girl with her back to us over there. The Ideal. The one with the brown hair."

Sandy frowned. "Why would he be interested in another Ideal? Naturally they all come here, as it is one of the few places they are made welcome in your cold, non-idealistic city."

I looked at the Ideal. There was some hint of familiarity in the lines of her profile and the way she smiled at the far-spaceman who was with her.

"She could be Valda," I said. "But they all look much alike."

"She is Valda," said Radwick.

"No," said Sandy, flushing.

"You ask Sandy, Al. She's your ideal and cannot lie to you."

"What about it, Sandy?"

Sandy dropped her wonderful eyes. "Yes," she said. "Valda is somebody else's ideal now, looking a little different."

"But what about Kelly?" I cried. "I thought an Ideal never changed—"

"Kelly was fighting a war out on Scolaris," said Radwick.

"Kelly—dead?"

"You forgot the war," said Radwick. "The fight against the Philosterians that Kelly pledged himself to. Apparently he fought and died for the eternal good."

"But why should she live and go on?" I said in shock. I gripped Sandy's arm until she winced.

"An ideal can't die," said Sandy. "When we are killed it is only the person who worshipped us."

Kelly—dead out on the Stardust Overdrive—among the red and blue times and the ringing ideal bells! It was a little too far off and rich, even for me.

"I was thinking of going back to Scolaris myself," I said bitterly. "And maybe fighting."

"You would fight," said Radwick. "You would die. An ideal must always kill an imperfect man who cannot reach it. Sometimes it is Kelly or the millions of Kellys physically dead in war. Sometimes it is only a part of a man that an ideal kills."

Sandy jumped up so fast that she knocked over a water glass.

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