rs for them to fight. You rig things so that they
quit, or get fired, or lose elections, or get arrested, or just
generally get put out of circulation. Some of the less stable ones
just up and did away with themselves.

"Sometimes, it's individuals who have to go. Sometimes, it's whole
groups or maybe even whole nations. And sometimes it's in between, and
you manage to foul up organizational moves with misplaced papers,
mis-sent messages, errors, changed minds, and everything else you can
think of.

"You know," he went on, "at first I couldn't see any pattern in what
was going on--though I remember telling myself that there was a kind
of justice in the way this thing was just as hard on gangsters as it
was on businessmen and Congressmen.

"The Congressman from Gahoochie County, Arkansas, gets himself in a
jam over fraudulent election returns on the same day that the
accountant for the Truckers Union sends Mike Sands' books to the
Attorney General. Simple justice, I call it.

"And, you know, seen from that viewpoint, this whole caper might come
out looking pretty good. If most of the characters you've taken care
of are just the boys who needed taking care of, I'd say more power to
you--except for one thing. It's all right to get rid of all the fools,
idiots, maniacs, blockheads, morons, psychopaths, paranoids,
timidity-ridden, fear-worshipers, fanatics, thieves, and the rest of
the general, all-round, no-good characters; I'm all for it. But not
this way. Oh, no.

"You've pressed the panic button, that's what you've done.

"You've done more damage in two weeks than all those fumblebrains have
been able to do in several myriads of lifetimes. You've loused up the
economy of this nation and every other civilized nation. You've caused
riots in which innocent people have died; you've caused thousands more
to lose their businesses and their savings. And only God Himself knows
how many more are going to die of starvation and murder before this
thing is over.

"And you can't tell me that _all_ of those people deserve to die."

He slowed down as he came to a small town, and for the first time in
many miles he focused on the road ahead with his full mind. The town,
he saw, looked like a shambles. There were four cars tastefully
arranged on the lawn of what appeared to be the local library. Across
the street, a large drugstore was in flames, and surprised people were
hurrying to put it out. There didn't seem to be any Stat