Victory." Euge noted wryly how strong the indoctrination of his mind was, relegating the word 'war' to the realm of obscene taboos, and leaving only 'victory' permissible. "But—" he lifted his gray head and looked candidly into their faces, "when I 'loosed the plague', as you put it, I was not being a patriot and I do not think I was making a mistake."

They stared at him with bleak eyes. Euge said almost pleadingly, "I believe you are all members of the Witnesses of the Lord, who are proscribed for maintaining that the plague is a punishment decreed against a sinful world. From that standpoint, surely I am not to blame for having acted as an instrument of divine justice." It was as if he appealed for judgment to these strangers, to whom he was united in the intimate community of a grave that must be shared.

"He's right," said the Jew, and smiled a little, even then, with pleasure at a point well made. "We're inconsistent if we blame him."

There was a lightening in their wan, drained faces, mostly of relief at being told that they need not spend those few last minutes in hating.

The woman's reaction was strongest; she leaned forward, eyes suddenly feverish: "Do you believe as we do, then? Did you know you were guided, when—"

The scientist said wearily, "I have seen no visions, I have heard no voices. Still I do not feel responsible for what has come on the world through me. In the plenum of probabilities, what may be will be...."

"Doctor, beyond your universe of probabilities there must be a power that chooses among them." The young student spoke with the quiet conviction of a man in whom knowledge and faith are at peace. "We must accept that power—or the logic by which it chooses among the possible worlds—as good, the definition of good. You should see that—now, if never before." He quoted Goethe. "... denn nur im Elend erkennt man Gottes Hand und Finger, der gute Menschen zum Guten leitet."

Euge looked out through the rear of the truck, at the gray landscape rumbling away, and guessed that the journey's end was still fifteen minutes ahead; unless his knowledge of how the Dictator's mind worked failed him, the place would be near the wreckage of his one-time laboratory, leveled from the air on the naive theory that some devilish device there was broadcasting the seeds of plague....

Aching minutes that had to be soothed with words. Words—God, fate, hope, hereafter—are man's 

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