ticularly grateful for support from such
a dithyrambic source as the ship's medical officer. "Anyone who
prophesies doom has a hundred per cent chance of ultimately being right,
if only because of entropy."

He was still brooding over the first officer's thrust, even though he
had been well aware that most of his officers and men considered him a
sorehead for doubting Harkaway in the young man's moment of triumph.
However, Iversen could not believe that Harkaway had undergone such a
radical transformation. Even on the basis of _mpoola_, one obviously had
to die before passing on to the next existence and Harkaway had been
continuously alive--from the neck down, at least.

Furthermore, all that aside, Iversen just couldn't see Harkaway going on
to a higher plane. Although he supposed the young man was well-meaning
enough--he'd grant him that negligible virtue--wouldn't it be terrible
to have a system of existence in which one was advanced on the basis of
intent rather than result? The higher life-forms would degenerate into
primitivism.

But weren't the Flimbotzik virtually primitive? Or so Harkaway had said,
for Iversen himself had not had enough contact with them to determine
their degree of sophistication, and only the spaceships gave Harkaway's
claim the lie.

* * * * *

Iversen condescended to take a look at the opening chapter of Harkaway's
book, just to see what the whole thing was about. The book began:

"What is the difference between life and death? Can we say definitely
and definitively that life is life and death is death? Are we sure that
death is not life and life is not death?

"No, we are not sure!

"Must the individuality have a corporeal essence in which to enshroud
itself before it can proceed in its rapt, inexorable progress toward the
Ultimate Non-actuality? And even if such be needful, why must the
personal essence be trammeled by the same old worn-out habiliments of
error?

"Think upon this!

"What is the extremest intensification of individuality? It is the
All-encompassing Nothingness. Of what value are the fur, the feathers,
the skin, the temporal trappings of imperfection in our perpetual
struggle toward the final undefinable resolution into the Infinite
Interplay of Cosmic Forces?

"Less than nothing!"

At this point, Iversen stopped reading and returned the manuscript to
its creator, without a word. This last was less out of self-restraint
than