agony Omega was tempted to join her. Without
effort and without fear or pain, his was the power to check the
machinery of life.

* * * * *

Crushed and broken, Omega sat by his dead, while the shadows of night
entered the valley and wrapped all in their soft embrace. When would his
own hour strike? He might retard or hasten that time, but the real
answer lay in that little lake out there under the stars, daily
shrinking despite the cloud curtain. There was nothing more to live for,
yet he determined to live, to go down fighting like a valiant knight of
old, to set an example for the sons of other worlds.

But despite his brave resolution his grief for a while seemed likely to
master him. Heart-broken he finally went out into the cold dusk and
gazed up at the heavens appealingly.

"Alone!" he whispered as an overwhelming sense of his isolation tore his
spirit. "Alone in a dead world--the sole survivor of its vanished life!"

He slumped to the ground and buried his face in the cold dust. His
thoughts were jumbled in a maze of pain and sorrow. He could neither
pray nor think. Gasping, dying a thousand deaths, he lay there groveling
in the dust. But at last he rose, dashed the dust from his eyes and
again faced the sky. He would accept the cruel mandate of nature. He
would live on and try to conquer all--even death.

He cast his eyes along the shore of the lake, and there in the starlight
loomed the form of the dead monster which, but for Thalma's unerring
aim, would have been the last of earth's creatures. Omega sighed and
turned back to his dead.

But despite his resolution to live the loneliness was sapping Omega's
spirit. During the following weeks in a mood of recklessness and despair
he allowed the cloud curtain to dissolve above the lake. Once more the
sun's hot rays poured down unhindered and the lake receded rapidly.

As time went on Omega grew more restless. Only by taking many voyages
around the world was he able to endure the appalling silence. He was the
last traveler to visit the ancient marts of man, he was the last hope
and despair of life. Sometimes he talked aloud to himself, but his words
sounded hollow and ghostly in that deep silence, which only added to his
misery.

And then one day in a fit of desperation he rebelled. He cursed the fate
that had selected him to drink the last bitter dregs of life. In this
desperate frame of mind he evolved a daring plan. He wo