"It could have been, certainly. Almost by definition we must call an enemy anything that can harm us. But that it was a conscious enemy is something else again. Who can say what cosmic forces are conscious? Or even what it means to be conscious?" * * * * * However, the Possibility Searcher Institute had some spotted success. It had worked out a test, a valid test, of determining whether an individual yet remaining had the spark of possible fertility. And in only a few million tests it had found one male shrew, one male gannet, no less than three males of the yellow perch, one female alligator, and one female mud puppy, all of whom still possessed the potential. This was encouraging, but it did not solve the problem. No issue could be obtained from any possible pairing of these; not that it wasn't tried. And when the possibility test was run on all the humans of the Earth, then it was that incredible and unsuspected success crowned the efforts of the institute. For, of a bare three billion persons tested, there were two who tested positive; and (good fortune beyond all hoping), one was male and one was female. So then the problem was solved. A few years had been lost, it is true, and several generations would be required to get the thing on a sound footing again. But life had been saved. Civilization could yet be transmitted. All was not lost. Musha ibn Scmuel was an Arabian black, an unthrifty man of tenuous income. His occupation on the cardex was given as thief, but this may have been a euphemism. He was middle-aged and of full vigor, a plain man innocent of shoes or subtlety. He was guilty neither of the wine-hatred of the Musselman nor the garrulousness of the Greek. He possessed his soul in quietude and Port Said whisky and seldom stole more than he needed. And he had a special competence shared by no other man in the world. Cecilia Clutt was an attractive and snooty spinster of thirty-five. She was a person of inherited as well as acquired wealth, and was an astute business woman and amateur of the arts. She did have a streak of stubbornness in her, but seldom revealed it unless she was crossed. So, the first time she said no, it was hardly noticed. And the second time she said it, it was felt that she did not quite understand the situation. So it was Carmody Overlark, the silky diplomat, who came to reason with her. "You are the sole hope of the human race," he said to her. "In a way, you are the new Eve." "I have heard the first one spoken badly of," said Cecilia. "Yet her only fault was that she could be talked into something. I cannot." "But this is important." "Not really. If it is our time to disappear, then let us disappear with dignity. What you suggest is without it. It would leave us a little less than human." "Miss Clutt, this is a world problem. You are only an individual."