"What's that?" asked Alexander sourly.

"They say they can make me young again. Like them up there. They never
die. They just live so long, and then they rejuvenate, they begin all
over. It's some kind of a process they have."

"And I suppose they're planning to come down and fetch you up there and
give you the works, is that it?" asked Alexander.

"Well, no," answered McIlvaine. "Guru says there's no need for that--it
can be done through the machine; they can work it like the
disintegrators; it puts you back to thirty or twenty or wherever you
like."

"Well, I'd like to be twenty-five myself again," admitted Leopold.

"I'll tell you what, Mac," said Alexander. "You go ahead and try it;
then come back and let us know how it works. If it does, we'll all sit
in."

"Better make your will first, though, just in case."

"Oh, I did. This afternoon."

Leopold choked back a snicker. "Don't take this thing too seriously,
Mac. After all, we're short one of us now. We'd hate to lose you, too."

McIlvaine was touched. "Oh, I wouldn't change," he hastened to assure
his friends. "I'd just be younger, that's all. They'll just work on me
through the machine, and over-night I'll be rejuvenated."

"That's certainly a little trick that's got it all over monkey glands,"
conceded Alexander, grinning.

"Those little bugs on that star of yours have made scientific progress,
I'd say," said Leopold.

"They're not bugs," said McIlvaine with faint indignation. "They're
people, maybe not just like you and me, but they're people just the
same."

He went home that night filled with anticipation. He had done just what
he had promised himself he would do, arranging everything for his
rejuvenation. Guru had been astonished to learn that people on Earth
simply died when there was no necessity of doing so; he had made the
offer to rejuvenate McIlvaine himself.

McIlvaine sat down to his machine and turned the complex knobs until he
was en rapport with his dark star. He waited for a long time, it seemed,
before he knew his contact had been closed. Guru came through.

"Are you ready, McIlvaine?" he asked soundlessly.

"Yes. All ready," said McIlvaine, trembling with eagerness.

"Don't be alarmed now. It will take several hours," said Guru.

"I'm not alarmed," answered McIlvaine.

And indeed he was not; he was filled with an exhilaration akin to
mysticism, and he sat waiting for what he was certain must be the
experience above all