He must have guessed before this that the story of the waiting space ship was a hoax. But, giving the last of his strength, and hoping against hope, he had fought his way there. When the first rays of the morning sun showed him that the meadow was bare and empty his raw courage deserted him. He fell face forward on the red sand. "I suggest we conclude our project with a final vote before we leave," Srtes said, a few minutes after we watched the alien come to the end of his resources. "I am certain no one of you can have any doubts as to what our decision must be." His passive face betrayed no emotion. "Our plan, decided on soon after we learned of the Humans' existence," Srtes' voice droned on, "was to make an early contact. If the Humans proved a race whose physical and mental strength equaled or surpassed our own, prudence would indicate that we seek peace. If we found them weak, we would exterminate them, and take over their world. The dominant factor in our decision was to be our study of the specimen we brought back, and how he conducted himself in the Big Run. We have all seen the results of that experiment." Srtes looked about the room. "Are we all agreed that the only wise course--in view of our observations--is to do everything in our power to establish peaceful relations with the Earthmen?" There was no dissenting vote. "When our envoys leave for Earth an honored place will be made for our visitor," Srtes added. * * * * * The meeting was over, and the fateful decision had been made. For the next great tide much of my work would consist in reporting the tearing down of the Big Run. The alien had believed it to be one of our cities. It was a great deal of work, constructing the Big Run to test one alien specimen, but the results had proven the effort warranted. Now it could be disposed of. Perhaps this very day we would begin dismantling the giant testing maze. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Specimen, by Charles V. DeVet