gment is at hand.

Only somewhere inside of him was this little boy, crying, "Mama, Mama,
Mama!" And somewhere else was this old man, just staring down into the
water and waiting for them to find him.

Another explosion sounded.

This one was closer. They must be bombing the entire city. Or else it
was the dragon, lashing his tail.

Somebody ran past Jesse, carrying a torch. No, it wasn't a torch--his
hair was on fire. He jumped into the water, screaming, "They're
coming! They're coming!"

Jesse turned and blinked. They were coming, all right. He could see
them pouring out of the alleyway like rats. Rats with gleaming eyes,
gleaming claws.

Suddenly, his head cleared. He realized that he was going to die. He
had, perhaps, one minute of life left. One minute out of eighty years.
And he couldn't fool himself any longer. He was not delirious. Day of
judgment--that was nonsense. And there was no dragon, and these were
not rats. They were merely men. Puny little men who killed because
they were afraid.

Jesse was a big man, but he was afraid, too. Six feet three inches
tall he was, when he stood up straight as he did now, watching them
come--but he knew fear.

And he resolved that he must not take that fear with him into death.
He wanted to die with something better than that. Wasn't there
something he could find and cling to, perhaps some memory--?

A minute is so short, and eighty years is so long. Jesse stood there,
swaying, watching them draw nearer, watching them as they caught sight
of him and raised their weapons.

He scanned rapidly into the past. Into the past, before the time the
wench was dead, back to when you and I were young, Maggie, back still
earlier, and earlier, seeking the high point, the high school, that
was it, the high school, the highlight, the moment of triumph, the
game with Lincoln. Yes, that was it. He hadn't been ashamed of being
six feet three inches then, he'd been proud of it, proud as he raised
his arms and--

_Splashed down into the water as the bullets struck._

And that was the end of Jesse Pringle. Jesse Pringle, champion
basketball center of the Class of '79....

12. Littlejohn--2065

The helicopter landed on the roof, and the attendants wheeled it over
to one side. They propped the ladder up, and Littlejohn descended
slowly, panting.

They had a coasterchair waiting and he sank into it, grateful for the
rest. Hardy fellows, these attendants, but then they we