He smiled and looked out at the shadowed lawn. This would be a place for the historians, the _writing_ historians, Dubbinville, U.S.A. And why should a man be happy, looking forward to so damned much trouble? _Mr. Gault has just presented us with a wholly plausible if highly terrifying view of a reasonably near future. Such things could, conceivably, come to pass. And prophecy, from the time of Jules Verne to the present, has long been one of the several spinal columns of science fiction. Yet is it possible for anyone to predict an unvisited future? We are inclined to think not. Gadgetry to come, as repeatedly demonstrated by Verne, is easy. But no one yet has been able to tell what human beings are going to do from day to day, much less years and years ahead of time._ TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe Aug-Sept 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. End of Project Gutenberg's The Mighty Dead, by William Campbell Gault