"Behold!" Roy cried out. "I bring you tidings! But not the tidings of the dove. I am your lost raven returned--the raven of death! My tidings are of the new future which your descendants will not know and so will not doom." The frightened upturned faces were far behind and he was talking to himself. "Hear me, Noah, for I am come to destroy you, and with you your seeds of self-destruction. These are the tidings I bring from the future that has ceased to exist because you existed--the future that will exist once more when you cease to." He heeled the spacecraft over and back. No more speeches, he told himself, though he had studied the Book in fascination. He was a killer, not a philosopher. He would have to make his strafing run low. If he dived on the target his bullets would go into the holds and kill the animals. He roared at the Ark a few feet above the waves. They were all together in a clump, the eight of them. Farewell, Noah! he thought as his thumbs pressed on the death-dealing button. Farewell, Noah and Noah's wife! Farewell, Ham, and Ham's wife and unborn sons--farewell, Canaan, and Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut! Farewell, Shem! And unborn Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram! And farewell, Japheth, father of sons of science! Farewell, Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras! Farewell, all tribes. Make way for the animal kingdom in the Garic Covenant. * * * * * He had made three passes and now he zoomed into the sky. He had destroyed humanity and changed the future. Or had he? He'd be dead, too, if he had, gone like the snap of a finger with the last gasp from the Ark. He had killed his ancestors. He had killed everybody's ancestors, but _he_ existed still. Where was the paradox that Dr. Gar had overlooked? The Ark had drifted closer to the shore. He circled it and counted the lifeless bodies lying in red stains on the gopher wood of the deck. Eight. Then he noticed the change. The backs of his hands were hairier. His shoes were binding him. When he kicked them off his agile toes curled comfortably around the control pedals. He had a glimpse of a hairy, flat-nosed face reflected in the instrument panel. It laughed and the sound came out a simian yap. But for all that he was still a sentient being. His control of the spacecraft was as expert as before. It hadn't worked. _Do you hear, Dr. Gar?_ he thought. _It's a flop. I goofed the mission. We're all dead, no matter what._ _I give you a new commandment, man who would be God: Thou shalt not tamper with time._