ed the way he did
old Suma-theek. Sometimes I think there ought to be listed on a bronze
tablet on the wall of each great structure the names of those who died
in giving it birth. The big structures all are consecrated in blood.
Skyscrapers, bridges, and dams all demand their human sacrifices. Thirty
men went on the Makon. We've lost eight here so far."

"Sara was frightfully upset," said Pen. "That's why he took the
morphine. Any thought of death makes him hysterical. The chant set him
to swearing frightfully. Jim, I'd give anything to be able to set Sara
right with himself."

"Pen, why did Sara come down here?" asked Jim abruptly.

Penelope hesitated. She did not want to voice Iron Skull's suspicions
until she had verified them. "I don't know, Jim," she said finally. "I
thought it was for his health and land, but I feel uneasy since I see
his attitude toward you."

"If he has an idea of speculating in real estate, I'll have to head him
off," said Jim. "Land speculation hurts the projects very seriously."

"What harm does it do?" asked Pen.

"Inflates land values so that farming doesn't pay with the already heavy
building charges for the dam."

"Oh, I see!" mused Pen. "I'll talk to Sara about it."

"Don't say a word to him. I can fight my own battles with Sara.
Penelope, what were you thinking about when you sat over there at the
crater edge with your head on your arms?"

In the moonlight a slow red stained Pen's face. Jim watched her with
puzzled eyes.

"I--I can't tell you all I was thinking," she said. "But some of it was
because of Iron Skull. I was thinking how awful it will be for us to
die, you and Sara and me, leaving not a human being behind us, just as
Iron Skull did."

"Most of us New Englanders are going that way," said Jim. "We Americans
have so steadily decreased our birth rate in the past hundred years that
we are nearly seven million babies below normal. South European children
will take their places."

"Well, I don't know that it will hurt America in the long run," said
Pen.

"I think it will," insisted Jim. "This country is governed by
institutions that are inherently Teutonic. The people who will inherit
these institutions are fundamentally different in their conceptions of
government and education. I'm a New Englander, descendant of the
Anglo-Saxon founders of the country. I can't see my race and its ideal
passing without its breaking my heart."

"Why do you pass?" asked Pen sharp