dormant Harker would have planned, and carried out his plans. While they zigzagged through the city in their attempt to elude him he would have sent a detachment straight through to the river. There they would wait—or were waiting now—while the others came in behind, the bloodhound sniffing along the trail.

They were trapped.

But there was no need to tell Lorrine; perhaps he was wrong in his dark surmise, and perhaps Lorrine was wrong in her premonition. Perhaps.

They came to a corner where the show window was still intact, and the moon shone full on the dusty goods inside. Lorrine glanced briefly back the way they had come, as he stopped to scan it as thoroughly as possible in the moonlight, then she shaded I he glass with her hands and stared into the store.

“It was a toy shop,” she said, as they walked on. “It must have been just before Christmas; there was a star there—the Star of Bethlehem.”

A dusty tinsel star—peace on Earth and good will to all men. A pathetic little symbol, outlawed by the State, still shining dimly in a dead and silent city.

“It was a beautiful symbol,” she said, when he made no answer.

“Yes, it was.” He unconsciously accented the last word.

“It is,” she said. “It will always be. People have followed that star for two thousand years—how many tyrants and States have died and been forgotten in that time?”

He did not answer, his eyes darting down the cross streets as they crossed another intersection. The city was brilliant with the moonlight, but for the inky shadows on the moonward side of the cross streets. It seemed to him he had never seen the moon so bright; it washed the street with bright silver and paled only a little the gold of Lorrine’s hair. It glinted along the barrel of his rifle and threw white lances of light from the fragments of glass on the walk. All was light and brilliance where they walked, but the river was straight ahead, and so was the moon. They could only walk on and chance the cross street shadows where, if anywhere short of the river, Harker’s men would be waiting for them.

When the interaction was behind them Lorrine spoke agam. “Were you an orphan?” she asked.

“My father died when I was three and my mother died a year later. Why do you ask?”

“I thought so—I’ve seen others who never had any families. Did you slay in an orphan’s home until after the war?”

“Yes.”

“And then, the State; put you in a Slate Home. How old were you, then?”

“Nine. I ran away when I was fifteen. Why do you ask?”

“Because I’ve seen others like you, with the same hardness. In the Homes they learn only discipline and dogma. They can’t know what the love of a mother is like, or even friendship. They either learn to obey, or they learn to hate.”

“Yes.” He smiled thinly. “It was there that I learned to hate them. When I was fifteen I knew what I wanted to do.”

“And what was that?” she asked.

“Destroy them—all of them.”

“You told me that, at first, you believed as I do,” she reminded him.

“So I did. When I ran away the Underground took me in and there was an old man there, old even then, who seemed to take a special interest in me. He believed as you do, and I believed as he did. He insisted that I read—all the, old books the State forbids, now. He was an idealist and I believed in his ideals in the years I knew him. He was an idealist and a dreamer, but he was a fine old man. The police got him the year I was twenty.”

“And you hated them all the more, then?”

“Of course. All his kindness and faith in the goodness of people meant nothing to the rat who identified him to the police. That was when I began to lose my own faith.”

“Then you’ve never had but one friend?” she asked. “If yon had had the chance to know the love of a family, to see the things people will do—the good things—for those they love the sacrifices they will make, you wouldn’t feel as you do.”

“Hate or idealism—the: goal is the same,” he said. “Destroy the State!”

“But it isn’t the same, to do something because you believe in it and to do it because you want to destroy something you hate.”

“The goal is the same,” he repeated. “And if, by some miracle, we should ever succeed, my satisfaction at the destruction of the State will be just as great as your joy at the freeing of your sheep.”

“No.” She shook her head. “It isn’t the same, Johnny.”

Johnny—the old man had called him johnny. How many years, now, had he been John Thorne? Or just Thorne? Odd how the addition of two letters could change it from just a name to something close and friendly.

“And, but for the old man, you’ve never had anyone who cared for you, or anyone you cared for?” she asked, with a gentleness to her voice that made it more a statement than a question.

There was a sympathy and understanding of him in her words that touched too close to the thing he wanted to keep hidden from her, and his answer was brittle and almost defiant. “No—I prefer it that way.”

She turned her eyes to the street before her, not letting him see it if the shortness of his reply had hurt her. He felt the quick stab of contrition and added, less harshly, “This is no time to argue, anyway.”

“No,” she said, looking up at him again. “Let’s not argue—not now. Let’s talk about all the things we’ll do when we’re free, all the wonderful things that we will do.”

She talked to him, then, as they walked along; little familiar things of herself and her childhood, her hopes and plans for the future. The little things, close to the heart, which two who face a common danger will reveal to each other. And, though nothing she said disclosed it, it seemed to him that her words covered the dark undercurrent of her premonition; that she was still afraid, and her talk of their freedom to come was only a whistling in the dark.

Troubled by the new emotion that had grown so swiftly in the past day and night, he lapsed into a taciturn silence. He had always believed that there was only one way a man could go through life with no heartaches, and that was to never let anyone be near or dear. Perhaps there had been a lime when a man could give way to the yearning for friendship or love, but the life of the Underground was too uncertain. It was a grim game, and sentiment had no part in it. The weak and sentimental Could have the brief happiness of friendship and love; let them have it, clutching it to them, then weeping when it was snatched away. He would take the high, lone road where there was neither love nor happiness—nor regret. So he had believed.

But now, as Lorrine talked to him, it seemed he had never realized just how high and lonely his road had been. She had broken through the armor which had protected him so long, which had warded off the friendship and love that led to regret. She had done so without trying, with only the courage of her smile and the warmness of her heart. She was inside his armor and he felt that he would like to tell her she was there, and ask her to never leave. It was a weakness he had always been contemptuous of in others, and he cursed it now in himself. It was for others, for the weaklings, not for him. If Harker’s men were waiting by the river, a display of sentiment would not affect their fate. It would not be necessary to precede the end with fond and tearful farewells. She was inside his armor and, somehow, he could not remove her, but it would gain neither of them to tell her she was there.

As they walked on she hesitated before the rebuff of his dark silence, then said no more. He ignored the questioning, uncertain look in her eyes and made no comment when her voice trailed away.

The buildings became farther apart, and residential in structure. The lawns were shaggy with grass and the hedges were grown into thick masses and barriers. A breeze drifted toward them, carrying the unmistakable fresh, damp smell of the river.

His thoughts began their vain circling again. Freedom—if Harker’s men were not there. But for how long? And for what? Only to try once more to arouse the spirit of the frightened sheep. To hide, and slink through the night. And watch—always and forever watch, for the police have a thousand eyes. It was a task without reward, without gratitude, with only the satisfaction of destroying a little of something you hate.

He envied Lorrine her idealism, her faith in the goodness of humanity, and he wished he could regain the idealism he, himself, had had at the beginning. The Underground had been a Cause, then, flaming and noble. They, the Undergrounders, had been the sword that would free men from their bondage. They had been the Nathan Hales, they had been St. George against the dragon—they had been, he thought with bitter savagery, Don Quixote against the windmills.

Yet, perhaps Lorrine was right. There was goodness in men—they were helpless and afraid. A man will reveal the identity of a traitor to the State when the lives of himself and his family are at stake. Mothers still loved their children as they always had, and their tears were hot with mingled grief and hate when the State took them at the age of six.

But if the Underground was to ever succeed it would have to be soon. The children who would grow up in the State Homes would be subjected from earliest recollection to the dogma that the State is supreme, all-wise and all-powerful; that the State, alone, is fitted to direct the lives of men, that it is their protector, and that without it all would be chaos and evil.

To teach them differently would be to batter against the stone wall of their State-formed convictions that the State is good and omnipotent, that anything which would refute that is something wicked and dangerous, something to be destroyed.

But that would be in the years to come. Now there were only part of them who did not understand—and the others were afraid.

He thought again of Lorrine’s idealism, feeling a sense of something lost; something he could never regain. If this was their night, if Harker’s men were waiting by the river, Lorrine would face it with her faith undimmed while he would have only the grim humor of having cheated the State to allay the mockery of the futility.

They walked on another block, two blocks, three blocks, then the trees loomed before them and there, its ripples flashing in the moonlight, was the river.

“It’s really there!” Lorrine’s smile flashed up at him and her hand tugged at his arm. “I was afraid to hope—but we did it I Let’s go—let’s hurry before this turns out to be too good to be true.”

The weariness was gone from her in the excitement of her renewed hope and she tried to hurry him on, as though the river might vanish in a moment and they would again face the dark end of her presentiment.

“Wait,” he said, seeing already the crushing of her hope and feeling the pain of it. “Listen.”

She stood motionless with her hand on his arm, holding her breath as he held his. The river gurgled past its concrete walls and the breeze coming up the river carried the river’s freshness and the smell of the trees. As they listened the breeze brought to them the sound he had expected: the murmur of voices.

Lorrine’s fingers dug into his arm and she said, almost inaudibly, “Oh!” Then her fingers relaxed and she smiled again, only a little of the tightness in her throat as she said, “I guess it was too good to be true.”

They came in sight as Thorne watched down the river, walking with slow assurance. Two of them. One of them fired three quick shots in the air and a rifle answered from somewhere up the river. He looked back up the street they had come down and saw the distant figures closing in behind them.

They were surrounded—Harker had planned well and there would be no escape. His men were coming with caution, but with deliberate confidence. They would want to take their quarry alive if they could. There were questions to be asked, and there were ways of getting the answers—the knife and the whip and the fist.

Thorne looked about him. The small stone house nearest them would do as well as any and they walked toward it, not hurrying. There was no longer any need to hurry.

The heavy door still swung on its hinges. He pushed it open and stepped through, the carbine held before him. Moonlight poured through the broad, high windows, flooding the room with silver. The farther side was in darkness and he again had the impression that, for just a moment, something gray and shapeless moved there. It was gone before he could be sure.

There was a small iron bar to secure the door from the inside. He heard Lorrine click it in place while he examined the room. It was square and devoid of any object but for a small grille in the floor near the farther wall; a conduit leading to some central heating unit, perhaps. It was too small to offer them any hope of escape.

There was another door opposite the one they had entered by, and he made sure it was barred. The screws holding it were red and misshapen with rust; that would be the door by which the police would break into the room.

One of the windows commanded a view of the river and he waited by it, watching. Lorrine walked softly across the room, to stop by the moonlit wall and wait as silently as he. He kept his eyes on the shadows under the trees, the rifle nestled to his cheek, the knowledge of what she waited for cold and sharp within him.

A figure darted across a moonlit space and the carbine in his hands roared twice. The figure ran on, to disappear in another group of trees. He took the other clip from his pocket and shoved it in the carbine. Five shots—count three.

Lorrine was watching him, her back against the moon-silvered wall. “Count three, Johnny. Remember your promise.”

He turned back to the window without answering. He would remember, and there was nothing to say. He watched the shadows along the river again, the rifle ready. The river still tossed the moonbeams from its ripples and he could see the swift roll of its current. It would have carried them to safety but they had come too late. They had hurried to it seeking escape from the death behind, but death had hurried faster. The lines of the verse came back to him—

It had found them.

He snapped a shot at another fleeting shadow, silently cursing the misaligned sights as the figure staggered, then ran on. Four shots—count two.

Something heavy, a battering ram, struck the door with the rusted bar. It creaked and a screw head snapped off, to fly across the room. He fired twice through the door, suddenly sick and weary to his soul and wanting to do what he would have to do, wanting to get it over with.

There was a cry of pain from behind the door and a sound of retreating footsteps. He heard them slop at a distance and speak softly among themselves.

And he had two cartridges left. Their impotent stand was over, their little flare of resistance had come to its end. He turned to Lorrine.

“I guess this is it,” he said slowly. “This is where you and I get off. I’m sorry… I wish—”

He stopped. What did he wish? What does a man wish when he loves a girl with golden hair and he stands before her with the black muzzle of a rifle at her heart? What does he say when she stands as he had known she would stand, with her head back and the golden hair about her shoulders, with the light in her eyes and the radiance about her? What can he say in the last fleeting moments?

“Don’t be sorry, Johnny,” she said, the tightness no longer in her throat.

The battering ram struck the door and it bulged inward. They would break through the next time. He raised the rifle.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said again, “and good-by, Johnny.”

He aimed at the spot where her heart would be fluttering—

The battering ram crashed into the door and he pressed the trigger.

The rifle roared savagely and she stiffened for the briefest moment against the wall, then fell to her knees. She tried to say something, but blood welled from her mouth and choked her. He saw where the bullet had struck her—high, too high. She would die, but with her own blood choking in her throat.

He raised the rifle again, his mind a red flare of impotent rage and regret, then the police were upon him. A rifle butt struck the base of his skull and he felt himself fall to the floor, the darkness of unconsciousness descending upon him. He fought against it and was dimly aware of a voice saying, “She dead?” And the answer, “Dying. Let’s go—Harker’s waiting.” Then the darkness engulfed him and he knew no more.

It had never watched a living thing die, but its own logic told it that avoidance of death should be the strongest of all desires. It knew Lorrine’s thoughts as she waited for death, standing against the wall, and it knew her thoughts as the bullet tore through her and she fell to the floor. It knew her thoughts and it knew she was dying with the thing that had led her to her death, the intangible thing that had motivated her, still strong and undiminished within her.

Even in her dying she revealed nothing that could enable it to understand the reasons for her actions, to find the unknown factor, and its curiosity increased. It had tried with all its logic to understand, and it had failed. Perhaps it was something about her body or mind—something within her that it did not suspect.

The police tramped away with their captive and she was left lying on the floor. It went to her as she died, not caring that she died but eager to find the missing factor; the intangible thing that had impelled her to give up her life for others.

Its abilities were great and it could, without destruction of tissue, reach into every cell of her body. It did so as she died, and it knew every thought she had ever had, every memory, every emotion. In that moment of her death it reproduced within itself her ego.

When it did so it found the missing factor and it understood, at last, why it had been unable to analyze it; why its own mind, alone, could never have analyzed it.

The missing factor was a purpose, and a wisdom that had grown with that purpose for two billion years. It was a field of learning so different to its own learning, covering a period of time so inconceivably long, that its vast intelligence reeled before the magnitude of it.

When it reproduced her ego within itself it reproduced her emotions and motivations and it understood. With the understanding came, for a little while, near-insanity.

Thorne was first aware of the ropes that bound him to the concrete pillar, cutting into his wrists as his weight sagged forward against them. His head cleared and he opened his eyes, then shifted his bound hands behind the pillar until he could stand straight.

He had been taken back up the street, the same street he and Lorrine had followed. He recognized a corner toward the river—the toy shop.

The police were squatting before him, the anticipation stark and naked on their faces. One of them laughed and said, “He’s back with us!”

“Why don’t Harker show up?” another asked querulously. “Why did we have to drag this guy up the street for? Harker ain’t crippled so he can’t walk, is he?”

The first one stared at him speculatively. “You ever let Harker hear you say something like that and you will be!”

“He’s inside that old hotel across the street,” another volunteered. “He’s got the walkie-talkie in there, holdin’ a big confab with field headquarters. I hear the helicopters spotted something suspicious back the way we come and I think we’re gonna have to hotfoot it over there.”

“Yeah?” It was the querulous one. “How far?”

“Almost all the way.”

“So we walk and Harker takes it easy until a helicopter shows up for him!”

“You mean we won’t get to see the show?” There was scowling disappointment on the first one’s face. “It ought to be good—Harker’s madder than I ever saw him. It ought to really be good!”

“When Harker makes ’em holler, he makes ’em holler good and loud,” another one observed, staring at. Thorne curiously. “Yes sir, good and loud!”

Thorne’s lip curled with his contempt for them and the first one stood up, to smile and very deliberately smash his fist into Thorne’s mouth.

“I wouldn’t do that,” advised one. “You know Harker wants ’em in good shape when he starts in on ’em.”

Thorne spat the blood from his mouth and the striker stepped sullenly back. Another of them appeared with an armload of broken boards. He piled them a few feet in front of Thorne and laid a blackened knife beside them.

“No use gettin’ in a hurry, Jack,” one said. “If Squint is right, we won’t be here to see it—we’ll be pluggin’ back the way we come.”

“You mean that we have to walk it again?” the one called Jack demanded. “We walk, and that—”

“Here he comes now!” another interjected tensely.

Thorne watched the approaching Harker as he crossed the street. The police stood respectfully aside and he strode through with arrogant disdain. He stopped before Thorne, thick and stocky, his feet wide apart and the small eyes glittering in his heavy face.

“So you’re John Thorne?” he said. “And the woman was Lorrine Calvert?”

Thorne said nothing and Harker smiled. “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. When I get ready to ask some questions I have—you’ll answer. And it might help you to know that none of the others escaped. You would be surprised at what we learned from them. But every little bit of information helps, and you might be able to add something. I’m sure you’ll try.”

He laughed softly at his joke and the police joined in, eager to show their appreciation of it. He turned to them, his tone curtly authoritative. “I can take care of this without any help. Get on back the way we came, and don’t stop to pick any daisies on the way. I want you all at that lone mountain by daylight. I’ll be there then in a helicopter to tell you where to go. Get going!”

They hurried away, all their resentment hidden by their fear of him, and he turned back to Thorne.

“You gave us quite a chase, Thorne,” he said. “And I understand you killed the woman, yourself. That was a touching bit of melodrama.”

Melodrama—waiting for the bullet with all her faith and courage burning the brighter—Don’t be sorry, Johnny—Dying alone on the cold, gray floor—Don’t be sorry—

Harker’s hand struck him viciously across the face.

“When I talk, rats listen!” he snarled, his face flushed with sudden anger. “Did you hear what I said?”

“No.” Thome made his answer insolent in its disinterest.

“You—” Harker struck him again, harder, and stepped back, breathing heavily. He swallowed, and the hate stood out in livid outline on his face. He swallowed again, but when he spoke his voice was normal in pitch but for a thick undernote of fury.

“Your noble little wench is dead. Don’t let it grieve you too much—I think I can take your mind off your sorrow. And, while you were playing the hero, you should have thought of yourself, too. Or did you lose your nerve?”

“Your dogs were too fast for me, Harker.”

“A rat never stands a chance against a dog,” Harker returned.

“I’m sorry I called them dogs,” Thorne said evenly. “I apologize to all dogs for that.”

Harker’s hand lifted, then fell to his side. “This is a pleasant little exchange, I’m sure, but not quite informative enough.” He smiled almost sweetly. “Shall we remedy that?”

He dropped to one knee and touched a match to the pile of kindling. It began to burn, snapping and crackling, and he thrust the long, black blade of the knife into the lire.

“Yes,” he went on amiably as he straightened again, “this will be a chummy little party. Just the two of us, standing by the warm fire and talking. There seems to be something about the cheery warmth of a fire that induces conversation The friendly flicker of the flames, the ruddy glow of the hot steel—they seem to destroy a man’s reticence.”

Thorne pressed his back hard against the pillar and felt a slight loosening of the rope that bound his hands together behind it. Harker was in front of him, and could not see the movements of his hands. He began the slow, painful effort to work his right hand free, the rough rope cutting into the skin as he strained against it.

It might take an hour, with his movements kept hidden from Harker, and he would have minutes. But he would have to try—

“I’m a man with ambition, Thorne,” Harker said. “I’ve come up a long way in the State, but. I have my eye on the top—on the very top step of the ladder. I know where I want to go, and I know how to get there. It won’t be too many years from now until Leader Stettnor is going to find himself toppled from his perch—by me. To do that, I have to have more than ambition; I have to have a record of loyally to the State and a record of efficient accomplishment. You’re going to help me in that, Thorne—you’re going to help me add to my record as an irresistible destroyer of the Underground. You’re going to talk, and what you are going to tell me, added to what the others told me, will give me enough to make a clean sweep of the Underground in my section. And that will cause the State to promote me another step up the ladder.”

Harker kicked more wood on the fire and it blazed up, reddening his face and paling the moonlight. Thorne felt the rope cut deeper as it reached the largest part of his hand, but it was still moving.

“I want to know all you know about the Underground,” Harker said. “I want names, places, dates, plans. I want to know all you’ve ever done, and all that you intended to do. I want to know everything that you know. Everything—do you understand?”

The rope was cutting like the grip of a vice, but it was almost off. He strained at it with all the strength of his forearms.

“I know what you want, Harker,” he said. “But sometimes a man gets disappointed. Do you remember that old proverb: He who lives by the sword—? You’ve climbed a long way on the bodies of men and women, and even children, who had the guts to try to stand up against your State. How many have you cut and burned with that knife until they were mindless?”

Harker laughed and took the knife from the fire, smiling at the glowing point of it. “It’s nothing for you to worry about; you’ll only be one more, and there will be others after you. Call this my sword if you want to, and say that I live by it. I have—I’ve lived, where the likes of you existed from day to day. And I’ll live all the merrier when it cuts a way for me to the top step.”

Harker stepped forward and Thorne felt the heat of the blade. “A red hot blade is a powerful thing—for the hand that holds it,” Harker said. “And it’s my hand that holds it. You’re going to start talking now, and you’re going to see how efficient a hot blade can be, for the hand who holds it. And it will hurt, Thorne—it will hurt like hell.”

The glowing point touched him as he jerked free of the rope, with the burn of torn skin. His hands whipped forward and caught the knife from Harker’s hand, bending down his wrist with a cracking of bone. Harker screamed a curse and snatched at his holstered revolver, awkwardly, with his left hand. Thorne slashed down with the still glowing blade, through the leather of the gun belt, through cloth and flesh, driving the knife deep in and through the thick paunch.

The holstered revolver clattered to the pavement and Harker dropped to his knees, his arms hugged about his stomach, moaning and gibbering. Thorne cut the ropes that bound his legs to the pillar and picked up the revolver. He stared down at Harker and watched him wilt, still moaning, until he was half sitting, half lying, on the ground. All the arrogance had left him, all the domineering cruelty was gone from his face. He looked up at Thorne, sweat standing out on his ashen face and only fear showing in it.

“I’m dying—you killed me!” He mouthed the words with numb and terrified accusation. “I’m going to die!”

Thorne’s smile was like a thin sliver of frosted steel. “It was pleasant to watch the others die, wasn’t it? But it’s different when it’s yourself—and the cut of a hot blade hurts, doesn’t it? It hurts like hell, doesn’t it?”

“I… I—” Harker tried to speak, then his eyes widened as he looked through and beyond Thorne, seeing something that was utter horror. He shuddered convulsively and sank limply to the pavement. His throat rattled harshly, once, then he was still.

Thorne looked down at the silent, shapeless thing that had been Harker. Sometimes there was a little justice in the world—Harker had surely died by his sword.

He turned away and started back toward the river. The brief, brittle satisfaction was over. Harker had died—he had killed him as he had wanted to do—but it could not fill the empty years before him. He would return to the river and go back to the old, hopeless life; live out the empty years ahead.

The empty years—They had been empty before, but he had not known how empty until a slender, courageous girl had filled a day and night of them with her warmth. Now, they would be all the lonelier for her brief presence.

The moon was high overhead, and the room where she lay would no longer be flooded with its light. She would be lying there in the darkness, with the light gone from her eyes, and he should go to her. He should brush the golden hair back from her face and fold her hands, with the chains tinkling on her wrists. He should tell her once again that he was sorry—

He passed the toy shop, and the ghost of Lorrine seemed to walk with him. The Star of Bethlehem—It was a beautiful symbol—It will always be—How deep and gentle had been her faith.

He walked on, the familiar street bringing back the memory of her with aching vividness. It was here she had said, “You’ve never had anyone who cared for you?” and he had cut her with the coldness of his answer. And it was here that she had told him of the things they would do when they were free. He had been grim and silent—he should have talked to her and let their last hour be one of friendship, and the confidences of those who face the same peril.

She had known, somehow, that it was her last hour and she had wanted him to talk to her, to pretend with her that it was not her last hour and to warm the cold dread of it. She had been frightened by the loneliness of it and she had appealed to him, in her way, to not let her be so alone.

He had thought it better to act hard and indifferent. He had not really understood, then, and now it was too late.

“Johnny!”

He jerked his head up and saw her coming down the walk toward him. It was Lorrine, her footsteps clicking softly as she hurried toward him, the chains on her wrists jingling and the tenderness and radiance in her smile.

He waited, his face hard and haggard. It was an illusion, something to turn the knife deeper in his heart. Lorrine was dead—he had killed her. This was a vision conjured by his own sorrow, and she would vanish in a moment. She would stand before him, to drive the knife deeper, then, when he reached out to touch her, she would not be there. She would be gone, but the knife in his heart would remain.

She stopped before him, the smile trembling uncertainly. “Johnny! Aren’t you… aren’t you glad to see me?”

“No!” he answered harshly. “You’re not Lorrine… I killed her!”

“I am!” She laid her hand on his arm. “See—I’m as real as you are.”

Her hand was warm and real. He held to it, as though by so doing he could prevent her from vanishing.

“But I shot you,” he said. Doubt assailed him, and he demanded fiercely, “Are you really Lorrine, or are you something sent to torment me?”

“I’m Lorrine,” she said. “I wouldn’t ever want to hurt you. I’m Lorrine—it was the thing in this city.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s like an amoeba in a way, only much more complex. It can change form at will, and it can do almost any-thing. It was watching us all the time we were coming through the city. It couldn’t understand why we did the things we did—why we believed in something enough to die for it. It couldn’t understand, and it wanted to know. It’s more intelligent than humans, but only with physical things. It had no emotions and couldn’t comprehend such things. So, when I was dying, it came to me and reproduced my mind and emotions in itself.

“It was an experience different from anything it had ever known and, for a long time, I don’t think it was itself. But it remembered me and began to work on me before it was too late. It took all this time for it to reconstruct the tissues, and it came back to normal and remembered you just after you killed Harker. It saw you weren’t hurt, so it let me go and it went back to the central part of the city.

“And do you know what it’s doing?” There was joyous elation in her eyes. “It’s getting ready to help us! Now it wants to do what I wanted to do, and it can—it can make things for us that will let us overthrow the State in a week. And it’s going to do that. It’s going to help us, and then our people will be free!”

“It’s hard to believe,” he said. “I couldn’t believe such a thing at all, but you’re here and alive.” He drew her closer to him. “A man gets weary of death and violence and he wants things he knows he can never have. If this is true, what you said, maybe it will mean the end of it all—maybe the time will come when a man can have these things he wants.”

“It will!” she said. “I know it will!”

“If this thing can help us destroy the State, what then?” he asked. “We’ll owe it our freedom and our lives. How will we repay it?”

“It doesn’t want us to feel grateful,” she said. “It’s helping us because it wants to help us. And it said it would retire behind a force-field barrier after its work was done. It said it would be better for it to do that. But it will lower the barrier years and years from now, and when humans come into the city it will have something it wants to tell them.”

“I don’t understand, and I find it hard to believe,” he said. “But if this is true, it doesn’t matter whether I understand this thing’s way of thinking. It has promised to help us, and it gave you back to me—that’s all that really matters after all.”

He stood for a while, content to hold lier close and let the reality of her presence wash away all the hurt and bitterness of the hours before.

“It’s been a long and lonely night, Lorrine, and I thought I had lost you. Now we’ll see a new day, and the loneliness is over.”

“The loneliness is over, Johnny—forever and ever!”

An intelligent entity can learn much in fifteen years, of things that are nonlife and of the here and now; of things that react for but the moment, with neither will nor purpose.

But in the motivations of Lorrine was a purpose that went back into Time; back to the very beginning; back, back down two billion years. In her motivations was not unreason but a wisdom accumulated during millennia upon millennia of experience with life and living; a wisdom gained from lessons hard-learned by trial and error and born as instincts into the succeeding generations.

As it realized the true extent of Lorrine’s learning in the first brief moment of inspection, it suddenly realized another thing for the first time—it knew nothing of life. It was a living thing, itself, yet it knew nothing of life; all its knowledge was of physical nonlife.

It could learn of life from Lorrine; it could find in her all the accumulated learning of an organism that had evolved and changed and fought to survive, trying and dying and learning—learning, always learning—while the sun swung ten times around the galactic Center; ten great, slow swings of two hundred million years each.

Trying and learning for ten times two hundred million years—and it had been learning for fifteen years!

Its thirst for knowledge was insatiable and it hastened to accept the new learning, eager to add it to its own storehouse of physical learning. With the reproduction of her emotions it understood, but it was not like the learning of a physical fact.

In the emotions it absorbed was all the power of the wisdom and the purpose; a power so unexpected, so irresistible in its impact, that with the first understanding came, for a little while, near-insanity. For a little while its cold logic blurred into a mist of nothing and it was dazed by the wonder of what it had found.

It was the sudden acquisition of a heritage; not of fifteen years but of two billion years. It had a true conception, for the first time, of the multitude of things a speck of protoplasm must learn to survive and evolve for thousands upon hundreds of thousands of generations. It was an understanding of the prime purpose of life; to live, not alone as an individual for one lifetime but as an immortal species for all the lifetimes into eternity.

It was both an understanding and a feeling—and in the feeling all the old, old lessons were embodied as a dynamic, driving force. Faith was there, and hope. Faith and hope for a tomorrow that would dawn on a free people; both beckoning onward toward the infinitely distant goal. Courage was there, and hate; courage to fight for that tomorrow and for that infinitely distant goal; and hard, sharp hatred for those who lived only for self and refused to understand. Many things were there; things that, without their full absorption, an objective, analytical mind could not comprehend—all the things that make up human emotions. Their understanding was not like the learning of a physical fact ; it was both a wisdom of the mind and emotions within—overpoweringly vital and alive.

It was something difficult to fully perceive at first, blindingly difficult to fully perceive, but it was wonderful. It was not existence, it was living! And it was wonderful—radiantly, unbelievably wonderful.

It adjusted itself slowly to the new learning but a part of its mind remembered Lorrine before it was too late. It acted, in those short minutes that lie between the last beat of the heart and the swiftly reaching hand of irrevocable death, and set her still heart to beating again. It began to restore the destroyed flesh but, even with its powers, the restoration was slow and it had fully adjusted itself by the time the wound was healed.

It adjusted itself and it had, for the first time in its life, a purpose. It had, for the first time in its life, an understanding of the difference between physical things and living things. It was no longer content to exist in the here and now; it was a living thing and it had learned that life cannot be as one single mortal unit; that it must go on as a never-ending stream of generation upon generation.

It had a purpose at last. It knew what it wanted to do, what it must do. It could not remain aloof from this life form that had taught it of life; it was human in the emotions and learning it had absorbed, it could not be other than human in all its desires. It had absorbed the idealism of Lorrine and it knew, now, that her ideals were not illogical; it knew that they were an expression of the never-ending trying and learning and a manifestation of the ceaseless drive of the prime purpose.

It could divide its body into as many parts as it wished, and the parts could assume any form, either temporary or permanent in cellular structure. It was human in all its desires and motivations, intensely, utterly human, and it had no reason to retain its natural shapeless mass. So it began to divide its great body, sending it out into the night as human forms; forms that were human in structure, completely, perfectly human to the tiniest cell and with the heritage and idealism that had been Lorrine’s. And they look with them something else; t lie means to carry out her desires, the physical learning that had been the city-being’s.

A small portion of the city-being would remain behind. It would join the others soon; as soon as the State was overthrown and there was no longer the need for the manufacture of the things necessary to destroy it.

Then it would throw up its barrier, and the last of itself would go out into the night. Within the barrier a radium clock would count off the years until all its human forms had merged, generation upon generation, with all other humans. Then, far down the years to come, the clock would reach the time set for it and the barrier would fall. Humans would enter the city, curious to know the thing it had promised to tell them.

But they would find the city empty, and only an inscription on a stainless steel plate in a small stone building:

Here a woman died for something intangible and I wondered why. I was curious and I absorbed her learning to find the nature of her motivations.

When I acquired her learning I discovered myself for what I was; an entity without purpose or plan, without a heritage of the past to teach me. I had possessed knowledge, but wisdom comes only with time and time had been denied me. In my existence had been no purpose, no conception of purpose. I was a single unit of life, living in the present.

I found in humanity a life that had never ceased for two billion years; a life that had been learning for two billion years and intended to live and learn for all time to come.

I was Life, without knowledge of life. When I acquired the learning of a life two billion years old I could not logically do other than abide by that learning. When I accepted the learning I could not do other than accept the purpose. In return I gave humanity my physical knowledge, to better carry out the purpose.

I had knowledge and power, but humanity had something greater: wisdom and a purpose.

So do not look for me in this city—you, yourselves, are that which you seek.