Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Nor Dust Corrupt BY JAMES MC CONNELL _Burial on Earth was the dream of every person in the galaxy. And Krieg was certainly rich enough to buy his way in. Valhalla was his. But he changed his mind...._ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The room seemed more a mausoleum than an office, but that was as had been intended. Perhaps thirty feet high, fifty feet wide, it stretched a good hundred feet in length. It was paneled entirely in jet black onyx, which gave a sense of infinity to it. The floor was a thick lawn of heavy black pile carpeting. Only two areas of the room offered mitigation to this oppressive gloom. Just past the middle, bathed in a haze of light, was placed a large black desk, and behind it sat a man. At the far end of the room, slightly elevated, was an alabaster statue, an abstraction of incredible beauty and poignancy. The statue too was wrapped in a soft nimbus. Few visitors to this room ever had to be told the title of this work of art, for its meaning was apparent in its every line--_Bereavement_. The man behind the big black desk belonged to the room as much as did the onyx walls, the thick carpet or the alabaster statue. Without the presence of this man the chamber seemed strangely empty, strangely morbid, and few of the man's associates cared to remain in the room when he was not there. Somehow the warm air of benevolence to be found in his fair, pinkish face softened the harsh somberness of the appointments, while the gentle strength in his dark and mournful eyes gave amelioration to the atmosphere of despair. His job was to be a Janus, looking from the cheery rubric of today towards the unknown but dimmer colors of tomorrow--to be a bridge between present pleasures and future fears. There was no better man for the task in all the Galaxy than Consolator Steen. At the moment Consolator Steen sat waiting, thinking, planning. Soon through the huge doors facing him would come a man, one Joseph Krieg by name, who sought Steen's assistance. The fact that Krieg was one of the richest men in all the known universe made the impending interview a most important one, for Consolator Steen's assistance depended entirely upon the price that could be paid.