by ozone; much of the blue was scattered
through the atmosphere. The remainder bore steadily onward.

Down through the air they came, only slightly weakened this time. They
hit the glass of a window in the Hotel New Yorker, losing more of their
members in the plunge.

And, a few feet from the glass, they ended their million-year epic by
illuminating a face.

The face responded to them with something less than pleasure. It was
clear that the face did not like being illuminated. It was very bright,
much too bright. It seemed to be searing its way through the face's
closed eyelids, right past the optic nerves into the brain-pan itself.
The face twisted in a sudden spasm, as if its brain were shriveling with
heat. Its owner thoughtfully turned over, and the face sought the
seclusion and comparative darkness of a pillow.

Unfortunately, the motion brought the face's owner to complete
wakefulness. He did not want to be awake, but he had very little choice
in the matter. Even though his face was no longer being illuminated, he
could feel other rays of sunlight eating at the back of his head. He put
the pillow over his head and felt more comfortable for a space, but this
slight relief passed, too.

He thought about mausoleums. Mausoleums were nice, cool, dark places
where there was never any sun or heat, and never any reason to wake up.
Maybe, he told himself, cunningly, if he went to sleep again he would
wake up dead, in a mausoleum. That, he thought, would be nice.

Death was nice and pleasant. Unfortunately, he realized, he was not
dead. And there was absolutely no chance of his ever getting back to
sleep. He finally rolled over again, being very careful to avoid any
more poisonous sunlight. Getting up was an even more difficult process,
but Malone knew it had to be managed. Somehow he got his feet firmly
planted on the floor and sat up.

It had been a remarkable feat, he told himself. He deserved a medal.

That reminded him of the night before. He had been thinking quite a lot
about the medals he deserved for various feats. He had even awarded some
of them to himself, in the shape of liquid decoctions.

He remembered all that quite well. There were a lot of cloudy things in
his mind, but from all the testimony he could gather, he imagined that
he'd had quite a time the night before. Quite a wonderful time, as a
matter of fact.

Not that that reflection did anything for him now. As he opened his
eyes, one at a t