“Yes . . . yes, I thought as much,” said William, with the hint of a sigh. “You’re my doom, you know—my weird. I should have recognized it earlier. A force like mine among men must be balanced. I thought it would be balanced with numbers; but it wasn’t.’’ He looked at Donal with such a strange, searching expression that Donal’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re not well,” said Donal.

“No, I’m not well.” William rubbed his eyes, wearily. “I’ve been working too hard lately—and to no purpose. Montor’s calculations were foolproof; but the more perfect my plan, the more perfectly it always went awry. I hate you, you know,” said William, emotionlessly, dropping his hand and looking up at Donal again. “No one in all the history of man has ever hated the way I hate you.”

“Come along,” said Donal, going around the desk toward him. “I’ll take you to someone who can help you—”

“No. Wait—” William held up his hand and backed away from Donal. Donal stopped. “I’ve got something to show you first. I saw the end the minute I got reports your men were landing. I’ve been waiting nearly ten hours now.” He shivered, suddenly. “A long wait. I had to have something to keep myself occupied. He turned about and walked briskly back to a set of double doors set in a far wall. “Have a look,” he invited; and pressed a button.

The doors slid back.

Donal looked. Hanging in the little close area revealed there was something only barely recognizable by what was left of its face. It was, or had been, his brother Mor.

SECRETARY FOR DEFENSE

Flashes of clarity began to return.

For some time, now and again, they had been calling him from the dark corridors down which he walked. But he had been busy, too busy to respond until now. But now—slowly—he let himself listen to the voices, which were sometimes those of Anea, and Sayona, and Ian, and sometimes the voices of those he did not know.

He rose to them reluctantly, slow to abandon the halls of darkness where he traveled. Here was the great ocean he had always hesitated to enter; but now that he was in it, it held him warm, and would have possessed him except for their little voices calling him back to petty things. Yet, duty lay to them, and not to it—that duty that had been impressed on him from his earliest years. The things undone, the things ill-done—and what he had done to William.

“Donal?’’ said the voice of Sayona.

“I’m here,” he said. He opened his eyes; and they took in a white hospital room and the bed in which he lay, with Sayona and Anea and Galt standing beside it—along with a short man with a mustache in the long pink jacket of one of the Exotic psychiatric physicians.