s were.

Wainer was a link, incomplete, groping, unfinished. A link.

It meant more to him, I think, than any man can ever really understand.
He had a purpose, after all, but it was more than that. He was a
creature with a home. He was part of the Universe more deeply than any
of us had ever been. In the vast eternal plan which only You and Your
kind can see, Wainer was a beginning, vital part. All the long years
were not wasted. The pain of the lungs was dust and air.

Wainer looked at me and I shall never forget his face. He was a man at
peace who has lived long enough.

(Because They knew much more than the old man could ever know, They were
utterly, nakedly absorbed, and the silence of the room was absolute. The
old man tired and closed to the end, while They--unbreathing, undying,
telepathic and more, the inconceivable next phase in the Evolution of
Man--listened and learned.)

* * * * *

He lived for another six months, long enough to take part in the
experiments the Rashes had planned, and to write the Tenth Symphony.
Even the Rashes could not ignore the Tenth.

It was Wainer's valedictory, a sublime, triumphant summation, born of
his hope for the future of Man. It was more than music; it was a
cathedral in sound. It was Wainer's soul.

Wainer never lived to hear it played, to hear himself become famous, and
in the end, I know, he did not care. Although we could have saved him
for a little while, although I pleaded with him to remain for the sake
of his woman and his music, Wainer knew that the pattern of his life was
finished, that the ending time was now.

For Wainer went out into space at last, into the sweet dark home between
the stars, moving toward the only great moment he would ever have.

The Rashes wanted to see how his lungs would react in alien atmospheres.
Not in a laboratory--Wainer refused--but out in the open Sun, out in the
strange alien air of the worlds themselves, Wainer was set down. On each
of a dozen poisonous worlds he walked. He opened his helmet while we
tiny men watched. He breathed.

And he lived.

[Illustration]

He lived through methane, through carbon dioxide, through nitrogen and
propane. He existed without air at all for an incredible time, living
all the while as he never had before, with a wonderful, glowing
excitement. And then at last there was that final world which was
corrosive. It was too much, and Wainer smiled regretfully, ho