When they reached her house, it was completely dark. Either Dell and Kippie had gone to bed or the Wall had been replaced and was playing. "I'm sorry I had to bring you away so abruptly," the tweedy man said. "We can't afford to have the press print unfavorable reports about the force, you understand." He fingered his pipe. "Now, Mrs. Davis, get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow you'll realize it was all a bad dream. You wouldn't kill the stars." Woodenly she walked up the front walk. Hearing Bass's mellow voice from the Wall room, she knew Kippie and Dell were up. She entered the room. Kippie sat curled on the Wall seat. Amanda stared at the handsome face on the Wall. Bass McDowall, Wall idol. Why wasn't he dead? His curl was still curled wrong. She looked more closely at his face as he leaned toward Kippie, gasping, "Sweetie-bug." There was a small scar beneath his left eye. The tiniest, most insignificant scar, but it had never been there before. "Poor Bass, he looks so tired," the Kippie on the Wall seat said. "See how his face looks thinner when he's tired? I wonder if she notices it." Dell said, "After all, Bass has worked hard today, Kippie." Bass's face was indeed thinner. Thinner face, small scar that hadn't been there before, curl that curled wrong--what did it mean? Suddenly she realized the image on the Wall wasn't Bass. She corrected herself. He was a different Bass. He wasn't the one she had shot, but his almost identical double. She stared at her daughter, who looked more like Kippie each time she assumed another of her characteristics or poses. There were hundreds of young people wanting to be Bass or Kippie, hundreds of young men combing their hair the way Bass did, smiling as he did, learning to use their eyes as he did. And if the time should come when a new Bass was needed, there he was, hundreds of him. She frowned. Undoubtedly they had several doubles waiting conveniently nearby to perform if something should happen to one of the stars. * * * * * She felt a choking in her throat. It would be as impossible to kill all the Basses and Kippies as it would be to break every Wall in the world. There was no way to get rid of them, no way to make people listen to what was happening. No way to prevent humanity from watching itself to extinction. As they grew older, she guessed, the actors would grow older too. Gradually Bass would be thirty, then thirty-five, and Lester and the others would age too. But no one would notice; everyone would be aging at the same rate. But some day someone would notice. Some day all the Lesters would die, and there would be no more Lester to smile at Alice and look thoughtful. And people would look around and see that her daughter, Kathryn, was the youngest person in the world. But by then even Kathryn would be past the child-bearing age.