million dollar feelie; almost gave _me_ heart failure
when he had that heart attack."

"Cy, for the sake of the studio don't let people hear you say that. It's
not true! It wasn't a heart attack. He just played the death scene too
fully. You know how deep he goes into a role. That's what makes him the
world's greatest actor."

"I don't care what you call it," Lemson said heatedly, "the guy's heart
_stopped_ and it was only because of Zack's alertness that they got to
him in time. He almost died. I don't want to be ghoulish about it, Bob,
but the studio's putting a lot of time, money and sweat into making that
boy a star--"

"Nobody's making him a star," Herschell cut in, "he was born one."

Herschell had spoken with such honest emphasis that Lemson replied,
greatly subdued, "Okay, okay, but we have ourselves a pretty shaky
investment if every time he dies in a feelie he's liable to really go
over the edge."

"Zack thinks he can work out a receptor circuit to keep it from
happening again. Sort of a subliminal survival monitor that won't show
on the strip."

Lemson looked nervously at the theater entrance. "They should be coming
out soon," he muttered.

"Ten minutes yet," Herschell assured him.

Inside the shining pleasure dome, six thousand Jed Carters lay dying on
an afternoon hillside. The war was gone to another hill and he was alone
now with the grass wind and the small summer sounds of the earth. His
pain was a soft ache like a child's secret tears and his life was
slipping reluctantly from him in a trickling red ribbon. He heard the
sweet sound of a bird and the song of it wrung his heart. There were so
many songs yet unheard, so much soft laughter unborn, so many caresses
yet to be shared; a lifetime of summers, waiting, now never to be
filled. His heart cried at the thought of them.

The sun warmed him like a great golden lover and filled him with an
ineffable sadness for the bright days to come that would never be his.

And now at the last he thought of her. His heart ached for her, craving
one more of those lost mornings when he had awakened in the dawn at her
sleeping side and with his eyes happily loved her sweet slumbering face,
haloed by the marvel of her wheat hair catching the first glints of the
new sun.

In a last languid movement he turned on his back and opened his eyes to
the bright sky. He felt her stir. Her arm brushed him and the vibrancy
of her being sang through him. She opened her