tever you like," he said wearily. "A million dollars a year? Why
not?"

"Why not?" I echoed, a little dazed.

And then I just sat there listening, while he talked. What else was
there to do? I won't even say that I was listening, at least not with
the very fullest of attention, because that thought of a million
dollars a year kept coming between me and his words. But I got the
picture. The possibilities were endless. And how well I knew it!

Gold from the sea, sure. But energy--free energy--it was there for the
taking. From the molecules of the air, for instance. Refrigerators
could be cooled, boilers could get up steam, homes could be heated,
forges could be fired--and all without fuel. Planes could fly through
the air without a drop of gasoline in their tanks. Anything.

A million dollars a year....

And it was only the beginning.

I came to. "What?"

He was looking at me. He repeated patiently, "The police are looking
for me."

I stared. "_You?_"

"Did you hear about Grand Rapids?"

I thought. "Oh--Wait. A fire. A big one. And that was you?"

"Not me. My demons. Maxwell demons--or Greco demons, they should be
called. He talked about them; I use them. When they're not using me.
This time, they burned down half the city."

"I remember now," I said. The papers had been full of it.

"They got loose," he said grimly. "But that's not the worst. You'll
have to earn your million a year, Virgie."

"What do you mean, they got loose?"

He shrugged. "Controls aren't perfect. Sometimes the demons escape. I
can't help it."

"How do you control them in the first place?"

He sighed. "It isn't really what you would call controls," he said.
"It's just the best I can do to keep them from spreading."

"But--you said sometimes you separate metals, sometimes you get
energy. How do the demons know which you want them to do, if you say
you can't control them?"

"How do you make an apple tree understand whether you want it to grow
Baldwins or Macintoshes?"

* * * * *

I gawked at him. "Why--but you don't, Greek! I mean it's either one or
the other!"

"Just so with demons! You're not so stupid after all, are you? It's
like improving the breed of dogs. You take a common ancestral mutt,
and generations later you can develop an Airedale, a dachshund or a
Spitz. How? By selection. My demon entities grow, they split, the new
entities adapt themselves to new conditions. There's a process