e sure that very good care will be taken
of you."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm sorry, but you must see that you have to go into strict
quarantine now. We dare not risk a plague. After quarantine you will
go to work with our people. Now will you please get into the car at
the extreme right, and follow the police."

"Where am I going?"

"Please hurry. There is a team of incendiaries waiting to clear the
area."

"Oh, damnation," sighed The Most Important Man Alive, and walked
towards the waiting car.

* * * * *

When the ruler consulted the prognosticator again, after the
Assassin's failure had been recorded, he found that a qualification
had been added. The prophecy was now being fulfilled. He considered
this dispassionately. He visualised the complex pattern of implication
almost with pleasure. Was the machine alive? Certainly it could
contemplate itself. It had calculated the effect of its existence, and
had used the knowledge to destroy them. Or had they condemned
themselves? By losing the ability to question. For the information on
which the prophecy was based could have been available to them. Or was
the machine only obeying a greater Fate? A Decree, stating that any
life-form that surrendered itself to the dictates of a machine was
doomed.

One thing alone was left to him. A choice. Without haste he began the
preliminaries to thinking himself to death.

* * * * *

End of Project Gutenberg's The Honored Prophet, by William E. Bentley

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