ralist!" Littlejohn gasped. "You're a Naturalist! Yes, that's
what you are!"

The apparition scowled.

"I am not a Naturalist. I am a man."

"But you can't be! The war--"

"I am very old. I lived through your war. I have lived through your
peace. Soon I shall die. But before I do, there is something else
which must be done."

"You've come here to kill me?"

"Perhaps." The looming figure moved closer and stared down. "No, don't
try to summon help. When your servants saw me, they fled. You're alone
now, Littlejohn."

"You know my name."

"Yes, I know your name. I know the names of everyone on the council.
Each of them has a visitor tonight."

"Then it is a plot, a conspiracy?"

"We have planned this very carefully, through the long years. It's all
we lived for, those few of us who survived the war."

"But the council wasn't responsible for the war! Most of us weren't
even alive, then. Believe me, we weren't to blame--"

"I know." The gigantic face creased in senile simulation of a smile.
"Nobody was ever to blame for anything, nobody was ever responsible.
That's what they always told me. I mustn't hate mankind for
multiplying, even though population created pressure and pressure
created panic that drove me mad. I mustn't blame Leffingwell for
solving the overpopulation problem, even though he used me as a
guinea-pig in his experiments. I mustn't blame the Yardsticks for
penning me up in prison until revolution broke out, and I mustn't
blame the Naturalists for bombing the place where I took refuge. So
whose fault was it that I've gone through eighty years of assorted
hell? Why did I, Harry Collins, get singled out for a lifetime of
misery and misfortune?" The huge old man bent over Littlejohn's
huddled form. "Maybe it was all a means to an end. A way of bringing
me here, at this moment, to do what must be done."

"Don't harm me--you're not well, you're--"

"Crazy?" The old man shook his head. "No, I'm not crazy. Not now. But
I _have_ been, at times, during my life. Perhaps we all are, when we
attempt to face up to the complications of an average existence, try
to confront the problems which are too big for a single consciousness
to cope with in a single life-span. I've been crazy in the city, and
crazy in the isolation of a cell, and crazy in the welter of war. And
perhaps the worst time of all was when I lost my son.

"Yes, I had a son, Littlejohn. He was one of the first, one of
Leffingwell's origin