wouldn’t, would you? ‘Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em; and little fleas have lesser fleas, and so on, ad infinitum; and the great fleas themselves in turn have greater fleas to grow on, while these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.’ We used you, Rolly. A machine to bite a machine. That was the only way it could have been done.”

Very far away, dim and wavering, Roland heard the woman saying, “Logically, any species has some overly-specialized characteristic that might defeat it. I wonder what particular little flea will bite us?”

“And that, too, will be interesting,” thought Roland grimly, as his electronic brain thinned into meaningless chaos, and he returned into the hazes of unconsciousness from which he had emerged three hours before.

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