Dr. Haenlingen had told her she was too close to see properly, and, of course, she was. Perhaps she knew that, in the final seconds. Perhaps she never did. But that Dodd, who wanted to die and who considered death the only proper atonement for his life, could have displaced that wish onto the Confederation, onto his "enemies," and so reached a precarious and temporary balance, never occurred to her. And if it had, perhaps she could have done nothing better ... time had run out. Time had run out. Johnny Dodd's enemies wanted him dead, and so he had to kill them (and so avoid killing himself, and so avoid recognizing how much he himself wanted to be dead). But the balance wasn't complete. There was still the guilt, still the terrible guilt that made it _right_ for the Confederation to kill him. The guilt had to be displaced, too. Norma did what she could, did what she thought right. "You don't have to die," she told him. "You're not responsible." That was what he heard, and it was enough. He hadn't made the Alberts into slaves. He hadn't made the Alberts into slaves. But he knew who had. Long before, it had all been carefully explained to him. All of the tricks that had been used.... Of course, Dodd thought. Of course he wasn't responsible. He felt an enormous peace descend on him, like a cloak, as he turned with the beam in his hand and smiled at Norma. She began, tentatively, to return his smile. The beam cut her down where she stood and left a swathe of jungle behind her black and smoking. Dodd, his job completed, dropped the beam. For one instant four words lit up in his mind, and then everything went out into blankness and peace. The body remained, the body moved, the body lived, for a time. But after those four words, blinding and bright and then swallowed up, Johnny Dodd was gone. He had found what he needed. _This is the end._ * * * * * PUBLIC OPINION SIX From A Cultural Record of Fruyling's World Personal Histories of the Natives (called Alberts) As Dictated and Preserved on Tape by Historical Commission HN3-40-9 Subject (called) Cadnan ... Dara is dead in the returning, when new masters come to us and say the fighting is over. It is an accident which kills her, a stumble, they say, against a plant which is dangerous to animal life and to our kind. The accident is over and Dara is dead, and we return. I find Marvor after the fighting, once only, and I ask him what it is that is so important about this fighting. The Confederation--the masters we now have--are only masters like the ones we know. Marvor looks at me with a look as if he, too, is a master. "Freedom is that important," he says. "Freedom is the most important thing."