attacker or even a pursuer. It was frightened, and, telepathically, in sharp bursting impressions, it pleaded with Roland. No! Oh, no! You do not understand. Wait! Wait and you can know of the countless facets of re—

Something like pain shot through his skull. The Martian trembled, vibrated, and then—disappeared. Roland spun around. Frances stood there. She was smiling, but there had been another expression. He couldn’t—

She was close to him now. He felt her animal warmth. “We sensed it out here,” she said softly, “and came to your rescue, Rolly. He was a weaker one, and we got him. We must work fast. Go, dear Rolly. This—this is for good luck.”

He leaned against the wall. She was gone. The kiss ... he had been waiting for that. None of the other things made any difference now. But now she was gone and the wall felt cold. He wanted warmth. He wanted Fran’s warmth. He wanted it more than anything. He—

—he was out on an autowalk among the shifting listless crowd. He moved toward the five-acre expanse of World Brain. He was aware of nothing about him, only of Frances. He would soon be back with her. Destroying World Brain was only a means to that end. He noticed then, abruptly, that the people around him had only five fingers on their hands. But he didn’t think about it. It had no meaning anyway.

Then, suddenly, he was aware that there were no more people. No more buildings, either. A cool wind blew across his hot face. He stood awed on the long, sweeping rim of an abyss, the edge of a bowl. Its sides curved down and away in gracious gleaming sweeps, down, down and away into a colossal valley. In its center was World Brain. A gigantic, unbroken cylinder, a mile away and a thousand meters down.

He knew he was on the periphery of the ultrasonic field now. He walked along the railed edge of the abyss until he faced the plastic man who was standing before the opening of a levitation shaft that would take him directly into the arteries of World Brain.

He tried to edge past the plastic man. There wasn’t room enough; the plastic man wasn’t designed to make any room. The creation was very close to a perfect synthesis. There was no other way. Roland charged head down into the waiting figure and hurled him upward over the railing.

Roland watched him spin out end over end, then flatten out on the sweeping curvature and go sliding with fantastic silent slowness, away and down, down the 

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