"I told you once that I believe all this of Aldebaran IX was fated. I believe also that Aldebaran IX was so composed of uranium to be found and exploited for the complete betterment of mankind. That is the irony. For two hundred years, now, we have spoken of unleashing the atom for the betterment of mankind. But what more has come of it than a highly developed science of the destruction of mankind, and the gradual debasing of the entire universe. Man must warrant his own betterment, Mr. Rogers, and it is therefore that Aldebaran IX was placed well within the reaches of Hell, a very deceptive Hell, but Hell no less. Man was meant to have achieved god-like proportions before he would discover this place. The men of the Essex were not god-like, believe me. Nor are the men of the Algonquin. Nor are you. "Aldebaran IX is a world not meant for men to walk upon. It is a disguise. There are gardens and deserts, jungles and plains. But there are no oceans. The ocean here is the atmosphere. Should I have told the men of the Algonquin that in this ocean swims a Leviathan that defies the very existence we claim, Mr. Rogers? This is our adversary. This is the killer of the crew of the Essex. This is the sum total of man's stumbling blocks, his barrier to his own betterment. A giant, half the length of the Algonquin, almost its girth, with eyes each as large as a man. "Kill him, Mr. Rogers, and you have conquered man's evil. You will see him. You will see why this had to be." I could say nothing. I believed then that he was more than a little mad, but he had instilled a strange fear in me. I wanted to be away from all of this. I wanted no part in this undoing of man's evil. "I can only say that I feel that a man should be given a choice of participating or not in this madness," I said, the words sounding very dry and brittle. "No, Mr. Rogers. No. Give man a choice and he will refuse." "I must go now, Captain Kingsford. It's time I made my rounds of the emplacements." "I'll join you, Mr. Rogers," he said, and we left the ship together. I never entered the hatch of the Algonquin again. * * * * * We spent the entire night covering the perimeter of the defense positions. The emplacements were spaced at about half-mile intervals, each covering the other, and each manned by two of the crew. We had armed each position with a fixed base nuclear rifle of recoilless design, as well as small arms for the individual men. The night was pervaded by a heavy silence, broken only by the distant humming of the refinery and the reactor. The men at the emplacements spoke little. The spirit of the hunt, as I have said, had dwindled, but there was a feeling about this night that hung over all of us.