the last of the suspended energy in its blood and muscles to walk forward, driving with an awful exertion.

On he walked into the cement lined room. The General stood there, oblivious to the noise about him. The hair on the crown of his head parted violently as the bullet from the gun in Buckmaster's hand hit its mark.

The gun became a weight too heavy for Buckmaster's lifeless fingers and dropped to the floor. The last spark of life flickered for a brief moment where it had fled in some inner recess of his brain and he felt the Force for the last time. Two words it spoke. "Well done," and he knew that at last his job was finished. Now he would return home!

Buckmaster had reasoned well, considering his natural limitations. But the truth he had discovered was, like most truths, only part of a greater truth.

In the far reaches of infinity, beyond the outermost boundaries of space, a thought-voice spoke. "Am I going to die?" it asked.

"Not now," a second entity answered. "The crisis is past."

"Will the sickness come again?"

"Not this particular form of malevolent psychosis," the second entity replied. "But perhaps you had better tell me all the facts you know so that I can advise you about the future."

"My project, I still believe, was magnificent," the sick entity began. "From the energy of my essence I materialized a world of infinitesimal creatures. I gave them time and space, and built a background of a universe for their wonderment and speculation. They dwelt on their world, lived their lives, and made their tiny, though admirable, advances as they saw their destiny. And then, suddenly, when all seemed beautiful, something went wrong, and I was ill unto death. What did I do that was not right?"

"I believe you made your mistake when you gave your creatures free will. They developed their malignancies, as well as their admirabilities. When they developed a malignancy of such virulence that they were in a position to destroy themselves, you made yourself vulnerable to death, through them. The shock of that devastation to you would have killed you. Tell me, were your creatures aware that they were figments of your mind?"

"Some grasped inklings of it, though none were certain. One, a Baruch Spinoza, came as close to the truth as it was possible, for 

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