The tone caused Cargill to shiver. "Don't tell me you- you made it?"

"Yes," Alec said. "We made it."

"We?"

"Yes. You see-" Alec smiled "-I am not I any more; I am we."

Cargill nodded. "I see."

Alec crooked a finger. "Come closer and we will tell you what happened."

"Yes, tell me," Cargill said, but he came no closer.

"We went up," Alec said, "just as you told me-told Alec. It was astonishing, the way we merged into a single glorious whole. We thought we would get there for certain this time. Then Ford came down. We tried to resist, but he was far too strong even for Alec. We began to fall. Then, suddenly, Ford was gone. We returned and reached the place we sought. And that is where we are now."

"You killed him?"

"Ford? We do not know. Yes, perhaps that is what happened. But it did not seem that way. Perhaps we tired him and he was not able to fight us any more. But it did not seem that way either. He was gone and then we were there."

"But he isn't dead?"

Alec shrugged. "We can't know. Death is there and we are here." He giggled. "This is another universe."

"And I don't suppose you can tell me what it's like?"

"No, we cannot. But we are not alone here. There are other races here too. Other peoples who have achieved in the past what our race has achieved now."

"But you can't tell me any more?"

"You must come here first."

"How will I manage that?"

"We will assist you. All men must come here now that the path is open. We are a superman." Again, Alec giggled and stopped himself only by thrusting his fist into his mouth.

Cargill pretended not to notice. "Are you greater than the Inheritors?"

"The Inheritors, despite what they think, are merely the children of the human race. We are another, far superior race entirely."

"Then you can defeat them? Drive them away?"

"If necessary, that could be accomplished."

"If necessary? But I thought that was the whole point of this experiment."

"Their domain is limited to the Earth. Ours now spans the universe. They are harmless creatures now."

"What about Ah Tran?" Cargill pointed to one motionless figure within the circle. "I'd like to talk to him."

"Ah Tran no longer exists. He is part of us now."

"But I can talk to you, Alec."

"We are not Alec."

"Oh." Cargill stepped back, shaking his head. He glanced eagerly toward the door. "Is there anything you need? Food? Water? I can bring it."

"We need nothing."

"I see." Cargill stepped away. The eyes-Alec's eyes-followed him. He opened the door and slipped through. On the other side, alone again, he found he was shaking.

When he recovered, he threaded a path through the maze of floors and rooms and corridors and came at last to the kitchen, where he stopped to eat. He was munching on a sandwich when one wall of the room suddenly erupted in a blaze of light and sound and color. Dead-faced troops raced across a burnt and forsaken landscape.

The announcer's voice said, "An important victory was today attained by the civilized forces active upon the plains south of Manitoba. Western Hemispheric action has been declared inevitably successful. Current attack plans call for-"

Cargill realized he did not want to hear another word of this. What did it matter? The war was over and no one knew it yet but he. Searching the wall for some means of making the picture go away, he found nothing, finally giving up, kicking furiously out, thrusting the tip of his shoe through the center of the electronic battlefield. Obediently, the picture faded away.

Smiling, he went back to the sandwich. He thought, He's gone mad, and found the idea powerfully reassuring. He knew about reversion, how the Superiors, balanced precariously between two conflicting species, often fell into the chasm between. The pressure had got to Alec; he had gone mad.

But what about the others? The disciples? Ah Tran? Had Alec, in the end, proved strong enough to drag them down with him? Had his ravaged mind swallowed them up, consumed them too?

It was a frightening thought. But what was worse was the opposite. The human race saved and yet-he had to admit this-destroyed more utterly than the Inheritors could ever have hoped to accomplish. If we have won, he thought, then what is wrong with me? Is it that I am merely me, myself, I? That I like to say I when I talk of me and never we or us or them? Is it that I am simply afraid?

He looked down at himself, seeing the blue veins in his bare arms, the skinny legs, weak misshapen hips. He raised his hands and held them close to his face. This is me, he thought, and I can never be we.

He was mad. He had to be mad. The war would go on. In the end, they-the Inheritors-would win. The Earth was theirs. No one could stop them from claiming their prize.

He dropped his hands. I am a man, he thought and, thinking this, felt suddenly and awfully and dreadfully alone.

Twenty-Five.

Henry J. McCoy was the sort of person who, when forced to go out unprotected on the streets, had to proceed in a sharp, cautious, constantly alert manner, for otherwise, if he wasn't careful, something big and strong and tough would surely pop up from someplace and run straight over him. The truth was that hardly anyone ever noticed the existence of McCoy. Even when he spoke forcefully and waved his hands and danced a vigorous jig, it was necessary to reassure passing strangers that this gesturing wraith was, in fact, something real.

McCoy was fully aware of these facts and took the necessary precautions. Years ago, when first contacted by the agents of Karlton Ford, he had tried in vain to convince them that they had the wrong man.

"You are Henry J. McCoy, born of unknown parentage in Oakville, Wisconsin, home patient number 4678-99-4744?"

"Well, yes, that's me," McCoy admitted.

"Then there can be no mistake. You are the man Mr. Ford wants." The agents had then proceeded to reveal that Karlton Ford had personally considered more than a thousand applicants for the position of his private secretary before eventually choosing McCoy.

"But I didn't apply," McCoy said.

"A personal application is not required. Mr. Ford considered the best men for the job and selected you." Salary would not be permitted to present any obstacle. McCoy could name his own price. All he had to do was agree to accept the work and promise to do the best job he knew how.

"I shouldn't but-" McCoy began. He made himself stop. Shouldn't? But why not?

McCoy was then working for an old firm of corporate lawyers in San Francisco. He was chief clerk-the only clerk actually-but had already been notified that, come the new year, his position would be automated. More than a dozen times in the past, this same fate had overtaken McCoy. On one dreadful occasion, he had been forced to draw the government unemployment pension for more than a year. He had always flatly refused all offers of retraining. In spite of its precarious aspects, he loved his work. He was a clerk, which meant doing whatever his current employer ordered him to do. Invariably, he performed his assigned tasks in an efficient-if never brilliant-manner. He always worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week, and if he happened to complete all his assigned duties in less time than that, then he would immediately begin over again, hoping to achieve a nearer perfection the second time around. Outside of his job, he had one hobby, but that was not a time-consuming avocation and was perfectly respectable.

"All right," he said, shocking himself with the firmness of his tone. "I'll do it."