avail them
nothing in the long run--or the short either. Destruction of the
computers would not cure Earth. It might easily increase the reliance of
Earthfolk upon their cybernetic monsters. What was needed to effect a
cure was destruction of human confidence in and reliance upon these
machines.

And how in hell, he wondered, was he going to manage that?

* * * * *

To a man from level, water-starved Mars the sight of New Orleans still
ablaze with lights at five o'clock in the morning was something of a
miracle. Mars had its share of atomic power-plants, of course, but such
sources had proved almost prohibitively costly as providers of cheap
power.

That was true on Earth too, of course, but Earth had its rivers, its
waterfalls, its ocean tides to help out. More important, it averaged
some fifty million miles closer to the Sun, thus giving it immense
storage supplies of solar heat for power. Without these resources the
thousand-square-mile expanse of intricately criss-crossed artificial
lighting that was the United Worlds capital would have been impossible.

Lindsay wondered how any people possessed of a planet so rich could be
afflicted with such poverty of soul. Or was this very opulence the
cause? His own planet was comparatively poor--yet nervous breakdowns
were few and far between. There the ugly strove for beauty, instead of
the reverse.

He parked the copter on the garage-plat, pressed the button, and watched
it sink slowly out of sight to its concealed hangar. Like all Martian
natives to leave for Earth, he had been warned about the intense heat
and humidity that assailed most of the mother planet, especially in the
UW capital. Yet the night breeze felt pleasantly cool against his face
and its thickness was like the brush of invisible velvet against his
skin. Perhaps, he thought, he was more of an Earthling than three
generations of Martian heredity made likely.

He did miss the incredible brilliance of the Martian night skies. Here
on Earth the stars shone as puny things through the heavy atmosphere.

But, he thought guiltily, he did not have as severe a pang of
homesickness as he ought.

In a state of self-bemusement he rode the elevator down to his suite on
the ninety-first story. And was utterly unprepared for the assault which
all but bore him to the floor as he stepped out into his own foyer.

Since the attack came from behind and his assailant's first move was t