The world outside the jet was a dark blur. He had left Nairobi at 0518 Nairobi time; jetting back across the eight intervening time zones, he would arrive in New York around midnight. Ultrarapid jet transit made such things possible; he would live twice through the early hours of June nineteenth. New York had a fifteen minute rain scheduled at 0100 that night. Walton reached the housing project where he lived just as the rain was turned on. The night was otherwise a little muggy; he paused outside the main entrance, letting the drops fall on him. After a few minutes, feeling faintly foolish and very tired, he went inside, shook himself dry, and went to bed. He did not sleep. Four caffeine tablets helped him get off to a running start in the morning. He arrived at the Cullen Building early, about 0835, and spent some time bringing his private journal up to date, explaining in detail the burden of his interview with the alien ambassador. Some day, Walton thought, a historian of the future would discover his journal and find that for a short period in 2232 a man named Roy Walton had acted as absolute dictator of humanity. The odd thing, Walton reflected, was that he had absolutely no power drive: he had been pitchforked into the role, and each of his successive extra-legal steps had been taken quite genuinely in the name of humanity. Rationalization? Perhaps. But a necessary one. At 0900 Walton took a deep breath and called Keeler of security. The security man smiled oddly and said, "I was just about to call you, sir. We have some news, at last." "News? What?" "Lamarre. We found his body this morning, just about an hour ago. Murdered. It turned up in Marseilles, pretty badly decomposed, but we ran a full check and the retinal's absolutely Lamarre's." "Oh," Walton said leadenly. His head swam. "Definitely Lamarre," he repeated. "Thanks, Keeler. Fine work. Fine." "Something wrong, sir? You look--" "I'm very tired," Walton said. "That's all. Tired. Thanks, Keeler." "You called me about something, sir," Keeler reminded him gently. "Oh, I was calling about Lamarre. I guess there's no point in--thanks, Keeler." He broke the contact. For the first time Walton felt total despair, and, out of despair, came a sort of deathlike calmness. With Lamarre dead, his only hope of obtaining the serum was to free Fred and wangle the notes from him. But Fred's price for the notes would be Walton's job. Full circle, and a dead end. Perhaps Fred could be induced to reveal the whereabouts of the notes. It wasn't likely, but it was possible. And if not? Walton shrugged. A man could do only so much. Terraforming had proved a failure, equalization was a stopgap of limited value, and the one extrasolar planet worth colonizing was held by aliens. Dead end. _I tried_, Walton thought. _Now let someone else try._