o turn him in. I know it hurts you to condemn a prolat
to the Death Bath, but if you let him go on, his mistakes will bring
us all to that end."

I glanced toward where a black portal broke the circle of
switchboards, and shuddered. Behind that grim gate leaped and flared
eternally the flame of the consuming Ray, the exhaust flue of the
solar energy by which the machines were fed. Once I had seen a
condemned man step through that aperture at the order of an aristo
whom he had offended. For a moment his tortured body had glowed with a
terrible golden light. Then--there was nothing.

* * * * *

My friend pressed my arm, calmingly. Again he smiled. "Come, come,
Meron, don't get all worked up. It isn't his fault. Why, look at him.
Can't you see that he is a throwback, lost in this world of science
and machines? Besides"--his voice dropped low--"it doesn't matter any
more. Man-failure will no longer trouble the even tenor of the
machines. I've finished."

A tremor of excitement seized me. "You've completed it at last? And it
works?"

"It works. I tested it when the shifts changed at midnight; kept the
oncoming force outside for five minutes. It works like a charm."

"Great! When will you tell the Council?"

"I've already sent the message off. You know how hard it is to get
them away from their wines and their women--but they'll be here soon.
But before they come, I've something to tell you. Let's go back behind
the screens."

As we walked toward the huge tarpaulin-screened mass that bulked in
the center of the great chamber, I glanced around the hall, at the
thousand-foot circle of seated prolats. Two hundred men and women were
there; two hundred more were sleeping in the dormitories. These were
all that were left of the world's workers. Before each operative rose
the serried hundreds of pearl buttons, dim lit, clicking in and out
under the busy fingers. Above each, an oval visor-screen with its
flitting images brought across space the area the switches controlled.
Every one of the ten score was watching his screen with taut
attention, and listening to the voices of the machines there
depicted--the metallic voices from the radio speakers broadcasting
their needs.

The work was going on as it had gone on for ten years, with the
omnipresent threat of the Death Bath whipping flagged, tired brains to
dreary energy. The work kept going on till they dropped worn out at
last in their tire