The Ultimate World By BRYCE WALTON After attaining all conceivable goals, then what? The City was perfection, an ultimate city that left nothing to be desired and sought after. But the City was dying--for it had no purpose. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1945. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Low tinkling music awakened Amco. He stirred up out of semi-consciousness as the three-dim screen glowed purple. Lethargic nerves sharpened with intuitive sense of foreboding as the noble figure of the City's Coordinator appeared in the three-dim radius. The perfect, if characterless, features of the Coordinator were taut with strain. "We're confronted by a serious crisis, Amco," his voice said, and waited. Amco frowned. A crisis? How could perfection be confronted by crisis? The City was an ultimate City, colossal, tiers on tiers of intricacy that left nothing desired nor sought after. But-- The last episode that could be termed crisis had been six centuries ago in 9400 when an armada of heavily armed ships from an alien cosmos tried an invasion of Dhoma and were annihilated. Could they be facing another such attack? If so, it was a form of offensive unpredictable by the most advanced Dhomastrial minds. He examined the Coordinator's waiting face. "I see that the word 'crisis' is perplexing you, Amco." "Yes. I fail to evolve such a possibility." "Our city is dying," said the Coordinator. "How?" Amco asked. "How can perfection die?" "That is the crisis," said the Coordinator. "We have forgotten how to think. The City has reached a theoretical saturation point. The apparently insoluble problem of--no problems. Utter intellectual and neural satiation. We're no longer motivated to exist. After attaining all conceivable goals, then what?" A little flutter of interest stirred in Amco's bored mind. "We must think again," he said. "Constructively." "Then why don't you think?" said the Coordinator softly. Amco paused blankly. Then: "Wha--what about?" "That," said the Coordinator, "is our problem. Think of something to think about." Amco felt the atavistic fluttering again. "We've achieved all possible physical attainments. Perhaps the answer is in the psychoneurel. The imagination." "Possibly, Amco. Any practical ideas to follow up with?" "I--I--No," said Amco in almost a whisper. "But it would be sad to see the City die." The Coordinator trembled with the extreme atavism that differentiated him so starkly from the norm. He raised a clenched fist in a gesture symbolic of a time so long buried that it stirred fear in Amco. "It mustn't die!" he hissed. "It mustn't die!" "But you said--" began Amco. The Coordinator interrupted: