centuries.

Webb arose to his feet slowly and moved toward Clifford. "So medicine was too elementary for you? Human physiology and behaviour has no unsolved problems in it, you said once. So you went into robotics—positronic brains—infinite variety of response, with built in neuroses and psychoses. Human behaviour was too stereo-typed for you, Clifford. Everyone was predictable to seven decimal places. You were bored."

"You have it about right," the engineer said insolently. He let his arms drop to his sides, relaxed, unconcerned at the tension in the physician's voice.

"You build fine chess-playing machines, I hear," Webb said softly, gradually closing the distance between them. "Your mechanical geniuses have outstripped our finest playwrights and novelists for creativity and originality. You've probed every conceivable aberrated twist of human nature with your psychological-probabilities computers. You've reduced sociology and human relations to a cipher—"

Clifford shrugged. "Merely an extension of early work in general semantics—the same work that gave us mental stability to go with physical immortality. Certainly you don't disparage—"

"I'm disparaging nothing," Webb broke in. "I'm merely pointing out your blind spot, your fatal blind spot."

"Fatal?"

"Yes, Clifford, fatal. I'm going to kill you."

The words seemed to have no effect. Not until Webb's powerful surgeon's hands closed about his neck did Clifford go rigid and begin his futile struggle.

Webb did not crush the larynx immediately. He squeezed down with slow, breath-robbing pressure, feeling for the windpipe under his thumbs. Clifford gasped, "'Sa long life, Webb ... don't ... commit suicide."

"It's a long life, but not for you, my stupid friend. Sure, they'll execute me. But you won't have her. Never again, do you hear?"

Clifford's eyes were closed now, and Webb knew that the roaring in his victim's ears would be blotting out all external sound. The knowledge infuriated him, and he screamed, "You fool, I pleaded with you. I took your insults and gave you every clue you needed—didn't you recognize my condition? You fool! You brilliant, blind fool!"

Clifford collapsed to his knees, and Webb let him go with one final, irrevocable wrench that certified his death.

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