He kissed her gently, as he might kiss a child, and walked back to the oak tree. "He's behaving very oddly," reported Norcross to Prime Center, as soon as he could, and gave the details. "I'd give a lot to have him meet a human female," said Prime Center wistfully. "What shall I do?" "Stay with him and wait," ordered Prime Center. "This is the first time the hopes of humanity lie in one man. Remember that. We can only serve," he added bitterly. "He hasn't tested the final limitation? Good. Keep me informed." * * * * * John Davis Drumstetter stayed beside his huge mind machine for nearly a week, and, though he was only sixty, he looked like an old man when he greeted Monica and Norcross at the end of that time. "The relay is finished," he announced. "It's being installed in the _Last Hope_ now. That's what I'm calling my ship, the ship to make mankind free of the stars. My work on Earth is nearly done." "But, Johnny darling," said Monica Drake Lane, looking up at him through her eyelashes, "what about our marriage?" He looked at her with grim pity. "The bower was an old bower," he answered. "Did you have the courage to be a unique in a patterned world? Can you reproduce, Monica Drake Lane?" "Oh, Johnny--" "The final limitation!" he said. "Humans have the power to command pseudo-life. Pseudo-life, answer! I command!" She sank to the ground. "No," she said, "no, Johnny, I can't have a baby. I died over a month ago. I'm sorry you found out." John Davis Drumstetter turned on Scientist William Manning Norcross. "You've done no new work because you have no capacity for it. Correct? Answer, pseudo-life, I command!" Norcross lifted a calm face. "Why, yes," he said, "I'm pseudo-life. Have been for over two years. But don't you worry, Johnny, it's better this way and only natural that--" John Davis Drumstetter paid no attention. He spoke as if explaining to himself. "You see, they're pseudo-life, dancing to the very end of the masquerade ball that started so long ago. It began when measurable science, the science of finity, made a finite man, a man _nearly_ as good. It was the mental climate of an age that wanted its books digested, and then abandoned reading for television. They froze food and precooked it and said it was even better than garden fresh vegetables. "Do it the easy way, they said, never knowing that the hard way is the only way in the last analysis. Why try to cure a neurotic when you can make a pseudo-life of him? Don't let his grieving friends and relations suffer; provide them with a pseudo-life. He's just the same, they said, and he's not sick. And should a man die? Oh, no! Make a pseudo-life for his wife and children." "But, Johnny--"