No one spoke. The room was stifling hot and the breathing of the circle of men was a dull, rattling sound in Curt's ears. Quickly then, gathering sudden momentum, the pip accelerated. The circle of men grew taut. The pip crossed the red line--and vanished. Only the smooth green trace remained, motionless and without meaning. With hesitant shuffling of feet, the circle expanded. The men glanced uncertainly at one another. One said, "Well, that's the end of Dell. We'll soon know now if we're on the right track, or if we've botched it. Carlson will call when he's computed it." "The end of Dell?" Curt repeated slowly, as if trying to convince himself of what he knew had happened. "The pip on the screen--that showed his life leaving him?" "Yes," said Sark. "He knew he had to go. And there are perhaps hundreds more like him. But Dell couldn't have told you of that--" "What will we do with him?" Brown asked abruptly. "If Dell is dead, you murdered him!" Curt shouted. A rising personal fear grew within him. They could not release him now, even though his story would make no sense to anybody. But they had somehow killed Dell, or thought they had, and they wouldn't hesitate to kill Curt. He thought of Louise in the great house with the corpse of Haman Dell--if, of course, he was actually dead. But that was nonsense.... "Dell must have sent you to us!" Sark said, as if a great mystery had suddenly been lifted from his mind. "He did not have time to tell you everything. Did he tell you to take the road behind the farm?" Curt nodded bitterly. "He told me it was the quickest way to get to a doctor." "He did? Then he knew even better than we did how rapidly he was slipping. Yes, this was the quickest way." "What are you talking about?" Curt demanded. "Did Dell say anything at all about what he wanted of you?" "It was all wild. Something about helping with some crazy plans to retreat from the scientific world. He was going to finish talking in the morning, but I guess it wouldn't have mattered. I realize now that he was sick and irrational." "Too sick to explain everything, but not irrational," Sark said thoughtfully. "He left it to us to tell you, since you are to succeed him." "Succeed Dell? In what?" * * * * * Sark suddenly flipped a switch on a panel at his right. A screen lighted with some fuzzy image. It cleared with a slight dial adjustment, and Curt seemed to be looking at some oddly familiar moonlit ruin. "An American city," said Sark, hurrying his words now. "Any city. They are all alike. Ruin. Death. This one died thirty years ago." "I don't understand," Curt complained, bewildered. "Thirty years--" "At another point in the Time Continuum," said Sark. "The future. Your future, you understand. Or, rather, _our_ present, the one you created for us."