t
jerked spasmodically and lay still.

Omega approached and placed his hand over its heart. There was no
pulsation. The Grinner was dead.

With a sigh Omega turned back to the cottage. Although he was now alone
once more, he did not care. All he had to do was to prepare himself for
the Great Adventure, which despite all man's god-like achievements,
still remained a mystery.

Now that the lake was almost gone it again drew his attention. The
sickly grass had long since given up trying to follow the retreating
water and now was only a dead and melancholy strip of yellow far back
from the shore. Every day Omega went to the little pool and calmly
watched it fade away, watched without qualms of fear or heartache. He
was ready. But even now, hot and weary, he refused adequately to slake
his thirst. He must fight on to the last, for such was the prerogative
and duty of the human race. He must conserve that precious fluid.

* * * * *

At last there came a morning when Omega, gazing from his doorway, looked
in vain for the shining pool. Nothing but a brown expanse of rock and
sand met his view where the lake had been. Already the salt crystals
were glinting in the sun. A long, lingering sigh escaped him. It had
come at last! The last water of those mighty seas which once had covered
nearly the whole earth, had departed leaving him alone with the dead of
ages.

Hot and feverish he glided over the dry bed of the lake. Finally in the
lowest depression on earth he found, in a little hollow of rock, a mere
cupful of water. Like a thirst-maddened animal he sucked it up in great
gulps, then licked the rock dry. IT WAS THE LAST DROP!

Omega rose, his face calm and resigned. With a smile of gratitude he
looked up at the sky. The water was bitter, but he was thankful he had
been given the final cup.

Then he went to the airship and shot up into the blue and on around the
world in a voyage of farewell. In a few hours he was back. Reverently he
set the airship down on its landing place. He was through with it now.
Its usefulness was gone, its great, pulsing motors forever silent, soon
to be covered with the dust of ages, he would leave it a monument to
mankind. For a little while he wandered among the treasures of the ship.
Sacred as they were they still mocked him with their impotency to stay
the hand of death. But he loved them all. Thalma had loved them and they
had been Alpha's playmates, and the