GO TO THEIR OLD DOME AND GIVE UP. YOUR AIR WONT LAST. THEY WON'T KILL. SCARED. QUESTION YOU ABOUT WEAPON. REMEMBER WHAT GEORGE & HARRY SAID ABOUT WEAPON BEFORE, BUT PLAY A LITTLE DUMB. LEAVE REST TO ME. I waited while I saw them reading it, then I rubbed it out. Clair shook her head. Her eyes told me plainly enough that she didn't want to die, but that she'd rather die out here with me than otherwise. Gramps looked like he would rather be sitting someplace comfortable with his guitar, but he was trying to smile a little. I crouched and wrote again, just three words: PLEASE GO. NOW. I erased the line with my boots and I waited, then I turned around for a long time and didn't look back at them. When I did, they were two tiny figures on the twisted, broken landscape, walking toward the second dome. * * * * * For a while I waited, and then I swarmed all over my pinnacle again, like George and Harry and anyone else who might have been around. They could come and get me, of course, but I figured they wouldn't. Then they might never find the weapon. That was their dilemma, not mine. Mine was to do something along the lines of Gramps' war of nerves, and do something good, before my air ran out. I said, "Watch it, George. Take it easy. Don't you think the chief ought to be around before you try anything?" I climbed off the pinnacle so no one could see me. "Naw," I made George say. "I know what I'm doing. F'r gosh sakes, what could happen? I got the charts right here. I wanta hurry and get back to the wife in Canal City. Some damn bus driver...." I'd make it sound like their own story, and maybe they'd believe. "Well, okay," my Harry said dubiously. George sighed. "There. That does it. Now--watch." Silence. I watched thirty seconds tick off on my suit clock, then I made Harry scream: "George! Good God, George.... Arrgh!" I hoped the scream was a good one. Honest, it almost scared me. Poor George and Harry: I had killed them off quick enough. Now I had to invent new characters. For a brief moment I wondered what had happened to Clair and Gramps, but then I pushed them out of my mind. I couldn't afford to think of that now. I let six minutes pass. It was agonizing, but I did it. Then I did my best to invent two new voices. "So, here's the spot, Mike. Funny, I don't see them." Mike had a high, squeaky voice. "Hah-hah, don't worry, chief. They'll be around." "I don't find your humor amusing. So--Mike. Mike! Look...." I let my voice trail off. If this wasn't so damned serious, it could have been amusing. I was really living the part. Mike said: "God, chief, both of 'em. Shrivelled up like that, burned to a crisp. Chief--" "What can you do? I told them not to play games with it until I came, and they just didn't know how to work the damper. Fools, they could have killed us all. Well, suppose we take care of those people in the domes." "You mean like this, chief?"