lt his sluggish pulse gaining new
life as the time drew nearer.

A cybernetics engineer and machine tender, he was down to ten hours a
week of work. Many others in the luxury-gorged economy had even
smaller shares of the purposeful activities that remained. At night he
dreamed of the slagger moving from house to house as it burned, melted
and then evaporated each group of junked labor-blocking devices. He
even had glorious daydreams about it. Walking down the park side of
his home block, he was liable to lose all contact with the outside
world and peer through the mind's eye alone at the climactic
destruction.

Why, he sometimes wondered, are all these things so necessary to our
resurrection?

Marie had the right answer for him, the one she had learned by rote in
early childhood: "All life moves in cycles. Creation and progress
must be preceded by destruction. In ancient times that meant we had to
destroy each other; but for the past century our inherent need for
negative moments has been sublimated--that's the word the news
broadcasts use--into proper destruction." His wife smiled. "I'm only
giving the moral reason, of course. The practical one's obvious."

Obvious it was, he had to concede. Men needed to work, not out of
economic necessity any more but for the sake of work itself. Still a
man had to wonder....

* * * * *

He had begun to visit the Public Library Archives, poring over musty
references that always led to maddeningly frustrating dead ends. For
the past century nothing really informative seemed to have been
written on the subject.

"You must have government authorization," the librarian explained when
he asked for older references. Which, naturally, made him add a little
suspicion to his already large dose of wonder.

"You're tampering with something dangerous," Marie warned. "It would
make more sense for you to take long-sleep pills until the work cycle
picks up."

"I _will_ get to see those early references," he said through clenched
teeth.

He did.

All he had needed to say at the library was that his work in sociology
required investigation of some twentieth century files. The librarian,
a tall, gaunt man, had given him a speculative glance. "Of course, you
don't have government clearance.... But we get so few inquiries in
sociology that I'm willing to offer a little encouragement." He
sighed. "Don't get many inquiries altogether. Most people just can't