His voice went dead. In an instant, all the frowning concentration blanked out of his face. Very slowly, like a man who suddenly becomes aware that there is a monster behind him, he began to turn around. At the same time, Clawly felt himself begin to shake--and for the same reason. It was a very small and ordinary thing--just a small cough, a dry clearing of the throat. But it came from behind the desk. * * * * * The shriveled, scorched body was swaying a little; the charred hands were pushing across the desk, leaving black smears; a tremor was apparent in the blackened jaw. For a moment they only watched in horror. Then, drawn by the same irresistible impulse, they slowly approached the desk. The blind, ghastly movements continued. Then the burnt lips parted, and they heard the whisper--a whisper that was in every syllable a hard-won victory over seared tissues. "I should be dead, but strange vitalities linger in him who has possessed a talisman. My eyes are embers, but I can dimly see you. Come closer, that I may say what must be said. I have a testament to make, and little time in which to make it, and no choice as to whom it is made. Draw nearer, that I may tell you what must be done for the sake of all worlds." They obeyed, sweat starting from their foreheads in awe of the inhumanly sustained vitality that permitted this charred mummy to speak. "Purely by chance, a man of the Dawn Civilization discovered a talisman--a small nonmechanical engine controlled by thought--giving him the power of traveling in time, and across time, and into the regions beyond time. There it led him to seven other talismans, and to a similar but larger engine of even greater power, which he named the Probability Engine. He took in with him seven accomplices, I being one, and together we used the Probability Engine to split time and make actual all possible worlds, preserving only the best of them, and--so we thought--destroying the rest." The whisper slowly began to diminish in strength. Clawly and the other leaned in closer to the black, white-foreheaded face.