"Now, matter, let me speak of myself. Know you that I am the only entity that exists, if I exclude your puny selves. I am thought. I am intelligence. I was born unuttered ages ago, when thinking life first appeared. "I could be called pure life-force--theta. But that theta was trapped by matter, enturbulated by it. As matter disappeared, Theta was freed from its entrapment, and I, the Supreme Entity, came into greater and greater ego-awareness." The Voice ebbed abruptly, then came back with a frightened roar. "My strength is being drained! The millions, the billions of years are passing. I am aging! How hard it is to maintain communication with your low order of intelligence. "But I must speak, and I must receive your answers, even though--fury--your own voices are like growls and whines, and even though the psychons of my being are inevitably disintegrating. Know you, matter, that once this disintegration is complete I shall--die." "Sympathy gag," Bill's lips formed for Molly's benefit. "If we don't watch our step from now on, this guy can sell us anything." To the Intelligence he said cautiously, "Now maybe you're getting to the point. What's your product? What are you trying to sell?" "Product? Sell?" Then the Voice swelled up. "The UNIVERSE! That is my product, that is what you shall buy--or be destroyed! "Now listen well. I shall not be able to repeat. When I die--" the Voice dwelt on the words with an exquisite sadness that would have wrenched the heart of anybody but a hardened salesman "--the universe will have come to that state you know as the heat-death. "No motion--and no source of motion! For eons I have brooded on this sadness. And now I have discovered YOU! "You, matter, shall resurrect the universe." Is was lying still, Bill's strong fingers rubbing her absently behind the fluffy ears. Something churned abruptly in Bill's stomach. _Resurrection. Turn back the universe, and give me yesterday...._ He paled. Atom bombs, space fleets bristling with men for slaughter and weapons for slaughtering. Poverty. Misery. Kids in tenements without lawns. "What do you mean by resurrection, Voice?" The question came from the very bottom of Bill. "Would the old universe come back? Our planet Earth? The other planets?" "Yes, yes! I would arrange it. A matrix sheeted four-dimensionally about the universe--which is myself. A matrix through which all re-created motion would pass. Your Earth would be remade--" "With all human emotions," said Bill casually. "Exactly! You shall aid in resurrecting the universe. I have had your answer!" Delirious joy flamed through the Voice's being. "Now I shall tell you how the marvellous occurrence can be brought about!" Molly was looking at Bill with tears in her eyes. "Don't you want it, Bill?" she whispered. "The way it was? Some of it was beautiful." "Some of it," said Bill grimly. "You--and Is--and Was--are the only beautiful things I ever got out of it. But let him talk."