oke
from the unconsciousness that had been thrust upon him. He tried to
stand up, but he found himself staggering toward one crazily-slanted
wall. The stagger was partly due to his grogginess, and partly due to
the Coriolis forces acting within the spinning ship. The artificial
gravity was gone, which meant that the interstellar drive engines had
been smashed. He wondered if the emergency rocket drive was still
working--not that it would take him anywhere worth going to in less
than a few centuries. But, then, Sebastian MacMaine had nowhere to go,
anyhow.

Tallis lay against one wall, looking very limp. MacMaine half staggered
over to him and knelt down. Tallis was still alive.

The centrifugal force caused by the spinning ship gave an effective
pull of less than one Earth gravity, but the weird twists caused by the
Coriolis forces made motion and orientation difficult. Besides, the
ship was spinning slightly on her long axis as well as turning
end-for-end.

MacMaine stood there for a moment, trying to think. He had expected to
die. Death was something he had known was inevitable from the moment he
made his decision to leave Earth. He had not known how or when it would
come, but he had known that it would come soon. He had known that he
would never live to collect the reward he had demanded of the Kerothi
for "faithful service." Traitor he might be, but he was still honest
enough with himself to know that he would never take payment for
services he had not rendered.

Now death was very near, and Sebastian MacMaine almost welcomed it. He
had no desire to fight it. Tallis might want to stand and fight death
to the end, but Tallis was not carrying the monstrous weight of guilt
that would stay with Sebastian MacMaine until his death, no matter how
much he tried to justify his actions.

On the other hand, if he had to go, he might as well do a good job of
it. Since he still had a short time left, he might as well wrap the
whole thing up in a neat package. How?

Again, his intuitive ability to see pattern gave him the answer long
before he could have reasoned it out.

_They will know_, he thought, _but they will never be sure they know. I
will be immortal. And my name will live forever, although no Earthman
will ever again use the surname MacMaine or the given name Sebastian_.

He shook his head to clear it. No use thinking like that now. There
were things to be done.

* * * *