Perhaps it was the traditionally bracing effect of sea air--perhaps it was the sheltered life--but Martin lived to be a very old man. He was a hundred and four when his last illness came. It was a great relief when the family doctor, called in again from the future, said there was no hope. Martin didn't think he could have borne another year of life. All the cousins gathered at the yacht to pay their last respects to their progenitor. He saw Ninian again, after all these years, and Raymond--all the others, dozens of them, thronging around his bed, spilling out of the cabin and into the passageways and out onto the deck, making their usual clamor, even though their voices were hushed. Only Ives was missing. He'd been the lucky one, Martin knew. He had been spared the tragedy that was going to befall these blooming young people--all the same age as when Martin had last seen them and doomed never to grow any older. Underneath their masks of woe, he could see relief at the thought that at last they were going to be rid of their responsibility. And underneath Martin's death mask lay an impersonal pity for those poor, stupid descendants of his who had blundered so irretrievably. There was only one face which Martin had never seen before. It wasn't a strange face, however, because Martin had seen one very like it in the looking glass when he was a young man. "You must be Conrad," Martin called across the cabin in a voice that was still clear. "I've been looking forward to meeting you for some time." The other cousins whirled to face the newcomer. "You're too late, Con," Raymond gloated for the whole generation. "He's lived out his life." "But he hasn't lived out his life," Conrad contradicted. "He's lived out the life _you_ created for him. And for yourselves, too." For the first time, Martin saw compassion in the eyes of one of his lineage and found it vaguely disturbing. It didn't seem to belong there. "Don't you realize even yet," Conrad went on, "that as soon as he goes, you'll go, too--present, past, future, wherever you are, you'll go up in the air like puffs of smoke?" "What do you mean?" Ninian quavered, her soft, pretty face alarmed. Martin answered Conrad's rueful smile, but left the explanations up to him. It was his show, after all. "Because you will never have existed," Conrad said. "You have no right to existence; it was you yourselves who watched him all the time, so he didn't have a chance to lead a normal life, get married, _have children_...." * * * * * Most of the cousins gasped as the truth began to percolate through. "I knew from the very beginning," Conrad finished, "that I didn't have to do anything at all. I just had to wait and you would destroy yourselves." "I don't understand," Bartholomew protested, searching the faces of the cousins closest to him. "What does he mean, we have never existed? We're here, aren't we? What--"