In the afternoon I asked her if she knew whether, in the present state of human technology, it would be possible for our folly to actually destroy this planet. She did not know, for certain. Three of the other children have gone away to different parts of the world, to learn what they can about that. But she had to tell me that such a thing has happened before, elsewhere in the Universe. I guess I won't write a letter to the papers advancing an explanation for the occasional appearance of a nova among the stars. Doubtless others have hit on the same hypothesis without the aid of angels. And that is not all I must consider. I could die by accident or sudden disease before I had begun to give my life. Only now, at this very late moment, rubbing my sweaty forehead and gazing into the lights of that wonderful ring, have I been able to put together some obvious facts in the required synthesis. I don't know, of course, what forms their assistance to us will take. I suspect human beings won't see or hear much of the angels for a long time to come. Now and then disastrous decisions may be altered, and those who believe themselves wholly responsible won't realize why their minds worked that way. Here and there, maybe an influential mind will be rather strangely nudged into a better course. Something like that. There may be new discoveries and inventions of kinds that will tend to neutralize the menace of our nastiest playthings. But whatever the angels decide to do, the record and analysis of my fairly typical life will be an aid. It could even be the small weight deciding the balance between triumph and failure. That is Fact One. Two: my angel and her brothers and sisters, for all their amazing level of advancement, are also of perishable protoplasm. Therefore, if this ball of mud becomes a ball of flame, they also will be destroyed. Even if they have the means to use their spaceship again or to build another, it might easily happen that they would not learn their danger in time to escape. And for all I know, this could be tomorrow. Or tonight. So there can no longer be any doubt as to my choice, and I will tell her when she wakes. * * * * * July 9 Tonight[2] there is no recall; I am to rest a while. I see it is almost a month since I last wrote in this journal. My total recall began three weeks ago, and already the first twenty-eight years of my life have been saved. [Footnote 2: At this point Dr. Bannerman's handwriting alters curiously. From here on he used a soft pencil instead of a pen, and the script shows signs of haste. In spite of this, however, it is actually much clearer, steadier and easier to read than the earlier entries in his normal hand.--BLAINE] It was a week after I told the angel my decision before she was prepared to start the recall. During that week she searched my present mind more closely than I should have imagined was possible: she had to be sure.