Prologue: Why I Wrote This

Breakfast

Dinner

We ate in silence until Martha finally commented, "You know, this wouldn't have been so overcooked if you hadn't been an hour late getting home."

Lentils landed like lentils on my proventriculus. "That's true," I grunted agreement, "Damned inconsiderate of Harv to get himself squashed when he did."

A dawning moment -- Martha, incredulate: "Harvan -- dead?"

I nodded, sobered a bit by the apparent concern. "A Holdenite landed on him downtown about an hour ago. I was right there, could have been killed myself."

"Did they get the bodies?" Recently, many victims had been collected, dismembered, and put on display by the Holdenite church. Bouquets of human arms, artfully preserved, greeted passersby from the windows and doorways. Bodiless heads were said to adorn every Holdenite altar, and the restrooms were spoken of only in whispers, even by the most callous agnostics.

"No," I reassured, "The sanitation people got them." Martha shuddered, and I became slightly annoyed. "It happens every day, for Chrissake, don't make it such a big deal."

"He was your friend, Georj."

Rather than argue with her, I left the room in disgust. Poor, beloved, anachronistic Martha -- she was a woman years behind her time.

Dessert

I watched the first half of the nightly news, about all I could endure before boredom triumphed. Lately the newscasters had acquired a fascination with the numbers (never the names) of the day's Holdenite victims. "In the Greater Redefined New York area tonight 231 citizens were killed by Holdenites. Eighty-seven killings, and at least twelve major injuries, resulted from fifteen Holdenite attacks on shopping centers in suicide automobiles. Eight were killed in bombings, twelve by nerve gas, thirty-one by machete, and the remaining seventy-seven died in miscellaneous incidents..." Harvan, miscellaneous. The anchor man was touting a new breakfast cereal as I kicked in the picture tube. That was about the fifteenth time in my life that I'd gotten mad enough at the television to smash it. Nothing really matters when you're affluent. Wealth places you above the struggle for survival, but burdens you with an apparently free will.

In retrospect, it seems possible to me now that I had gone into some kind of defensive psychosis at the instant of Harvan's death, and that beneath the casual manner that so maddened Martha I was an emotionally devastated creature. I grant this possibility, the suggestion of which would have infuriated me at the time, because it seems to me now that a radical change in my basic orientation began that night, a change which approaches completion only now that I have apparently completed this book and am penning the conclusion to the brief prologue I feel it requires. Anyway, that evening was the first time in years that I didn't work on my research; I decided instead that it was very important that I begin to write an account of my life, of what I'd been trying to do. I swallowed six hundred micrograms of a powerful chemical from my laboratory and sat down at my typewriter to see what happened. The result is what you, my imaginary reader, have just begun to read -- what I, in the part of the story where you now find yourself, am just preparing to write. I hope vaguely that my story will make some sense to you, but I couldn't begin to tell you why.

Religion

Work

All of my life's research has been geared to answering the basic questions of existence. My dream has been to scientifically determine the meaning of life, if such meaning exists. I have attacked the problem from several directions, often simultaneously, and I pursued various related questions such as the relative existences of God and free will. At the time of Harvan's death I was testing the hypothesis that Darwinian evolution was so fixed in pattern that it could account for all human action and thought. Specifically, I was altering the genetic structure of primates to simulate evolutionary change, and then attempting to predict the behavior of the mutant offspring by inference from archaeologically derived knowledge of early human behavior. The better I could predict such behavior, the more likely it would be that even the complex thought processes involved in human activities are determined by genetic structures.

One family of chimpanzees was central to these experiments. For several years I had been laboriously altering chromosomes in the reproductive cells of these animals in the hope of producing a breed of primates similar enough to Man to be capable of speech. If the creatures thus produced developed a language, however primitive, I would search it for resemblances to known human languages, resemblances which would, if found, argue strongly for a total determinism in human activity.

Anyway, on that particular morning I was conducting a genetic analysis of a cell sample from a week-old fetus. The progenitors of this fetus were my most advanced animals, and their gametes had been further improved in the laboratory prior to fertilization and the implantation of the fetus in the mother. Thus I had high hopes for the animal this fetus would become.

After several hours of indescribably dreary microscope-gazing, I had determined to my satisfaction the basic structure of the new creature. She would be less hairy and more intelligent than any chimp that has ever existed in real life. Her vocal cords and nervous system would, as far as I could determine, be of a caliber sufficient to produce speech. But would she speak? And what would she say, if never spoken to?

These questions and the general fate of the universe kept my mind humming contentedly as I absent-mindedly programmed my lunch. Programmed lunches have been out of fashion since the end of civilization, owing largely to a lack of raw materials, but it used to work very simply. In the words of the Sanitation Department's own brochure:

"When the Sanitation Department makes Sani-burgers, it coats them with a phosphorus polyisomerized protein, edible but highly inflammable. In contact with the skin of the Sani-burgers is a fully charged friction electrode, equally combustible. The friction electrode is attached to the small drawstring you see hanging from each pre-wrapped Sani-burger through an airtight opening in the Luminumfoil heat-resistant wrapping. When the string is pulled, the friction electrode sparks and ignites, burning the phosphorus coating in the pure oxygen sealed inside the wrapping. (Now you can see that those pockets of air in your burger's wrappings aren't accidental at all; they are actually pockets of oxygen, and are absolutely essential for the flames.) The extremely small pocket of oxygen is the minimum needed for the rapid combustion of the phosphorus polyisomerized protein; the three thousand degree flame lasts but a few milliseconds, and its intensity is contained by the Luminumfoil wrapping, which feels merely warm to the touch. By the time you can get it open the burger is 'cooked' -- actually merely heated, since Sani-burgers are pre-cooked during processing. The end result is that individually wrapped Sani-burgers are self-cooking; take them off the shelf, pull the string, open them up, and they're steaming, delicious, and even tolerably moist. Another miracle of modern science."

The consumer good was 'instant' and 'convenient' inasmuch as it could be utilized on a moment's notice, even though the process of its production involved the careers of thousands of workers from the oil wells to the Luminumfoil synthesis centers to the Sanitation Department to the economically uncategorizable Holdenites who made the whole system work. Sani-burgers were considered a time-saving luxury, as opposed to the older, less available cow burgers, which required no more production effort than fencing a cow in a pasture and chopping it up when it got fat.

So... I pondered my mutant chimpanzee as I programmed my lunch. Martha had an intense, outmoded dislike for Sani-burgers, even though she had never tried them and freely admitted that they were probably quite tasty. Since she never prepared them at home, I ate them nearly every day for lunch at work. Of course, convenience was another powerful reason for eating them at work -- they sure were easy to cook.

Sue

The afternoon's work was equally satisfying, and much more challenging. Basically, what I did was to temporarily remove the aforementioned fetus from the womb and split it in half in such a way that the pregnancy could develop in the normal manner of identical twins. This was really quite a gamble on my part, as I could easily have killed the fetus in the attempt, but this new female would be so evolutionarily advanced that I felt it worth the risk to obtain carbon copies, two priceless pearls of progression. By evening, the mother and embryonic twins seemed healthy despite all my poking around. When my night assistant, Dr. Pritchard, arrived at 7:00 I felt no need to linger. I said good-night to her and started to leave, but she called to me before I reached the door.

"Georj?" I turned. "I think you ought to take my copter tonight. A strange copter was leaving as I got here, and I'm afraid it might have been Holdenites sabotaging yours."

I smiled inwardly at the feminine irrationality that so often triumphed in its struggle with her scientific better half. "Well, thanks, Sue, but I don't think I've ever heard of Holdenites sabotaging anything or killing anyone without killing themselves at the same time. So it doesn't seem likely that a Holdenite would have been flying away, does it?"

"But Georj, who else would be using your heliport?"

I didn't have a rational male answer for that one, so I got my gun before going outside. If the Holdenites had been there, they had undoubtedly left someone behind to die as he killed me.

Afterbirth

I left the building, walking not to the hangar but to the security shed on the side of the main building. In this shed were the master controls and video monitors that allowed me to view any location within the entire research complex. The best chance I could have against the Holdenite, I figured, would be to take him by surprise.

I wasn't too nervous as I crossed the lawn to the shed. The main building was impenetrable and bomb-resistant, so if the situation in the hangar looked dangerous I could simply wait in the building until either I could get help or the Holdenite starved to death. But when I opened the door to the security shed, a man lunged at me from within. I had no time to draw my gun, but simply grabbed him by the hair and pulled him over. It seems a little strange that I could do this, but he was a very small man and no match even for my cerebral, decaying, scientist's body. So I stomped on his face with my boot until his head resembled the afterbirth of a rhesus monkey. There's just no other way to deal with Holdenites; if you try to keep them as prisoners they try to scratch you with poisoned fingernails or do something equally obnoxious. I took a cursory glance at the security panels, but he, like most men of his faith, appeared to be working alone.

I dragged the body into the lab and told Dr. Pritchard to preserve the reproductive organs for my experiments; I had been looking for suitable human tissues for some time. The Catskills glowed in reflection of the sunset and my own mood as I piloted my copter homeward. A productive day!

An Uneventuful Walk

I was strangely aware of Harvan's absence as I walked from the heliport to Grand Central Station. We had made that walk together nearly every evening for years, maybe longer, and on that first day without him I kept feeling that I had forgotten something. Other than that first odd disturbance outside the lab, the journey home was uneventful. No religious fanatics fell from the sky, although I did drive by a wreck where one had apparently driven his car into a crowded shopping mall. A small crowd had gathered, but most passersby walked on indifferently, like good citizens of Greater New York.

Apology Accepted

I arrived at home, half expecting to find the house deserted and a note from Martha on the table, explaining her decision to leave me. Instead, on that very table I found candles, wine, a banquet -- and Martha waiting timidly by the door.

If she could swallow her pride and abase herself like that, I felt that the least I could do was to pretend to care for a little while. "Darling --" I said, and she rushed locomotively into my arms. " --I'm so sorry about last night. Can you understand that I only acted like that because I was so upset about Harvan? I had to pretend not to care or I just couldn't stand it." The words caught, but a retch can sound like a wrenching sob if timed correctly.

"Oh, no, Georj, I'm to blame," she gushed, in a voice just like mine but less amusing for its sincerity. "I know you're so busy with your work, I shouldn't have bothered you with my feelings."

We went on trying to outdo each other in this rather disgusting manner, and I had to be loving and tender all through dinner and for an hour and a half afterwards. Life with Martha was a perpetual participatory soap opera; my finest source of amusement and escape shared my bed and cooked my meals. I was a contented man.

Progress

After exhausting Martha's stock of bedroom cliches, I left her in her pool of sweat and began my evening's work. In the evenings in those days I was searching for meaning in history. Specifically, I was investigating the assumption (which I now consider invalid, and strongly doubted even at the time) that a contented person is a person who has found his purpose in life.

My research had recently taken a very political bent, and I was studying the relationship between the philosophical views of the leaders or ruling class of a nation and the general happiness of the people. I was frustrated by the fact that there was no relationship at all. Some of the happiest societies in history, it seemed, were capitalist, fascist, industrialist, primitive, Christian, Shinto, and even cannibalistic. No trend at all was emerging, and I had come to realize that the enterprise was little more than an intellectual diversion. Still, it was a good excuse to brush up on history and catch up on current events, so I lingered in the project after it had outlived its apparent usefulness.

Thus that evening I perused the works of the Venerable Bede and mused on my own place in history. It seemed as though the past and the future formed a perfect symmetry about the axis of my present moment, and yet this pivotal, world-building moment was being squandered; I was making no progress at all in my search for meaning. I threw An Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation on the fire in frustration, and brooded morosely for over an hour.

A Distraction

Later, when I went into my bedroom, I found Martha awake and reading. "What are you reading?" I bantered obligatorily, not really caring in the least. In the calculated and casual manner of the sheriff handing the unsuspecting citizen an arrest warrant, she showed me a Holdenite propaganda pamphlet.

"Someone gave it to me downtown today. Said I looked depressed and could use some cheering up."

I recoiled. "Martha, I hope you aren't going to take that nonsense seriously and start killing people."

She frowned at me as she would at an adorable child who somehow managed to keep his clothes clean as he smeared banana all over his face. "Don't be silly, you know I don't believe in God. I just think it's interesting to find out why they do those things, that's all."

I grunted, not entirely placated, and put my hand on her leg to distract her from the pamphlet. She looked up at me, for only the second time since I had entered the room. I smiled, a smile to turn proper pretense to ash. With my free arm I caressed the far side of her arm, just below the shoulder. We kissed.

Poor, slow Martha! She was always so easily distracted.

Setback

I arrived at work early the next morning, much to Sue Pritchard's delight. It was the first good thing to happen to her all night, and she wasted no time in giving me the worst news: the chimp had miscarried.

"There was just too much to do, Georj. I was trying to prepare that Holdenite body, and I just didn't have time to keep a close enough watch on Sabrina and her babies and still keep the body from decomposing."

"Is the body all right?"

"Yes, it's in the freezer now."

"Great, you made the right choice. Anyway, I should have anticipated something like this and stayed around to help you when I brought the body in. But how is Sabrina now?"

Sabrina, the expectant mother, was the most advanced female chimpanzee the world had ever seen, and I did not want her to die childless. I spent the rest of the day fussing over her, and ascertained that she was in the best of health, albeit a bit weakened by her ordeal. If we were lucky we could impregnate her again in a few weeks. I went home slightly discouraged, but grateful that the mother, at least, had survived. That meant I could try again soon.

A Word From Our Sponsors

Martha was in a bad mood that night, for reasons feminine and inscrutable, and went to bed soon after supper. After she fell asleep, I took the Holdenite pamphlet she had been reading the night before and began to read it myself, furtively, as an adolescent might read his father's pornography. I can describe it no better than by reproducing it in its entirety:

Do You Know God?

Are you depressed?

Life is a joke. Is it being played on you?

The fact is that life is meaningless. We all know this at heart, which is why we all try so hard to pretend otherwise. We rationalize and fantasize, and we often forgo what few pleasures we can enjoy, in the hope of a "higher" existence or at the very least of a "higher" pleasure. We fashionably deny a physical afterlife -- but how could any kind of life not be physical?

You know perfectly well that there is no afterlife. We all know that in a few short years we'll be rotting away in some filthy grave with worms eating out our eyes and snakes finding a cozy home in our intestines. And if, heaven forbid, our consciousness does somehow survive our physical death, it will have to sit by and witness this degradation! Any kind of optimism about our future in the face of this knowledge is intellectual manure and quite indefensible. Face it, friend: you are doomed.

"But what about God?" you want to know. Does he exist? Well, the idea of a First Cause, a Creator, certainly seems credible enough. There had to be some sort of anti-entropic force that set this whole stupid universe in motion, so that we could sit around and watch it slowly die. We of the Holdenite faith choose to call these anti-entropic forces "God". It isn't a great name for them, and may in fact be slightly misleading, but we figure the word has meant so much to so many that it deserves to be given some meaning.

What Kind of God?

If this thing called God did in fact "create" the universe, the obvious question is, "Why?" The standard answer of most other groups that have utilized the God concept as a concrete analogy is that he (or, as many Holdenites prefer, "it") created the universe out of divine love, divine wisdom, divine justice, or something else described as "divine" in order to eliminate the need for definition or justification. The divine, we are told, is thoroughly incomprehensible. The uselessness of this explanation will be self-evident to any student of the absurd. Besides, Mathematics has shown us that nothing finite is inscrutable, and the idea of a creator is certainly finite, even if the creator itself is not. Thus to attribute creation to "divine wisdom" is to shirk our scientific duty to find the most plausible hypothesis to solve the problem. That God followed a precise and scientific pattern is demonstrated by the very fact that we can understand so much of his work. We must assume that his motivation is equally comprehensible.

Is God a Scientist?

The idea of God as a scientist is a logical one. We of the Holdenite faith conceive of God as a member of a superior race, conducting a scientific experiment. Of course, we have no evidence to prove this, and in fact it is silly to assume that it is necessarily true. We have simply found that this is a working model of God that can satisfactorily explain human existence, just as Physics seems to explain the behavior of matter despite the intangibility of a quark's charm. Thus we believe that a scientist of a superior race created the great ball of matter that is the universe, and also the set of physical guidelines for its functioning which we call natural law. The ball of matter evolved within the guidelines of that law until it became the universe we see today.

Further, we feel that God had no certain idea of how it would all turn out, although he undoubtedly had some theories. You see, no scientist is going to waste his time on an experiment when he is completely certain of the result, any more than he would conduct an unstructured, unplanned experiment with no prior hypotheses. Of course, it does seem possible that God is not a research scientist but merely a student, and that this experiment might be a bungling student's mistake, but the Holdenite faith rejects this idea. While we cannot deny its possibility, we maintain that the universe must be viewed from the most optimistic scientifically plausible perspective.

Finally, we feel that God still doesn't know how the experiment is turning out. When he knows, he will write it all up in a scientific journal, and his paper will be studied with interest by his fellow intellectuals, and then he will flush us down the toilet and go on to new research projects.

Do You Want to Help God?

We at the Holdenite church are not asking you to love God. That would be absurd, considering all he has done to you. In fact, it is probably more rational to hate God, as most of us do, for all the pain and suffering he has pointlessly inflicted upon us. Think about it: How would you respond to a mortal who was equally callous, insensitive, and brutal? There can be no doubt that God is fundamentally repulsive to human moral sensibilities.

But there are grave issues here which transcend our own personal repulsion. We must all work together to correct this situation, to help God figure out what he's done wrong, and why his experiment is such a failure.

Why Help that Cocksucker?

It is true that God has done a lot of nasty things to us. But face it, he has all the cards. We can't touch him. He's got us over a barrel. He calls all the shots. And he's going to go right on producing misery and suffering just as long as he wants to.

Why Must Man Suffer?

Good question. There are only two possible reasons why God might have created a world like this. If he did it maliciously (ever think God might be into whips and chains?), then there is no hope for us, or for anyone else, no matter what we do. He's just sitting up there sipping a beer and laughing at us.

But we of the Holdenite Church are incurably optimistic, and we prefer the other possibility. We believe that God had good intentions when he made the world. In short, we believe that his experiment has simply failed, in the way that all our own human endeavors seem to fail. And further, we believe that the only explanation for his not yet having mercifully destroyed this failed universe is this: He does not know that his experiment has failed!

Is God That Stupid?

Obviously.

Or, more charitably, we can assume that he's simply overextended himself with too many experiments at once, and is unable to watch them all as carefully as he should.

How Can Man Help God?

Tell him how you feel. If you don't feel that you're communicating, try to make your complaints as obvious as possible. Make your misery so noticeable that even someone as callous (or stupid) as God can't help stumbling onto it. Intensify the suffering of the world until God finally steps in and wipes it out once and for all. This is what Holdenism is all about.

Who is Robert Holden?

Bob Holden was born in Los Alamos, New Mexico, in 1955. His father was a nuclear physicist who played a key role in the death of hundreds of thousands of Japanese by being curious and scientifically experimental. He meant well, but all he ever brought to Earth was suffering.

Bob grew up a rich, secure, and confident young man. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University at the age of twenty-six, and soon became a fellow at Oxford University in Great Britain. This was in the late 1980's, when economists were divided sharply over what to do about the billions of people dying of starvation. He quickly became one of the world's leading spokesmen for the "cake-eating" school of thought, which felt that increasing the food supply to the starving nations would simply encourage them in future reproductive recklessness. He advocated an economic quarantine of the starving nations, for the good of the rest of the world. His book, Food, Luxury, and the Higher Pleasures quickly became a classic in the well-fed world, and his eloquence and pragmatism ultimately persuaded most of the developed world to follow his advice.

In 1991, when his ideas had been generally implemented and billions were dying world-wide, Robert Holden was honored with the Nobel Prize for Economics.

But when he went to Sweden to accept the award, Holden was kidnapped by a group of Bengali terrorists and taken to Dacca, where it was announced that he would be released in exchange for ten billion dollars worth of food. Quoting from a recent article by Holden, "The Economic Value of the Individual Human Life," the leaders of the world chose to ignore the kidnappers' demands. However, it is a vicious slander and a bare-faced lie to claim that the President of the United States responded to the ransom demand by saying, "Let them eat Holden."

So the starving Bengali terrorists found themselves stuck with nothing more than an extra mouth to feed. They probably would have killed him were it not for his galling willingness to die. As he later wrote, "I felt that I had lived a worthwhile life, had striven for perfection to the best of my ability, and was quite ready to die as an example for the civilized world." The Bengalis were quite ready to kill him as a rather different kind of example to the civilized world, but they did not care to provide him with his own type of example. So, rather than killing him, they blindfolded him, drove him to an obscure and remote village in famine-stricken Southern India, gave him a beaten-up paperback English-Marathi dictionary, and abandoned him.

Little is known of that time in Holden's life. He spent seven months trying to find his way to safety, during which time he became fluent in Marathi and lost a hundred pounds. When he emerged from his odyssey, still six feet tall, he weighed only eighty-seven pounds. He has consistently refused to talk about the suffering he witnessed and experienced then except to comment vaguely that, "it was no Sunday picnic."

After stowing away on a smuggler's ship to Africa, Holden spent two months in a convalescent center on the French Riviera, during which time he announced his resignation from the Oxford faculty. He spent this time in seclusion generally, working on his first religious book, Pride and Death, in which he outlined what would later become the Holdenite attitude towards dying. He was then not heard from for over a year, after which he published three short books simultaneously: God of Fools, Stop, Madman!, and No, Igor, I said Helium!. A few months later he published his final and most inspirational work, How to End it All, and founded the Holdenite Church. He has since devoted all his energies to the administration of the Church.

What is the Holdenite Church?

The Holdenite Church is a vast religious organization dedicated to the task of signalling God, of letting him know that his Creation has gone wrong. It is recognized by the Church that the most pleasant thing any individual can do is to kill himself, but it is also recognized that an individual has duties to his community as well. For these duties we may, of course, curse God anew, but they are duties nonetheless.

This is why each person who becomes a Holdenite is required to stay alive for at least a year after his conversion. During this time, the convert works to convert others to Holdenism and to make more noticeable the misery of the world. Repulsively violent, treacherous, and hedonistic acts are encouraged. At the end of this first year, most Holdenites choose to commit suicide. A few individuals, generally those in posts of responsibility within the Holdenite organization, elect to continue the difficult work for a longer period of time. These people are known as the Suffering Saints of Holdenism. Bob Holden himself, now 55 years old, has publicly vowed not to kill himself until the whole world has seen the ugly truth about God, and laments that he will probably die a quiet and natural death due to old age. He is known affectionately to his followers as the Blessed Martyr of God.

Where is Holdenism Practiced?

Almost fifteen percent of the world's population in the year 2005 have become Holdenites in the last five years. Of course, most of them are dead now, so that only five percent of the current population are now Holdenites. But our ranks are growing daily.

Because Holdenites try to kill themselves and as many others as possible in the most gruesome ways imaginable, Holdenism is now illegal everywhere on Earth. Yet so great is the power of the Holdenite cause that Holdenite Churches stand in virtually every major city in the world without governmental harassment. Policemen fear to enter the Churches, for we routinely torture uniformed men for weeks; governments no longer bomb the Churches because we always express such delight when they do. You see, if enough Churches are bombed, we think, God might just notice what is going on. We always bring our children to Church when we expect a bombing, for the noise and screams of dying children must be audible even to God. We like it when they scream, because it hastens the world's end.

Why is Holdenism Unstoppable?

Holdenism is unstoppable because Holdenites do not fear death; in fact we yearn for it. Thus we are fearless and win even the battles in which we die.

How Can I Join?

Just go to the nearest Holdenite Church and tell them you want to help set God straight. We'll know you're sincere and brave if you walk in the door, since a random 20% off all who enter are tortured horribly and killed. This ensures that only God's most faithful servants have the courage to enter his house.

After you join the Church you will be required to commit a supervised abomination to prove your worthiness. You can rape a child, cut off your own hand and eat it (raw or cooked to your own specifications), or, best of all, be creative and devise your own atrocity (subject to approval, of course). All Holdenites are expected to do something disgusting every week, but after the first time the brethren are trusted to commit the foul act without supervision.

Are You Afraid?

There is nothing to fear. You're going to rot in humus eventually anyway, you know. As Robert Holden himself once said, "The only semblance of free will a man has is in the choice of the manner of his own death."

[THIS PAMPHLET IS NOT COPYRIGHTED BECAUSE OF THE GOVERNMENT'S REFUSAL TO COOPERATE WITH THE HOLDENITE CHURCH. FOR THE SAME REASON, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE CHURCH BY MAIL OR PHONE. IF YOU WISH TO TALK TO US, YOU'LL HAVE TO STOP BY AND VISIT, AND TAKE YOUR CHANCES ON SURVIVING. WE'RE ALWAYS OPEN.]

Reminiscence

I put away the pamphlet and stared at the ceiling for a few hours. What bothered me was that Robert Holden, an intelligent man who could be doing so much for my search for truth, indulged himself in such obvious nonsense. I could easily forgive the ignorant masses who flocked to his religion for comfort and escape, but my attitude towards Holden himself was less sympathetic.

I had known Holden once, and had been very impressed with him. I had been a graduate student at Oxford (Rhodes Scholarship, of course) during the last year that he taught there before his kidnapping. At that time much of my research was in the field of Economics, studying the practicalities as well as the metaphysics of a world without rich or poor. A Marxist friend had been trying to convince me that if everyone had all the basic necessities of life, nobody would ever bother to wonder about the meaning of existence. All such morose speculation, he felt, was based on personal suffering or empathy with the suffering of others.

This theory was very appealing to me, although it did not even begin to answer my basic question. At that time I was trying to develop a statistical model world and study it for factors correlative to the happiness of the population. I often went to Holden for help, advice, and general discussion. He found me amusing.

"You know, Georj, people are born crying. They scream their lungs out for the first year or so they live, and do you know why? It's because no one has yet had a chance to suggest to them that there might be a purpose to life. You weren't born with all these illusions, Georj, you grew them; you let the grownups delude you in order to ease the pain. But they've been lying to you all along, the same way you'll lie to your kids when you tell them you believe in things that you really only wish you believed in. And you're so damned objective about the whole thing you could waste your whole life trying to find a purpose while accomplishing absolutely nothing. Then your life will be nothing but a useless farce, a monument to the absurd, the clearest example of meaninglessness man has yet devised."

Holden took a mildly negative view of my research.

"But what else can a man do, Dr. Holden? If life is meaningless then every action is as futile as any other, and every life is wasted!"

"Obviously, and you'd better reconcile yourself to the fact. But we can challenge ourselves. We can constantly fight to escape our inescapable limitations, to become the most perfect beings we can."

"And what will that achieve?"

"Nothing within our lifetimes. But with carefully controlled breeding and conditioning, we can someday create of the bodies of men something far greater than Man."

"And what purpose will he have? What will he do with his time?"

"I couldn't presume to answer that question. He will know what to do because he will be perfect; he who does not know is not perfect, and must himself work to produce the perfect being."

"But how can imperfect beings ever create a Messiah?"

"They probably can't, but it does seem a little more likely than answering your questions, doesn't it? And anyway, you're thinking on much too limited a scale; I have no desire to create a Messiah -- I want to create God from the flesh of Man."

Years later, when Holden first reappeared after his ordeal in India, there was a joke going around to the effect that he had, while in India, seen God. Holden had apparently been so outraged by the lack of musculature on His shoulders that he concluded that the monetary value of eternal salvation was highly overinflated.

Statistics

Holden's pre-kidnap philosophy, which was, of course, neither original nor newly phrased, continued to intrigue me long after he himself had abandoned it for Holdenism. It could be argued almost a priori, a major point in its favor, for although I spent much of my time in my laboratory, trying to experimentally determine the meaning of life, I recognized that these would be meaningless without the sound metaphysical basis I had not yet developed.

It was thus Holden's views that provided the basis for a whole series of experiments that ultimately culminated in my experiments with primate modification. The experiments had begun in response to an idea a drunken geneticist had provided me in a bar very late one evening. He told me about a phenomenon called 'allometric growth'. Allometric growth occurs when two characteristics of an organism are, for no apparent reason, genetically linked. The classic example of allometric growth is the so-called Irish Elk, a species of elk which became extinct because its antler size was correlated geometrically to its body weight. Natural selection tended to favor the survival of the largest of the young, but when they matured their antlers were so large that they were, forgive me, an albatross around the Elks' collective neck. Ultimately this brought about the extinction of the species. While I couldn't greatly mourn its passing, my drunken comrade found the idea of the Elks' current non-existence excruciatingly depressing. "They were caught in a double bind," he told me. "They had to get bigger because Darwin was standing behind them with a whip, forcing them to. And then they had to die because their genetic make-up was just plain stupid. That's what's happening in America today, you see. We're getting bigger because we have to, but the things that get biggest are totally out of proportion to the things we need in order to survive. Some future intelligent race will look back at us and say, 'Here is an example of allometric growth. The acquisitiveness of homo sapiens increased at a rate tenfold to the increase in intelligence, so that finally in their obnoxiousness they drove each other crazy.'" At this point he ceased being at all rational and began smashing windows, but he had given me an idea: perhaps intelligence itself was just some freakish accidental characteristic that was correlated with something in humans that had true survival value.

After a long and exhuastive study, I found that there were indeed several characteristics that seemed to accompany high IQ in my test subjects. Specifically, intelligence seemed to accompany hairy bodies, a genetic predisposition to mental illness, and infertility. This latter correlation was the most surprising, and, in my opinion, catastrophic to Holden's dreams of creating a master race. For if fertility decreased with increased intelligence, then Holden would have to create his infinitely intelligent being using parthenogenesis or some equally exotic method. A computer model based on my study showed that if the average IQ of the human race were to increase to 300 over the course of two hundred years, then there would be a 95% chance of Man's extinction within fifty more years. In short, people would be too intelligent to waste time copulating; they would read books and create masterpieces of art and technology. But they would die.

Doom

A minor corollary of that experiment demonstrated that, since the human race was demonstrably still evolving in the direction of greater intelligence, it had a 90% chance of extinction within the next ten thousand years, and 99% in the next hundred thousand. In other words, dear imaginary reader, we were all doomed anyway, so it didn't matter that we were so stupid.

The Breast Rests

I was drained emotionally by the time my gaze left the ceiling, wandered momentarily to the pamphlet once again, and came to rest on a female human breast that was peeping through the doorway into my study.

"Martha, how long have you been standing there?"

"About ten minutes. I was beginning to think you were dead."

"Me too," I admitted. Come on in.

"Come on in."

More Experiments

One of my earliest research projects involved conflicting theories about sexuality and the meaning of existence. I had heard persuasive arguments to the effect that a person with a good sex life was a happy person, and a few good arguments for celibacy as the road to contentment. These rather divergent approaches were both betrayed by fundamentally unconquerable contradictions: celibates are often preoccupied with little else but their own celibacy, while even the healthiest of couples are occasionally plagued by jealousy, insecurity, or depression. I wanted to know why. (My name's Greenwald. I carry a pen.)

So, I conducted both a numerical and a qualitative field study of the relationship of orgasmic frequency to contentment and depression. I found that those with the highest orgasmic frequency tended to be discontented and jealous, that those with the lowest frequency tended to depression, and that those with statistically average sex lives were nearly always dissatisfied with their own orgasmic frequency. In other words, there was no indication that any kind of sex life made people more content. The qualitative study was more absorbing but equally inconclusive, and ultimately I became disenchanted with the entire line of inquiry and dropped it for a new research project. That one, if I recall correctly, was a comparison of the social behavior of rats raised by their mothers with that of rats raised by humans, in constant proximity to predatory snakes. I found that male rats were more socially acceptable when raised naturally, but that females fared better in sexual competition when they had been raised near the snakes. Nonetheless, the natural rats seemed uniformly happier, and did not twitch nervously the way the snake-raised ones did.

Breakthrough

A week later there were signs that Sabrina was coming into heat again. By this time, Sue Pritchard and I had altered the genetic structure of an ovum often enough that the operation was not a big deal any more. When I arrived in the morning, Sue had already slowed Sabrina's metabolism and lowered her body temperature to twelve degrees Celsius. She was cutting open the uterus as I arrived.

It was during this operation that I made my well-publicized breakthrough. Leaving out the technical details, which were all published in the appropriate journals, what happened was that I managed to graft the important parts of one of the chromosomes onto other chromosomes, and remove the irrelevant parts of that one chromosome, so that the ovum was left with only twenty-three chromosomes, ripe for fertilization by human sperm. Fairly dancing with joy, we raced to the freezer and obtained the sperm cells we had collected from our Holdenite intruder a week earlier. Thus in my sterile laboratory was consummated one of the most important weddings in the history of intelligent organic life on Earth. There was no joy in the consummation for the participants, I fear, for one was dead and the other in suspended animation, but Sue and I experienced all their joy for them; scientific history was living before our eyes.

We replaced the fertilized ovum and put Sabrina back together, now carrying a creature more human than chimpanzee in her womb. Sabrina remained frozen and uncomplaining at her tenth operation in as many months. Susan had now worked twenty hours straight, so I told her to go home, get some sleep, and relieve me at noon the next day. The lack of sleep had clearly affected her self-control, for the shy Dr. Pritchard now casually and rationally replied, "If you're going to spend the night here anyway, couldn't I sleep with you here?"

I told her, equally conversationally, that while I would, of course, love to sleep with her, I felt it would be prudent to wait until Sabrina did not require such constant attention. It was the strangest seduction I have ever been a party to: we never kissed, nor even touched. Anyway, she agreed with my reasoning, started to leave, then suddenly embraced me passionately. We kissed for a moment or so, and then she left in the same impulsive haste, blowing a wet stream of kisses with her eyes.

I remember thinking as she left that if her behavior became any more erratic I might be obliged to find another assistant. I had not responded to her emotionally at all, but rather had accepted her invitation courteously, as one might accept a dinner invitation to the house of a friend one did not really care to visit but cared even less to offend. I certainly hoped she wouldn't want to indulge too often; one Martha was tiresome enough.

Spectacle

As I turned away from the closing door, I heard a commotion outside. I walked to the window for an improved view, and saw a rather handsome man in a mechanic's jumpsuit wrestling Susan to the ground. I watched with curiosity as he tore off her clothes and raped her brutally.

The initial assault was sufficiently enigmatic that I could not tell for sure if he was a Holdenite or merely a common lust-crazed existentialist, but his belief in God became obvious when he hacked off two thirds of her left breast with a cheese grater and ate some of the larger pieces. Susan was making a lot of noise at this point, and I found myself a chair on which to relax while viewing the rest of the show.

After throwing a little dirt into what remained of the breast, the attacker had once again achieved an erection and plunged into her anew. Here the performance turned masochistic as he sliced off his own genitals with a butcher's knife, leaving a major part of himself more or less implanted within her. Now screaming with his own agony, he buried his face in the open wound on her chest and chewed on her ribs or whatever else he could reach until she expired.

At this point I made sure that my gun was handy, in case he decided to seek another victim before the inevitable suicide. This proved an unnecessary precaution; already bleeding profusely between his legs, he sat down and removed, in quick succession, both of his legs and his left arm. (I daresay he must have spent a fortune on so fine a blade.) He died very quickly, before he could finish eating his right hand.

My inclination at this point was to emerge from the building shouting, "Bravo!" and award the limbless, lifeless matador both of Susan's ears. Much as I loathe the Holdenites, I still admire virtuosity, determination, and self-discipline. Among the Holdenites, I have heard, it is considered a stupendous achievement to remove four of one's own limbs before dying, and this man had even gotten a start on the fifth. Then, too, I appreciated the aesthetics of the scene, the quintessential morbidity: the bloody torso surrounded by its own limbs, the empty chest where Adam had demanded his rib's return, the phallus standing independent of the man in its conquest of the woman. I cheered softly. Here was a creative genius, undeserving of being lumped together with those plebians who burned themselves or leaped from buildings!

But I restrained my applause and enthusiasm. Leaving the lab might endanger my precious Sabrina, whose temperature was still slowly rising to normal. Besides, there might well be a companion Holdenite waiting to ambush me.

I picked up the phone and called the City Sanitation Department. "Holdenite and victim at Dr. Greenwald's research station, Mt. Lanter in the Catskills. The Holdenite is nearly pre-cut, so you won't need to do much more than sort him."

There was a brief pause before the reply. "OK, we'll send a squad over there right away."

Meat Market

While waiting for the sanitation squad, I called the Physicians' Employment Advisory and Referral Service in Manhattan. "This is Dr. Georj Greenwald in the Catskills," I began, "and I'd like a full time genetic surgeon to work about seventy hours a week. Salary is no object, but I'd prefer a male who can start tomorrow."

"What time tomorrow, Dr. Greenwald?"

"No later than three in the afternoon, since I'll have to show him around."

After a five second pause, she responded. "Dr. Hellmuth Dehn will be there at 1:30 tomorrow afternoon."

"Is he fluent in English?"

"Dr. Greenwald, all our physicians meet every federal standard --"

"Okay, great, fine. I'll see him tomorrow then. Send me a bill." I hung up without waiting for a reply.

Deuteronomy

The sanitation squad arrived in three large helicopters. After seeing that Sabrina was resting comfortably, I met them at the door.

"Dr. Greenwald?"

"That's me."

"Would you please step over here to identify the victim?"

"I really can't leave the building, officer, as I am engaged in some vital experiments and must be alert for possible emergencies." I motioned to Sabrina, now resting on a cot in her cage. "Dr. Pritchard and I just performed a major experimental operation on this chimpanzee, and I've got to keep an eye on her. Anyway, I can certainly identify the body from here; it's Dr. Susan Pritchard, 5672 Fifth Avenue, Old New York City. We've worked together for almost a year."

"Did you see any part of this incident, sir?"

"Sure, I saw the whole thing."

"And you did nothing?"

"As I just finished explaining, my experiments would not permit me to leave the building right now. I'm quite sure that Dr. Pritchard would not have wanted me to risk Sabrina's baby in order to save her own life."

"Sabrina?"

"The chimpanzee."

"I see." The jerk was taking notes like a reporter under a politician's bed. I retreated for self-protection.

"Anyway, for all I knew there could have been another Holdenite waiting to grab me as soon as I opened the door."

Disheartened, the officer put away his notepad. Fear of Holdenites was a valid defense in any court. "Okay, please tell me, briefly, exactly what happened."

"Dr. Pritchard left the lab to go home for the evening. She'd just finished working twenty hours straight, so maybe she wasn't as alert for Holdenites as she usually was. She made it about fifteen feet, as you can see, before she was knocked down by this Holdenite. The rest is pretty obvious."

"Did any of the sexual assault or self-mutilation take place prior to the actual murder?"

"What possible difference could that make?"

"If the victim was raped first, then the attacker could be charged with rape and murder, whereas he could only be charged with murder and sodomy if the murder happened first. Besides, the Bureau of Statistics is starting to keep records on that sort of thing for its studies in Holdenite psychology. So if you would please briefly recall the sequence of events, we would be most grateful."

"A brief summary, that's all you need?" He nodded. "Very well. He raped her first, then grated her breast and ate it. I found this first segment of the event rather tasteless; there was neither artistry in the rape nor condiments with the repast, merely a meaningless groping after raw pleasure."

"Please spare me the critique, Doctor, I haven't got all day."

"Neither have I, sir, but I do have the burdensome responsibility of an aesthetic sense in a televised world. Anyway, next he attempted to combine the human and bacterial processes of reproduction, but seemed to find fission rather painful. At this point he might be said to have found a bone to pick with Susan -- a rib, in particular. I believe it was at this point that she expired."

"And then he killed himself?"

"Yes, but it isn't clear whether his intent was to do so or merely to shed those excess pounds with which men of his size are so often preoccupied. Perhaps he actually died of malnutrition and fatigue as the result of his extreme efforts to lose weight; this hypothesis would certainly be supported by the fact that in his last moments of his life he was trying to eat his own hand, perhaps because it was the only nourishment he could find."

"Thank you, Dr. Greenwald. You've been most helpful." Clearly he expected the onerous duty of placing me in a strait jacket if he forced me to talk much longer. It's strange, in retrospect, that my cynicism was probably misinterpreted as nervous hysteria. People often seem to think I'm tense and nervous when I'm merely having trouble gripping the reality of a situation. Or is this perhaps how I should define nervousness?

I was theorizing internally about the metaphysical aspects of interpersonal relationships and the lack of concrete meaning in such terms as 'nervousness' when the sanitation man forced himself back into my consciousness once more. "One last thing, Dr. Greenwald."

"Yes?"

"We're trying to convince more people to report bodies to the sanitation department, and to do so we are now giving a small reward to each person whose call results in the procurement of one or more bodies." He handed me a small package.

"Sani-franks?" I read. The name was not familiar. "Is this the same stuff as Sani-burgers?"

"Oh, no, sir; this is our finest product, real gourmet food."

I chuckled at the terminology. "What exactly is it?"

"Sanitized male genitals. They say it increases potency."

"Great, I've got a gorilla in my lab who could use something like that. But now, if you'll excuse me --"

Excuses

After the sani-men had flown their sani-copters back to sani-land, I called Martha at home. "I'm afraid I won't be home tonight, darling. There's been a little accident and Dr. Pritchard can't work tonight. No, nothing serious. Yes, I'll be home for dinner tomorrow. Yes, I'll get enough sleep. I love you, too. Good-bye."

Unspoken: Oh, and, by the way, don't you think it would be a nice idea to have Dr. Pritchard for dinner some evening?

The Grand Tour

In a heroic compromise between the demands of science and nature, I went to sleep but set my alarm to wake me every forty-five minutes to check on Sabrina. Of course, she could have miscarried in a matter of minutes, but there was no way short of loathsome amphetamines that I could work thirty-six hours without sleep.

Hence I was fairly alert and well-rested by the time Dr. Dehn arrived to begin work. Dehn was an intimidating behemoth, with wild red hair and a long, full, red beard. He stood at least six foot five, two hundred forty pounds, and spoke with what sounded like a Scottish accent, despite his rather un-Scottish name. He squeezed my hand as if it were a beer can as he spoke: "So pleased to meet you, Dr. Greenwald."

I questioned him for a brief time about his background. He had received a Ph.D. in genetics from a supposedly top-quality German University, after which he had come to the U.S. and received his medical degree from Harvard. His residency was devoted to genetic surgery, but his work experience was rather limited; he was only thirty-two years old.

I had been resigned to getting an inexperienced young man when I demanded an assistant on such short notice, so I was only mildly disappointed in Dehn. Still, with all the unemployed doctors in the world, I had hoped to do a little better.

"Okay," I told him, "I'll show you around." First I showed him a map of the grounds, pointing out the heliport, laboratory, security shed, and storehouse. "The nearest town is thirty miles away. You can fly there in ten or fifteen minutes. I'd show you around the grounds outside except that we have to keep a constant watch on one of the animals for the next few days." I took him to Sabrina's cage. "This is our star patient," I told him proudly.

"She doesn't look like an ordinary chimp."

"Very good, Dr. Dehn. Our experiments here deal with chromosome alteration. Sabrina's genes were monkeyed around with for a long time before she was ever conceived.

"And why is she sedated and monitored?"

"Because inside of her is an even more important little creature. Yesterday my previous assistant and I removed an ovum from her uterus, altered the chromosomal structure, fertilized it with human sperm, and put it in her womb. My only fear now is that she might miscarry."

"You fertilized it with human sperm?"

"That's what I said."

"I congratulate you. Have you analyzed the fetus?"

"Hellmuth, it's only a day old. We'll have to wait a week or so for that."

He seemed to bristle a little at the familiarity of my address to him. "Of course, Dr. Greenwald, how stupid of me. What do you wish for me to do tonight besides babysit for, uh, Sabrina?"

I grinned and glanced at my watch. It was already five o'clock. "There isn't anything else that's urgent right now, so you might do well to spend your first few nights reading the log books and familiarizing yourself with the ongoing experiments. And, oh, yes, feed all the animals at about dawn -- each cage has a file with it, in which you'll find feeding information. We feed them at dawn and dusk."

"Very well, doctor, I will feed and I will babysit and I will study. Anything else?"

"No, but don't worry, you'll find your scientific and surgical skills sufficiently challenged on future evenings."

He smiled and nodded his head in acknowledgement. I liked him; he seemed like he would be a good worker. "One last thing, Dr. Dehn," I called him from the doorway. "My last assistant became unemployed most unpleasantly through the efforts of a Holdenite. They dislike my research and enjoy visiting me."

"I can take care of myself, Dr. Greenwald," replied Achilles, grinding an imaginary pepper within his fist.

"I'm sure you can, Dr. Dehn. Good evening."

Soap

So it was that I found my way home a full hour earlier than usual -- and found Martha in my bed with another man.

My first reaction was disgust at the thought of the scene Martha and I would have to act out: I pretending to care enough to be angry, her pretending to be repentant and conscience-sticken, I pretending to forgive her, and a passionate evening in bed. In short, the whole evening would be wasted.

But soon I realized that I had not been seen, standing in the hallway outside my own bedroom. Martha and her lover were blissfully unaware of my presence. I quietly but quickly retreated to a bar down the street, and reappeared at home at the appointed time. Dinner was ready, the lover gone, and Martha the same as always. How long, I wondered idly, had this been going on?

Lasagna

As we ate, Martha skillfully steered the conversation around to Dr. Pritchard. Obviously suspecting adultery on my part, and perhaps hoping to soothe her own anachronistically aching conscience as well, she asked me, "What was wrong with Dr. Pritchard last night that kept her from working?"

"She was dead," I said, my words slurred by the food in my mouth.

Martha was genuinely shocked. "But you said it was nothing serious!"

I shrugged. "A matter of opinion."

"So who's at the lab now?"

"My new assistant, Dr. Hellmuth Dehn.

"A man?"

"No, an orangutan. Better empathy with the patients that way."

"How can you be so cynical and unfeeling all the time?"

"Cynical, me? Why honey, I have a great deal of respect for Dr. Dehn; he's the hairiest man ever to graduate from Harvard."

She was silent for a moment, then, softly: "Was it very bad?"

I nodded.

"What happened to her?"

"You sure you want to know?"

She nodded. Simpler than dialogue.

"A Holdenite raped her and then chewed her to death. Her chest looked like this lasagna we're eating. Then he made himself into a jigsaw puzzle."

"And the bodies?"

"Check your grocer's freezer."

At that, she blew apart. "You're a disgusting, callous, inhuman monster!" she cried. "I hate you!"

I was troubled as she ran out of the room. Her behavior was more bizarre with each passing day.

Hook, Line, and Sinker

I was so disturbed by Martha's tantrum that I simply could not concentrate on my work that evening. I turned on the new television set to watch a debate between two elderly ladies on the subject of abortion and women's rights. They were each only a short step beyond illiteracy, and I was tuning them out almost completely when the program was interrupted for a news bulletin. Prepared for the worst -- had Nancy Reagan finally died? -- I watched in fascination as an aging newsman appeared on the screen.

"Reports out of Washington tonight indicate that there has been an attempted coup by the military against the United States government. As far as we can determine, the coup has failed or is failing. Paula Starr is in Washington with details."

A pretty young brunette now appeared on the screen. "At this point all of our information remains officially unconfirmed," she began, "but it now appears that the coup was attempted by high-ranking officers in all branches of the armed forces. Rumors in Washington tonight say that the officers were Holdenites and had hoped to seize power long enough to begin a nuclear war. By all accounts, they very nearly succeeded in this effort."

For the next ten minutes, she and a few other reporters took turns speculating on the officers involved, the historical significance of the event, and the possible international ramifications. In short, they tried unsuccessfully to appear intelligent and knowledgable while discussing the events of the day. Finally, 'Paula' reappeared and announced that President Kennedy would hold a press conference in five minutes. The five minutes were filled with more dreary speculations and gossip, after which the images on the screen were replaced by the Seal of the President of the United States. "Ladies and Gentlemen," announced the anonymous but undoubtedly self-important aide who did such things, "the President of the United States!"

To my eye, the president lacked none of her usual grace and self-control as she strode to the podium, obviously weary but triumphant. The thundering applause she received from the usually hostile newsmen seemed indicative of national unity against the Holdenites. She smiled as she faced the camera, but it was a smile far more bitter than the one that had earned her 87% of the vote in her re-election campaign two years earlier. For the briefest instant, she appeared on the verge of collapse, perhaps from lack of sleep.

"Good evening, my fellow Americans. Over forty years ago, my father was murdered for trying to serve America and make this nation greater. Tonight, a deed still more heinous has been attempted. Several of the most trusted men in the United States military today attempted to overthrow the elected government of the people. But I can assure you tonight that just as my father saved Berlin from the Communists, I have saved us all from destruction at the hands of the Holdenites."

The reporters whispered excitedly among themselves as she paused to let this information sink in and to bask in the applause. I viewed the scene with mixed emotions. Though I was certainly glad that the coup had been put down, I disliked seeing the President given the opportunity to inflate her own heroism in the public mind; at least seven rather odd religious cults worshipped her already, and there was talk of a constitutional amendment to extend her term of office indefinitely. She continued, silencing the reporters with terse and meaningful syllables. "I have tonight ordered the arrest of twenty-two generals and admirals for treason and other charges associated with the attempted coup. I have also requested and received the resignations of all remaining top-level officials for negligence in permitting this plot to remain undetected. Further, I am hereby declaring a state of national emergency and martial law, and hereby give notice to all nations of the world that any military action against the United States while the military is without an organized chain of command will be answered immediately with nuclear retaliation. Our disarray will not be exploited by our enemies.

"Sometime tomorrow I will announce plans for restructuring the military high command. When those plans take effect, I will end the state of emergency.

"As I said earlier, this plot was an attempt by Holdenites to destroy the world. The time has come to fight back against Holdenism and its treachery. For that reason I am now appointing Ramon Luis Quisano to be Acting Director of the FBI-CIA and Acting Secretary of Defense, with the strong recommendation that Congress make these appointments permanent.

"That will be all for now, gentlemen. I will resume this press conference tomorrow and answer then any questions you may have. Now I must rest. Good night."

The applause was even more thunderous as she left the room than it had been when she entered. I turned off my television in disgust; Caroline Kennedy was doing just what the Holdenites wanted her to do. To my mind, Quisano was a fanatic whose religious zeal could set the world aflame.

More Soap

Martha returned about midnight. "Anything interesting happen tonight, dear?"

I was puzzled by her apparent friendliness. "Some of your Holdenite friends tried to take over the government and blow up the world. It didn't work."

She smiled only slightly, as if making an effort. "Really, honey, reading one of their pamphlets doesn't make me their friend!" Her voice was cold, calculated, and very unlike her.

"Where were you tonight, Martha?"

"None of your business!"

I was still for a hypnotic moment, then grabbed her purse before she could react. Inside it was a loaded revolver.

"Why, Martha?"

She was silent for a moment, hypnotized as I had just been, then leapt at me with outstretched arms. I knocked her to the floor before she could slash me with poisoned fingernails.

Poor, deluded Martha. I hit her until she bled in several places, and then, impulsively, took away her house key and threw her out. Afterwards I called the police to report her conversion to Holdenism.

Recriminations

"And you let her go?"

The policeman seemed ready to haul me away as a Holdenite myself, or at least as a lunatic, and I too wondered what had compelled me to refrain from smashing Martha to a bloody pulp. And the thought that I had set her free, to boot, only deepened my anguish. But my current concern was to save myself, so I thought quickly. "I didn't exactly let her go," I lied. "I guess I was careless, but she ran away from me after I got the gun from her. I feel just awful about it."

"You should have killed her. She would have killed herself to kill you, and she'll probably keep trying to get you now. They always go for spouses. She'll be back for you soon."

"I can handle her. Besides, she wouldn't kill herself to get me yet, would she? I thought they had to wait at least a year."

"Faithful Holdenites are supposed to wait a year before killing themselves, but Holdenites are a cynical lot and break their own laws with impunity. Some kill themselves immediately after conversion."

"Martha will be true to her religion; she doesn't know how to think for herself."

"It's possible that she's vowed to live long enough to kill you in particular, and no longer. Passionate vows of hatred like that are strongly encouraged by the Holdenites. It makes the world more miserable, qualitatively speaking."

Poor, deluded Martha! She believed, even now, that she possessed -- that she ever had possessed -- the power to hurt me.

Self-control

I spent the next few hours packing those possessions I considered essential into three suitcases and a footlocker. I called a taxi and had it take me, with my luggage, to the heliport. I was moving into the laboratory, Hellmuth Dehn notwithstanding. Martha could get me too easily at home.

The cab driver tried to engage me in a discussion of the coup attempt. My monosyllabic responses fazed him not at all, but my patience finally vanished when he said, "Man, it's about time we got somebody like Quisano in Washington to teach those Holdenites a thing or two."

I exploded, restraining my speech only as measured in decibels. "Ramon Quisano is a dangerous madman who is going to destroy the world, but I don't care to discuss it any further. My wife became a Holdenite this evening and tried to kill me, and I let her get away. Now I have to move out of my own home --"

I realized how stupid I sounded, pouring out this garbage to the cab driver. We were both silent as we arrived at the heliport and he helped carry my baggage to my copter. I gave him a big tip and a small apology: "It wasn't your fault."

"Thanks," he said, with Martha-like sincerity. "Good luck."

Roommates

I guess I startled my assistant with what seemed to be a surprise inspection tour. I walked into the lab carrying one small suitcase, determined to leave the rest in the copter and forget everything until morning. Dr. Dehn was sitting at the main desk, studying the experimental records.

"Dr. Greenwald, whatever brings you here this early in the morning?" Indeed, it was already 4 AM.

"I'm moving in, Hellmuth. I'll sleep on a cot in one of the isolation rooms; they're all unoccupied now anyway."

"A fight with your wife?"

"Not the kind you're thinking of. She's a Holdenite now, tried to kill me tonight. She'd get me for sure if I kept living at home."

"I see. You didn't kill her when she attacked you?"

"She got away."

"I see."

"She'll certainly come here after me sooner or later, but this place is more secure. Still, if you wish, you may leave and seek a safer place of employment."

"I fear no woman and no Holdenite, Dr. Greenwald, and if I see your wife I assure you she will not get away." Was there an accusation of complicity in his words, or was it in my own guilty reaction to them? I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, twice.

"I hope, then, that you have the opportunity of meeting her. Good night, Dr. Dehn."

Quisano

It was nearly noon when the day began, and I effortlessly frittered the rest of it away trying to make myself comfortable in my new habitat. Dr. Dehn and I rearranged our schedules for greater convenience now that I was living in the lab, and I made sure that Sabrina was doing well, but that was the extent of my productivity. That evening I turned on the radio -- I didn't have a television in the lab, it's much too distracting -- to hear a little more about the end of the world, or at least the death of democracy. I didn't catch many details about the state of emergency, but I was treated to a list of sixty-three high-ranking officers who had been executed for complicity in the attempted coup. It was after that dreary exposition that the real narrative began, as the radio commentator gave a brief biographical sketch of Quisano, the guardian of decency and saviour of the common man.

"Ramon Luis Quisano was born on May 15, 1948, eldest son of a poor peasant family in southern Mexico. After a lifetime of struggle, prayer, and hard work, Ramon was still a poor peasant, but he had a supplementary income from writing police shows and situation comedies for the government-owned Mexican television network. He had no money to spare, but his family had enough to eat, so he was content with his lot and praised God.

"But the rise of Holdenism did not spare rural Mexico; Ramon's wife and children were slain by a Holdenite five years ago, while Ramon was working in the field. Ramon went into seclusion in a trappist monastery for three months, where he begged God for guidance. Finally, Ramon says, God appeared to him in the form of a shiny beige Cadillac, and told him to go to America to fight the Holdenites.

"So it was that Quisano appeared in New York City in a new car, preaching a holy war against the Holdenites. His followers, who consider themselves Christians, often speak of him as Christ returned, although he refers to himself only as the 'Voice of the Word'. They have no organizational structure, but simply encourage each other in the fight against Holdenism. In the last three years, they have blown up ninety-three Holdenite churches, and killed thousands of Holdenites. The Holdenites, of course, welcome the violence of Quisano's followers, believing that it will hasten the end of the world. After Quisano's appointment as FBI director and Secretary of Defense last night, Robert Holden issued a statement proclaiming 'a great victory for the forces of violence and degeneracy, a victory that will hasten the annihilation of this miserable globe.'

"Quisano's elevation to power signifies a major change in the government's approach to the Holdenite problem. Previously, the government had simply accepted the Holdenites' own assertion that all violence promotes the Holdenite cause, and thus had ignored the religion entirely. Churches flourished and proselytizers were tolerated, despite their technical illegality. But now the government has apparently taken the attitude of the Communist countries towards Holdenism, the view that violence is unavoidable where Holdenites are concerned, but that carefully directed violence against the Holdenites, with the intent of eliminating them, is ultimately less destructive than the random and unending violence the Holdenites promote."

I snapped off the radio in irritation. The more Holdenite Churches Quisano bombed, the more miserable our cities would become, and the more people would line up outside the remaining churches to affirm their newfound faith. Inevitably Quisano's followers and the Holdenites must destroy each other, and probably everyone else as well. I thought of my researches; if only I had enough time, I could show them the answers! Every day I grew closer, and time grew shorter.

The Mystique

I remember what my father said when Caroline Kennedy was first elected President. He said that when he was a teenager, there wasn't an adolescent in America who hadn't secretly nursed a passion for the slain President's daughter. Caroline Kennedy was only a few years younger than my father, and apparently quite an object of his worship even twenty years later. "She was all that was desirable in America," he told me. "Rich, powerful, sexy, and single. You could find her picture on the wall of every boys' school in the country. They're all voting for her now. Why, if she ever gets married they'll impeach her for sure."

And I voted for her too; the Republican candidate had muscular arms and flabby thighs. She was not a Kennedy.

Remembering Martha

A last check on Sabrina before bedtime proved uneventful. Sabrina was now up and running around in her cell, and greeted me eagerly as I approached. She quietly ate the fruit I gave her as I examined her. When I finished she threw her arms around my shoulders and held on to me for a moment. Then she leapt up to the exercise bar hanging from the ceiling and began to swing around it excitedly. I smiled and left the cell. She was beginning to remind me of Martha.

A Shift in the Wind

Dr. Dehn and I gradually grew to grudgingly tolerate each other in the lab, and I was very pleased with his technical knowledge and skills. By the end of a week of working together we often addressed each other by our first names, a practice Hellmuth accepted only in exchange for my pledge not to address him as 'Igor'. Although the latter seemed eminently more suited to his character, I acceded to his preference in a spirit of science, harmony, and pacifism. Hellmuth was a big man.

In the middle of our second week we took a cell sample from Sabrina's fetus. Hellmuth analyzed it, and proved to be much better than me at such matters. After only two hours, he had completed the analysis, and when I got up in the morning he presented me with a wealth of facts I might never have been able to collect myself. Sabrina was carrying identical twin girls. (Granted, they weren't girls in the strictest biological sense, but they were female and apparently less ape than human.) They would have an expected life span of thirty-five years and would reach maturity by the age of three. At that time they would stand erect at about one point seven meters tall, although they would tend to slouch more than most humans. They would be hairier than human females, but balder than any healthy ape. IQ would be as high as 110, but their vocal cords would never develop sufficiently to permit speech. Unlike many hybrids, they would be fertile and would reproduce readily, although their chromosomes cast their sexual lot irrevocably with mankind.

Here the recitation ended. "That's amazing, Hellmuth," I said, yawning to deprecate the admiration I was obligated to express.

The brute smiled. "Thank you, Dr. Georj." Igor the affectionate.

"I don't really understand, though, why you let me sleep so late. It's nearly noon."

"Well, Doctor, I knew that I'd be able to complete the analysis myself --"

"And you didn't want me in the way."

He grinned. "You know, Georj, you try to be too many things. Sure, you're an OK geneticist, but not as good as you would be if you'd worked at it full time all your life."

I smiled a little, a melancholy joke too subtle for him to catch. "That's one of the things I had to accept when I decided to research such a broad question. It's why I need assistants."

We were awkwardly silent for a moment; I don't think he liked being reminded of his technical relation to me. Finally he asked me what the agenda for the day was. "I don't really know," I told him. I was getting more than a little tired of genetics in general. "Any ideas?"

Igor was, to my surprise, quite full of ideas. Apparently he had been doing other people's research all his life, to the frustration of his own ambitions. So, relishing the shock I created more, perhaps, than the philanthropy I displayed, I told Dr. Dehn of my rather impetuous decision: I was abandoning my research in genetics for more promising endeavors with computers. Igor was, of course, terribly shocked.

"Dr. Greenwald! Can't you carry anything through to its conclusion?"

I walked over to the desk and pulled out a drawer of files. "Here," I told him, "are the studies I have completed in the last five years alone. I do not think that genetics is going to reveal the purpose and meaning of life. Therefore I will move on to more promising areas of research."

"And you think you'll find it in Computer Science?"

"Perhaps."

"You'll never find it, Georj."

I stared at him for a moment. "What makes you say that?"

"You're never going to find happiness unless something in you changes drastically. You'll keep wasting your talents in short-lived ventures that lose their appeal like a fancy toy in January. And because you keep switching from one thing to another, never able to accept any role in life short of Saviour, you must be forever miserable and dissatisfied, for the simple fact remains that you are NOT the Saviour."

The shock of my decision to leave genetics seemed to have rendered Igor's capacity for logical thought inoperative. I would not find the secret because I was not the Saviour, and vice versa -- such groundless pessimism! But I said nothing to him, for fear of triggering an emotional response from those ugly biceps. In any event, he did not seem likely to listen to reason.

Besides, he was still smiling, so I smiled too and said, "Look, I'm going into New York now to make arrangements for a new apartment and to sell my old house. I'll be back in a day or two to pick up my things. From then on the lab, the animals, the equipment, and whatever else you need are all yours to do with as you please."

He gaped at me. "You mean that?"

"I'm immorally rich, you know, and you're a good man, and if you do something really useful it will only help my reputation as a philanthropist."

The brute was speechless for a while, then tried pathetically to express his gratitude. I looked around for a distraction to occupy him, and noticed Sabrina's cage was empty.

"Oh, yes," he said, removing his symbolic tongue from my equally metaphysical boot. "I've just put her in isolation. Several of the monkeys have a virus and I didn't want her to catch it."

"I see," I said, rapidly losing what little interest I still had in the matter. "Well, take good care of her for me. Good-bye."

"You will come back for your things?" he asked.

"Certainly, within a day or two."

He held out his hand, which I accepted with some trepidation. "Thank you again, Dr. Greenwald."

Most of my fingers were working again by the time I got to the helicopter.

Conspiratorial Molars

The route to New York was one I had flown hundreds of times, daily for years. Yet the knowledge and prospect of a new beginning in my life seemed to heighten my awareness of my surroundings. I felt an unfamiliar eagerness as I arched over a series of towers and landed at Grand Central Heliport. The shy scientist goes to town.

My first visit was to a realtor. I had already contacted my usual realtor about selling my old house, but I thought it prudent to use a different realtor to find a new dwelling, in case Martha tried to find me. I wandered rather aimlessly until I saw a reputable looking sign that said, "Loomis Realtors". The sign hung above a narrow doorway opening into a flight of dirty wooden stairs. I creaked up them to the fourth floor, where the office of Harvey Baumann, C.P.A. was clearly being remodeled. I stepped around the paint and tools and opened the door marked "Loomis Realtors". This office had obviously been remodeled recently as well; the atmosphere was one of newness and professional competence, with plush carpeting, suede chairs, the works. They obviously took a pretty good percentage, but that didn't bother me; What, after all, is money?

"Can I help you, sir?" asked the receptionist. In plush twenty-first century offices, you can always tell a secretary from a receptionist by their appearance. Secretaries are always attractive in their own ways, but their individualism is often manifest in a lack of stylishness. Receptionists, on the other hand, are mass-produced on assembly lines in Michigan. Each is five feet nine, with long, straight hair (varying only in color), moderate mascara, the latest French perfume, and clothes so current that one can only presume they are rented weekly. The receptionist faces you in mock purity and innocence, eager to do nothing in life but serve you in her absurdly limited capacity. She will direct you to the proper office.

"Can I help you, sir?" Now the receptionist seemed a little less smooth and confident, due probably to my thirty seconds of unreplying contemplation of her appearance. I replied as if she had just spoken for the first time.

"I would like to rent an apartment."

"What price range did you have in mind, sir?"

"Money is quite irrelevant, madam, but I do have some very specific requirements that I will be glad to discuss with the realtor."

"Just a moment please," she said, and sauntered out of view.

A portrait on the office wall caught my flickering attention. "Herbert Loomis, 1955-2003" Old Herbie hadn't been very old when he died, but the portrait was clearly from his youth. You could count his molars, a fact which psychologists have shown makes you trust his self-confidence and cheerfulness. Nothing so charitable could be said for his hair, which was cropped within a few millimeters of that ridiculous invention of the 1990's, the crewcut. Overall, I found Herb a repulsive man, which I regarded as a good sign; one should have nothing but repulsion for the dead.

"Mr. Loomis will see you now." The classic form led me into a comfortable but sparse office, in which the younger Mr. Loomis displayed his own inherited molars from behind an antique mahogany desk.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr., uh --"

"My name is not important; in fact it must remain unknown."

"I see, well, that's fine, you know, customer's always right and that sort of thing, heh heh. Anyway, glad to meet you, have a seat," he grinned, pumping my arm like a slot machine.

"You have lovely teeth, Mr. Loomis, but now I would like to discuss business."

He scowled at me for a brief moment. "I've now confirmed Miss Frigidaire's judgment of you; you are a loony." No, he didn't say that, of course not, because it was obvious from the wad of bills I waved under his nose that I was a very rich loony and therefore very pleasant company. "What kind of an apartment did you have in mind?"

I decided to play the role of the eccentric millionaire to the hilt. "My dear sir, the apartment that I did have in mind is of no relevance at all, so I think it wise for us to address ourselves to the apartment that I do have in mind, which is comfortable but without that luxury which I would appreciate no more than your plush carpet or your father's teeth. One bedroom, a kitchen, and a large working area -- say, 1000 square feet -- will be required, and pets must be permitted."

"Dogs and cats?"

"Hamsters, rats, rhesus monkeys, chimpanzees, the works. Just in case, you know."

"That's going to be hard to find."

"I'll pay any price."

"Three thousand a month?"

"Certainly."

He seemed a little startled by the casual manner with which I dismissed what he considered an exorbitant price tag. "Would you care to look at some houses with me this afternoon?"

"Of course not. I have better things to do with my time, and anyplace that meets those specifications will do. There is no need for me to see it first. Can we get this over with?"

"Well, it will take a while to prepare the necessary forms --"

"Will they be ready this afternoon?"

He nodded.

"I will see you then. Will it be possible for the contracts to be drawn without using my name?"

He smiled conspiratorially. "For an extra hundred and fifty dollars monthly we don't need a letter of your name." The poor chump had obviously dreamed of being a secret agent before old Herbie made him into a realtor. I could not resist the urge to mock.

"It's the e's that concern me most," I told him gravely. He nodded understandingly, and I turned and strode away.

More Meat

With an afternoon to kill, I wandered aimlessly around Manhattan, purchasing a few items for the new apartment, some clothes, and some books about Computer Science. At noon I stopped for lunch in a busy cafe. As I ate lukewarm cottage cheese, a heavily painted woman sat down at the other side of my table for two.

Slowly, she began the practiced process of pseudo-seduction by which she earned her living. I pretended to be thoroughly unaware of her efforts, and treated her in a courteous but apparently innocent way. Gradually, she grew less subtle. "I could show you a real good time, honey," she murmured, but her tone seemed more desperate than alluring.

"I'm rather enjoying myself already," I replied.

"Honey, nobody can do it for you like I can," she purred.

"I've got a chimpanzee at home who'd disagree" I exclaimed haughtily, and I went to pay my bill. It wasn't strictly true, but I'm sure it was a lot more comprehensible to her than simple disinterest.

Outside, the sun was bright on the sidewalk, and a Holdenite who had fallen a few minutes earlier was slowly sizzling, like bacon on a grill. Hot enough for you?

Christians

A few meters down the street from the frying fanatical fragments, a Christian was handing out pamphlets about the end of the world. Organized religions were seeing pretty hard times just then, since many of the faithful of all religions had embraced Robert Holden as the true promised One of God. What remained of Christianity was a loosely associated band of fanatics who regarded Holden as the anti-Christ, and devoted their time to prayer and to exhorting the population to repent. A large number of the Christians believed that, despite his own denials, Ramon Quisano was Christ returned. However, they felt that if he did not wish to be revealed, they would not reveal him, so he was rarely mentioned by the street-corner crusaders.

The Christian singled me out, probably because I was obviously in no hurry to go anywhere. "You, friend, have you accepted the Lord into your heart?"

"I'm afraid there isn't much room for Him there," I replied cheerfully, "Athero-sclerosis, you know."

"Friend, your soul is in grave danger. Don't you know that?"

I looked blankly into his eyes, fighting back a chuckle.

"Have you ever seen this book before?" A shiny New Testament drew the young man's hand toward me. I glanced at it quickly.

"Read it twice when I was a kid."

"Then you were saved once?"

"Not really. Even at the time I preferred The Lord of the Rings."

"Would you like to learn more about our Lord and Saviour?"

I shuddered at the image of a half-dozen teenagers earnestly explaining how Jesus had cleared up their acne. "No, really, I must be going now." He was still trying to persuade me that nothing could be more important than what he had to offer when a loud explosion behind us sent him hurtling into me, knocking me to the ground. A bomb in a nearby store had sent fragments of glass flying everywhere, and only his body protected me. He lay there, spurting blood all over me, until I threw him off. All my clothes were ruined, but I was uninjured, thanks to his protection.

Later in the afternoon, after I had bought a new set of clothes and gotten myself cleaned up, I headed back towards Loomis Realtors. On my way I met a second Christian, who accosted me anew. "Friend, have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ into your life and heart?"

I had neither the time nor the patience to discuss such matters further, and anyway could not have resisted uttering the first line to enter my head: "Yes, brother," I told him, "I've been washed in the blood."

A Place to Puke In

The realtor gave me two keys and an address in exchange for $4500, which included a deposit against any damage I might cause to the apartment. The address was on suburban Long Island, some fifty miles away. I reclaimed my helicopter at Grand Central and flew to my new home.

The apartment proved to be half of a typically suburban duplex, with a spacious lawn that would, through my patronage, help to send some enterprising young lawn mower to college, or at least to the cinema. Inside, it was tastefully furnished and decorated. The living room was small, but much larger than I would need for the whole of my social life. The kitchen featured all the usual appliances -- refrigerator, freezer, stove, dishwasher, food processor, hydroponic production reactor, and the robot that could run them all -- in matching colors and designs. The bedroom was interesting; the bed was queen size, the closet awesome in its depth, and the bathroom crude, tiny, and dirty. The final room -- now furnished as a study -- was large enough for the experiments I had in mind, but no larger. All in all, a perfectly innocuous apartment, yet with a bourgeois atmosphere that made me want to gag. I would, perhaps, get used to it.

There was no food in the house, so my first act of residency was a trip to the grocery. I stopped at a liquor store on the way home, thus enabling myself to celebrate a thoroughly unproductive day by wasting the night and most of the next morning in self-indulgence and its aftereffects.

At my most disgusting moments, wretchedly retching all over the elegant living room, I thought of my dear, lost, Martha. I no longer regarded this Holdenite creature that wanted to kill me and my tender, innocent wife as a single entity; rather amidst my heaving I dreamed of the Martha who used to stare in awe at me everywhere we went, the Martha who cooked my meals, cleaned my clothes, and listened to my dreams and failures.

I was glad to be rid of her, I decided, celebrating with an extra puke. She was always such a pain in the ass.

Just Desserts

My head felt like a sidewalk when I awoke. Ants danced between the cracks, businessmen bounced by in a blur, and Holdenites landed with ease, ooze, and "aah"s.

I struggled out of bed, or the bathtub, or whatever this thing I'd collapsed into was, and stared at myself in the mirror. I did this because every character in every book, movie, or television show I'd ever encountered who got drunk for one glorious night had stared at himself in the mirror the following morning. For fifteen minutes I stared at that mirror, trying to understand the attraction. Finally I concluded that it was simply a custom, like eating, or saying "excuse me". You don't defecate in government offices, and you don't get hung over without staring into the mirror.

For breakfast I had cottage cheese and tap water, the only foods in the house that required absolutely no preparation. Soon I was sufficiently composed to perform the least avoidable of the routine hygienic functions, after which I ate a sani-burger and disappeared.

A Minor Mystery

I reappeared, not in the least bit magically, inside my helicopter. I had a full but fabricated set of memories of walking from the building to the copter. The memories were so authentically fabricated that I need not mention their essential unreality again. It is, however, a valid matter for speculation to wonder how my movements actually came about, and who was in control. I have no idea. As far as I can tell from my own memories, I did indeed walk from the building to the copter. That's all I know about the whole mysterious affair.

More Senseless Violence

I arrived at the lab a few hours later to pack my effects. Everything looked fine from the air, and the walk from the heliport to the main building was exactly as it had always been.

However, when I opened the door, the general layout of the lab had been altered slightly. Instead of the neat rows of animals in cages on two walls, I saw empty cages and mangled bodies scattered everywhere. The shelves of expensive equipment had also been remodeled into a modernistic montage of glass shards and twisted alloys. Finally, my desk and library, with the records of all my experiments, lay in a shambles, with my most important papers ruined under a coating of urine and blood.

I was startled. Martha exhibited an imagination and skill I had never expected of her. No two bodies were mangled in the same way. I was most curious to see how she had dealt with Igor, for I well remembered Dr. Dehn's boasts about his ability to handle himself.

I found him in the isolation room where I had slept only a few nights before. Martha had drawn strange designs on his naked body with a soldering iron, but otherwise there was no mutilation except for the predictable absence of genitals. (The Holdenites' multilation predilections explained the Sanitation Department's label of "gourmet".) Stapled to his chest was an exceedingly vulgar note, written, the police later told me, with a fountain pen Martha had filled with Igor's own blood and an anti-coagulant. It was very long for a note scrawled in blood and stapled to a dead body; numbered pages were stapled all over the hulk, and leading from page to page were arrows branded into the flesh with the soldering iron. I reproduce the note in all its vulgarity as a demonstration of the depths to which human beings can sink when they accept inadequate formulations of the meaning of life.

A Hint of Fear

Dearest and Most Beloved Georj,

How are you, my darling? I am well and keeping quite busy, as you may perhaps have noticed. It is a pity that we missed each other, for we would have had so much to talk about. But frankly, honey, I deliberately waited for you to leave to pay this little visit. Oh, yes, I'd been watching you for several days, and could have killed you at any time. But you see, darling, that would have been against my principles. I knew that you didn't consider me capable of killing you and didn't even worry about it, so I had to do this to make you miserably fearful for a while. Because, beloved, I can kill you anywhere and anytime I please.

How, you may ask, did I overcome that charming Hellmuth Dehn? I'll tell you, since it won't do you any good anyway. First, I dyed my hair, cut it, and made a few other changes in case you'd shown him a picture of me. Then I sneaked into the building -- I'm sorry I can't tell you how, but that's a trick I might have to use on you some day. Anyway, I walked up behind Hellmuth, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, "Excuse me, sir."

He displayed his machismo by jumping like a frog. "Who are you?" he gasped.

"I'm sorry," I said, in the sexiest voice I could control. "I'm looking for Doctor Greenwald."

"How did you get in here?" he demanded.

I smiled coyly. "Didn't Georj tell you that I had a key?" He shook his head, and doggedly demanded that I tell him who I was. "I'm a -- a very close friend of Dr. Greenwald's. My name is Julia."

Anyway, dear husband, to make a long story readable, I seduced him. We went back into this isolation room and screwed for hours. You know, Georj, he was an awful lot better than you. I let him do things to me that I wouldn't even let you mention. I couldn't get enough of him. Finally, when he was exhausted, I begged him to let me give him one last blow job. Do you hear me, Georj? I begged him! Do you remember how I used to complain -- well, never mind. I begged him until he let me, and then I struck. He was lying on his back, and I got a small bottle out of my coat pocket without him noticing. Then, once I had him where I wanted him, I bit his balls off! (Well, yes, I was wearing a few attachments to my natural teeth, but the effort involved was my own.) Oh, Georj, you would have loved the expression on his face as I smiled up at him, eating a raw sani-frank as he lay bleeding. He was stunned for a moment, and before he could react I gave him a hydrochloric acid enema with my little bottle. Oh, Georj, I was so disappointed -- his screams were terribly unmanly. I do hope you'll be a bit more dignified when I do you in.

Well, Georj, that's about all I have to say. Take care of yourself, but remember: no matter how far you go, what name you use, or how you change your appearance, I will find you. I would go to the ends of the Earth for you, my darling, because I love you more than anyone else in the universe. We may be parted for now, dear, but I promise that some day soon you'll wake up to find me by your side once more.

Love,

Martha

I walked around the lab without fear of Martha; she would not have remained to face the police. Strewn about was my life's work, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of animals and equipment. Easy come, easy go.

With a mixture of hope and dread, it occurred to me to check the other isolation room, where Sabrina was being kept. I opened the door, and the chimp leapt screeching into my arms, hungry but alive. I fed her, all the while reassuring myself that Martha would never find my new apartment. It was in no way linked to my name, and I could make sure that I was not followed from the lab. Anyway, I could install a new security system at the house, perhaps change my appearance --

Martha's plan was working. I was growing nervous.

I called the police. Ramon Quisano's first official act had been to make it mandatory for the police to investigate each Holdenite atrocity, and the police force had been expanded accordingly. They took about half an hour to get to the lab, and we spent the customary twenty minutes discussing the crime.

Finally, the head detective asked me what I was going to do with the lab now.

"Well, I can't ever come back here," I told him, "so I think I'll just leave the remains to anyone who wants them. If you want the headaches, I'll deed it over to you right now."

My offer was politely declined. "What do you want done with the bodies, sir?"

"Give them to the sanitation people, but for God's sake don't make me hang around long enough to get my free samples."

"We're finished with you already. You can go now, if you like."

I took Sabrina and left. The lab was beginning to smell terrible. As I left, I heard the lieutenant on the phone.

"Hello, Sanitation Department? Do you handle apes?"

Science

A Purpose in Life

It's a good life, and often very exciting.

Born to Suffer

I must add that I didn't grow up with suffering. In fact, I don't think I've ever met anyone whose childhood was happier than mine. My parents loved me constantly and faithfully, and gave me everything I asked for. Perhaps they spoiled me, but it seems to me that if two people are multi-millionaires and know quite well that their only child will be equally rich, they have a right, even an obligation to spoil that child. Spoiling, by definition, means conditioning the child to expect that he will always get whatever he desires. My parents did this, certainly, but it has proved a valid expectation. I have always been rich enough to obtain any material thing, smart enough to out-maneuver or out-think anyone I might encounter, and strong enough to fulfill any physical desires or obligations I might have. In fact, until quite recently, I had never failed to get something that I wanted. But my story trails my digression by a wide margin.

Role Models

My parents were not particularly conservative in their manner of child-raising, but I was still a remarkable eight years old before I ever saw a television set. You see, I grew up in Antarctica, beyond the reach even of cable TV, and before the development of home satellite stations.

In retrospect, I'm not sure what possessed my parents to bring me up in Antarctica. It was cold and there weren't many children my age -- none but me, to be precise. But, they were dedicated to the research they were doing there, although I can't imagine why. My father and mother actually spent thirty years -- almost their entire productive lifetimes -- researching the same problem.

Of course, it was excellent research, but still it strikes me as a horribly boring way to spend a lifetime -- or two!

The truth is, my parents wasted their lives doing meaningless research. That's as close as I can come to existential despair -- disgust with the purposelessness of my parents' lives. I guess it followed naturally that I would revolt against the stupid specialization of my parents by researching the broad topic of the primal question. In the final comparison, I think that I have vindicated my choice of lifestyle by its results. I have answered all the questions that have plagued man though history; my parents, by contrast, wrote the definitive study of penguins.

Penguins

Rich people, as any rich person will tell you, need something challenging to do. For my parents, this challenge came in the form of the penguin. They simply bought themselves a chunk of Antarctica and lived there for thirty years. The chapter headings of their magnum opus, Penguins, by Drs. Jordan and Winona Greenwald, an eight thousand page paperweight, a veritable Urantia of a book, tell the story far better than I ever could:

Book One -- Physiology of Penguins (two volumes): 1. Visible Features. 2. Variations of Coloration. 3. Variations of Other Visible Features. 4. Visible Sexual Variations. 5. The Extremities. 6. The Heart. 7. The Circulatory System. 8. The Brain. 9. The Nervous System. 10. The Respiratory System. 11. The Endocrine System. 12. The Digestive System. 13. The Excretory Processes. 14. The Male Reproductive System. 15. The Female Reproductive System. 16. Inside the Mouth. 17. A Closer Look at the Tongue. 18. The Organs of Sight. 19. The Organs of Hearing. 20. Dynamics of Attempted Flight. 21. Weight Distribution and Center of Gravity. 22. Thermal Equilibrium and Normal Variation. 23. Reactions to Climatic Change.

Book Two -- Psychology of Penguins (two volumes): 1. Infant Development. 2. Puberty. 3. Sexual Initiation. 4. Territorial Rights. 5. Hunting Rights. 6. Sexual Competition. 7. Normal Sexual Behavior. 8. Non-sexual ('Platonic') Relationships. 9. Community Structure. 10. Aggressive Behavior. 11. Homosexuality. 12. Masturbation. 13. Taboos. 14. Oedipus and Electra Parallels. 15. Morality. 16. Religion and Mythology. 17. Group Hostility and Aggression. 18. The Penguin Wars. 19. Rituals for Organic Death. 20. Rituals for Combat Death. 21. Rituals for Predatorial Death. 22. Extreme Grief and Funereal Irregularities. 23. Trauma and Constipation - A Vicious Cycle? 24. Sexual Dysfunction in Male Penguins. 25. Sexual Dysfunction in Female Penguins. 26. Reactions to Mankind.

Book Three -- Habitat of Penguins: 1. A Geographical Survey. 2. Dwellings. 3. Flora. 4. Non-related Fauna. 5. Food. 6. Predators. 7. Man and Urban Life. 8. Environmental Decay. 9. Pollution before 1980. 10. Penguins and the Polar Oil Slick. 11. Petrochemically-induced Mutations.

Book Four -- In the Laboratory: 1. Intelligence. 2. Reactions to Hallucinogens. 3. Reactions to Tobacco. 4. Reactions to Alcohol. 5. Tropical Diet. 6. Tropical Climate. 7. Domestication. 8. Care of Domesticated Penguins. 9. Breeding of Penguins. 10. Genetic Variants and Spontaneous Mutations. 11. Artificially-induced Mutations. 12. Sexual Contact with Other Animals. 13. Sexual Contact with Man. 14. Sexual Contact with Woman (illustrated). 15. Stimulation of the Sexual Drive. 16. Suitability as Experimental Animals. 17. Eroticism. 18. Creativity. 19. Waste Disposal.

Book Five -- In the Hospital: 1. Viral Afflictions. 2. Myopia and the Difficulties of Corrective Lenses. 3. Surgical Techniques. 4. Dissection Techniques. 5. Cancer. 6. Comforting the Bereaved.

Book Six -- In the Home: 1. Slaughter Techniques. 2. Feather and Skin Removal. 3. Tanning Hides. 4. Penguin Skin versus Leather. 5. Penguin Rugs. 6. Penguin Lampshades. 7. Twelve uses for Penguin Bones. 8. Thirty uses for Penguin Feathers. 9. Frying a Penguin. 10. Baking a Penguin. 11. Boiling a Penguin. 12. Garnishes. 13. Casseroles. 14. Stews. 15. Nutritional Information. 16. Menu Planning. 17. That Funny Aftertaste. 18. A Word on Etiquette.

My parents were hard at work on book Seven -- contents blessedly lost forever to mankind -- when they were trapped in an ice cave and perished in 1987. Their work is considered the singular masterpiece in the field. I don't think anyone but them has ever read it.

Grief

It's funny, but when I think about my parents, I never conceive of them as they are -- dead and perfectly preserved in the unreachable depths of an Antarctic glacier. Rather I see them as I knew them, as if their subjective existence in my mind was somehow more valid than all the objective facts in the universe. If only we could lose our senses of time, we would have no more need of grief or despair. And sometimes I am without that sense; but which times, when?

School

When I was eight years old, my parents decided that I would be happier and healthier if sent away to boarding school. Besides, trying to educate me was beginning to interfere with their research.

So it was that I found myself alone in a strange hemisphere at that delicate age. My parents, in keeping with their general policy of "spoiling" me as much as possible, allowed me to choose my own school, and I chose a famous, exclusive, and immorally expensive boys' school in New England.

I dearly loved Excalibur Preparatory School from the moment I arrived. The grounds were exquisitely kept, and the September colors that greeted my arrival were quite astonishing for a child who had known only Antarctica. Oh, I was very nonchalant, having seen pictures before, but beneath the casual smile I gaped at every leaf.

I also found a great deal of pleasure in the academics, where my parents' teaching had ensured that I would excel in all subjects with a minimum of exertion, and in athletics, where I, made rugged by long hikes in the ice caves, far outclassed even those two grades above me. In short, I was one of those disgustingly happy and well-rounded individuals who are the bane of the insecure everywhere, and who are pointed at with awe throughout their lifetimes as exemplars for mankind. Anyone in the student body who would not have given his life to become my friend would surely have given someone else's.

And because my spoiling -- a horrible word, it connotes a rotting, moldy, decaying corpse -- because my mildewing in the Antarctic had prepared me thoroughly for the most egocentric life imaginable, I doubt that I considered for a moment the possible misery of those I surpassed and ignored. The term "misery" was itself almost alien to me. Life was a lark, to be devoted to pleasure, self-indulgence, and eccentricities like the study of penguins.

It was in November of that first year that I discovered pain.

Larger than Life

It happened the first time I went to the cinema, in the company of a would-be friend, a puny fellow named Lucien Nunn who was inevitably known only as Lucy. Not knowing what to expect, I was quite angry when the theatre darkened and the children around me continued to talk, full voice. Would I be able to hear?

Then came the opening music, an orchestra in stereophonic power. Twice as loud as television or the educational movies at school, the music was set at the volume of life. The screen was larger still. I gasped at the sudden intuition that this was not art, but directed reality.

A wagon train was surrounded by Indians. Women and children huddled inside the wagon while men tried valiantly to defend them. But the men had only rifles, while the Indians had powerful bows, arrows, and tomahawks. The men fared very poorly indeed.

The baby in Lizzy's arms started to cry, and a four year old boy cuddled closer to Lizzy for protection. "I'm scared, Ma," he whimpered.

"Don't worry, Jimmy," said the father, "I can handle this." With that he swaggered out of the wagon, and was swiftly downed by a rain of arrows. He died, as near as I could tell, almost instantly.

Soon the Indians were everywhere, knocking things over, taking things, killing people, and generally indulging themselves. One shrieked a frightening cry as he cut Lizzy's scalp off. Jimmy and the baby cried, but no one noticed them. Soon the pillage was over and the savages were gone, and Jimmy carried the baby from the wagon to seek other survivors. There were none, and they were alone in the huge prairie. He began to cry.

At this point the horror of Jimmy's plight overwhelmed me. "Why doesn't somebody do something?" I demanded of Lucy, who contentedly munched on popcorn, apparently oblivious to the misery before his eyes.

He looked at me oddly, and someone nearby hissed at me to be quiet. "There's nobody there," Lucy finally whispered back.

"There's hundreds of us here," I answered impatiently.

"Don't be silly," said that eight-year-old sage. "The way it is written, there's no one there to help him. That's all there is to it. We just sit here and watch."

Finally, I understood. Jimmy, a flesh and blood person, had to suffer, just as surely as a character in a book had to suffer, simply because the Creator of Jimmy's world had decided he had to suffer. Jimmy's role was to stand alone in a prairie with a baby in his arms, both of them crying. My role was to sit in a comfortable chair, eating popcorn and watching them suffer. I was quiet for the rest of the movie, pondering an awesome and, for me, unprecedented question: Why would anybody create a world with so much suffering?

A Vow

During the following months I became very practiced at reacting indifferently to misery. I even experimented with such novelties as laughing every time someone bled, but soon I learned that this was a serious breach of cinematic etiquette, and I desisted.

At some point during this period I made a strange vow: Some day I would meet the writer of one of these violent movies or TV shows, and I would ask him why he made people so unhappy.

Then I would be content.

A Really Big Show

On an early March afternoon the next spring I was walking alone, searching for something clever to do. I stood for a while on the shore of Fletcher Pond, where we went ice skating in colder weather. The pond was still frozen, but there was enough danger of thin ice for the authorities to put up the "No Skating" signs.

I was therefore somewhat surprised to see Cyrus Pearson, a classmate of mine, boldly skate out to the middle of the pond after ascertaining that no one was watching. (He apparently either missed or chose to ignore me; perhaps it was to impress me that he had gone out in the first place.)

As I had half-expected, the ice broke and he fell in and began screaming for help. I waited breathlessly: would no one come to save him in time? All the familiar cinematic exhilaration returned to me, intensified by the unenclosed environment and my standing position, without even popcorn to distract me. After an agonizing wait, someone rushed by me and rescued him, but by then it was too late; he contracted pneumonia, and died a few days later.

As might have been expected, the authorities were rather displeased with my behavior. I was ordered to visit the headmaster the next morning, and I slept fitfully that night. No one had ever been seriously angry with me before. Had I done something wrong?

On the Carpet

The headmaster at Excalibur was a gentle, thoughtful man who believed that his function was to help children, not to discipline them. As a result of his good intentions, there was not the slightest shred of discipline among the students, and Mr Watson had a remarkable reputation as a patsy.

Nonetheless I was quite nervous as I knocked on the door of his office. One of my roommates had casually passed on to me a rumor that I would be sent to jail for the rest of my life if Cyrus died. This was somewhat unnerving for an eight-year-old, and I knocked on Mr. Watson's door rather timidly.

"Come in, Georj." The usually jovial voice was newly menacing, like the whistle of a train as it approaches Little Nell, tied to the tracks.

I opened the door and took two steps into the room. "Close the door," commanded Mr. Watson, and I meekly obeyed.

We stared at each other for a moment, I too frightened to speak, he groping for words sufficiently grave.

"Georj, did you see Cyrus fall into the pond yesterday?"

I nodded.

"Answer out loud!" He tried to growl and bark like a classic headmaster, but was awkward and vaguely comical in the attempt. Terror checked my smile before its birth. "Yes, sir," I managed.

"And did you do anything to help him?"

"No, sir."

"Did you try to find someone else to help him?"

"No, sir."

He walked to the window and looked out onto the lawn for a moment. It comforted me to think that he enjoyed this no more than I, but at the same time it puzzled me. If neither of us wanted to do this, who or what was forcing us?

He turned back to face me again. "Don't you like Cyrus Pearson?"

I was surprised by the question. "Oh, of course, sir. Cyrus and I are good friends."

"Then why didn't you try to help him?"

This question befuddled me entirely. I had been very confused upon learning that people felt I should have helped him, and most of my thought since then had been devoted to trying to understand that.

"Speak up, Georj."

"I didn't know, sir."

"You didn't know what? You saw him in the water, you knew that he was in trouble!"

"I didn't know that I was supposed to help him, sir."

An initial reaction of surprise was soon replaced by a look of concern and worry on the headmaster's face. He sat down, with a great show of fatigue, in a large leather armchair, and motioned for me to follow suit.

"Georj, there weren't any churches in Antarctica, were there?"

"No, sir."

"Did your parents ever talk to you about God, or about right and wrong?"

"No, sir."

"But you attend Sunday services here at Excalibur, don't you?"

"Oh, of course, sir."

"What do you think of them, Georj? You can talk honestly."

I hesitated. "Well, I haven't really understood what they're talking about, sir."

"Do you have any specific questions you want to ask me? Go on, you needn't be afraid."

I hesitated again, then blurted out, "How do you know when to help your neighbor and when not to?"

"You should always help your neighbor, Georj."

"But Lucy Nunn got mad at me when I wanted to help the people in the movies, and so did everyone else!" My frustration was open, now. I felt as if people were making up arbitrary rules as they went along just to confuse me with an irrational body of knowledge they chose to call "right and wrong". Mr Watson recognized my distress and tried to calm me, but his gentle words only compounded the problem.

"Those aren't real people, Georj. If something happens to them it is because the writer wants it to happen, and all he wants you to do is to watch. If something happens to a real person, though, you can help, because God wants you to help."

"Why does God want me to help the real people but not the movie people?"

"Georj, the movie people can't be helped. They're just like a picture that you draw, it stays the way you make it."

"But that isn't true! You can erase it, you can change it!"

He sighed, trapped in his own inadequate analogy, and took another track. "Georj, real people have feelings. They can be unhappy, like you or me. Movie people don't have feelings. It doesn't matter if we help them or not. Do you understand?"

I nodded, but I didn't understand. You see, I had never really been unhappy, with the possible exception of those last 24 hours, and I hadn't really had a chance to comprehend recent events. By Mr. Watson's definition, I was a movie person, and no one would ever bother to help me when I needed it.

Mr Watson exhaled loudly, glad to have finally gotten through. He assigned me two months of kitchen duty and suspended some of my recreational privileges for the remainder of the term, but he did not send me to jail, even when Cyrus died. His relief at being done with our conversation appeared to exceed even my own.

The Quest

From that day on, I pretended to know what people were talking about when they discussed morality and the need for compassion. Still, their fallacies seemed so obvious and their earnestness so absurd that I couldn't even follow their flawed logic until I studied Philosophy in college.

Soon, the many questions that moralists had stirred up in my mind became an obsession, and I swore to dedicate my life, if necessary, to finding the answers. The basic question was always the Purpose of Life: did it exist, and if so, what was it?

Starting with Philosophy was a rather obvious thing to do. Theorizing seemed the only way to find my answers. But there was one catch, and I found it as a graduate student. Or, more precisely, I didn't find it as a graduate student. I didn't find anything but the knowledge that I hadn't found anything, that no one had ever found anything. Philosophers had, in the last few millenia, proposed just about every conceivable cosmology or refutation of cosmology itself. One of them had to be right, I felt. But philosophy, apparently, could never prove it.

The realization plunged me into the murky waters of empiricism: nothing could be proved without assumption, and no philosophical assumption was unchallenged. Q.E.D.

At that point I became a scientist. A mathematician.

A Partial Resume

Money was, of course, no problem for me as I hopped from college to college for years and years accumulating enough credits for an armload of B.A.'s, five M.A.'s, and four Ph.D.'s. My grandparents' fortune still grew faster than I could spend it, and I learned a great deal.

I learned that my problem in Philosophy had stemmed from my attempts to prove truth inductively. As a scientist I attempted to work deductively, to begin with a hypothesis of the Meaning of Life and to seek to determine how it worked (or didn't work) in the laboratory. This led me through the rich and fascinating worlds of Psychology, History, Genetics, Physics, Anatomy, and others. I had a great time.

Dead Areas

Many of my early experiments were conducted with human subjects, captured Holdenites. This was in the very early days of Holdenism, when their violence was still countered with the full wrath of the State. The vengeance naturally proved a great aid to the Holdenite cause, as it would again later in Quisano's time, for which reason it had quickly given way to the benign tolerance of the pre-Quisano era. In those early days, however, scientific research on human subjects flourished, in marked contrast to the later era when Quisano's hordes promptly lynched every captured Holdenite. But again, my digression threatens foreshadowing.

My experiments on Holdenites were mostly neurological. I began by investigating Jung's theory of the Collective Unconscious with a thorough mapping of the brain. Using computerized techniques refined from Penfield's work in the 1950's, I stimulated all major neurons individually in the brains of dozens of surly Holdenites, hoping to find a neuron or two that would produce identical responses in widely varying patients. Such neurons, if they existed, would bear further investigation as possible centers of communication with the Collective Unconscious.

I never found those neurons, but I did identify large areas of the brain as having no discernible functions. Yet when I removed these 'useless' areas of the brain, my patients seemed to lose much of their ability to take initiative, think creatively, or make decisions. My conclusion was that an important part of the mind existed, either in physical or non-physical form, somewhere outside the body, perhaps even in another dimension. The part of the brain that I had removed, I believed, contained the communication link between that 'soul' and the brain.

My findings, and their ensuing philosophical ramifications regarding the likelihood of immortality, were debated furiously by my peers. While the actual results were inevitably accepted, my conclusions about the purpose of the 'dead areas' of the brain were finally ignored.

At about the same time, I was conducting some thoroughly useless brain-wave experiments. I had successfully distinguished waves of thought from waves of emotions, and was attempting to reproduce the emotional states of orgasm and nirvana (the latter as registered by certain Indian gurus who consented to be wired up, the former as registered by a particularly attractive captured Holdenite girl) in the brains of my Holdenite subjects. Every time I modified the emotional pattern of a subject without modifying the thought pattern, the neurological strain was too much for the patient, and he or she was rendered useless for further experiments. The only worthwhile result of those experiments was indirect: it was discovered that the subjects still had other uses after their minds were ruined. That was, in fact, how one of my lab assistants made his fortune by inventing the Sani-burger.

Fast-Forward

There were many more experiments, spanning many more years.

Up-to-date

Somewhere along the way I met Martha. She despised me as the moral progenitor of sani-burgers, loathed my clinical attitude toward life, and viewed my research with disdain and contempt.

I fell in love. She was a good cook and lover. I was rich and offered her whatever she desired. She used to say that my love for her was as clinical as my research, and she was absolutely right. Although she would never have admitted it herself, our marriage was simply a contractual arrangement, fees paid for services rendered.

And for the ten years of our marriage, I was happy and she was miserable. A basic difference in personality, I suppose. But for all those years, my research continued.

Until, of course, the day came when my beloved and unhappy wife became a Holdenite and destroyed my life's work.

Domestic Bliss

So I settled into my lovely new duplex with absolutely nothing to show for a lifetime of research but a chimpanzee that was pregnant with twin females of a new species of the genus Homo. Sabrina proved nearly as good a cook as Martha, and certainly a better conversationalist. Her major shortcoming was sexual, and the fault there was as much my own as hers: somehow her furry body and chimp odor served as negative reinforcement for my ardor. I rarely touched her.

But, bizarre and fascinating though the domestic life was, I soon found myself restless to begin a new phase of my research. A short week after the destruction of my laboratory I gave Sabrina a parting banana and flew to New York, to Grand Central Heliport.

Once there, I went on a shopping spree, spending about forty million dollars and returning home with a few books to read.

Retraining Program

For the next few weeks I did little but read about computers. A check of the records at Excalibur Academy will show anyone interested that my IQ has never been successfully measured, and that I have a photographic memory. After a month of study, with only a small amount of prior knowledge, I was an expert computer programmer, comfortable with the latest techniques of Artificial Intelligence. I sat around for a few days waiting for TIBM to complete my new laboratory in Antarctica.

This new laboratory really excited me. I spent much of the five weeks of its construction thinking about it, and calling the contractors with changes in design and layout. The completed project was magnificent, with a cost overrun of 24 million dollars that resulted directly from the round-the-clock construction I had demanded and the whimsical changes in design that kept inspiring me. Again, the cost was completely irrelevant. I could easily have purchased a dozen such laboratories. The important thing was that it would give me something to do again.

It was completed on a Wednesday afternoon, and I was packed that evening for a Thursday departure. Television documentaries about Ramon Quisano's repressive crackdown on Holdenism failed miserably to entertain me until I fell nervously asleep, dreaming of freedom from loathsome Long Island.

Waving the Red Flag

I awoke at 6:30 and was dressed long before 6:31. I fairly tore the bedroom door from its hinges in my haste -- and stopped before leaving the room. Dangling from the door frame was a furry arm, undoubtedly Sabrina's.

It could only be Martha's work, yet she had spared me. Thoroughly confused, I inched into the hallway. Sabrina greeted me with whimpers and blood. Aside from the one amputated limb, and an understandable weakness from loss of blood, she seemed healthy enough.

Around her neck, however, was a chain with a small vial attached. The note within explained the lack of carnage:

Dear Georj,

Sorry I haven't got time to stay, but I just wanted to drop in and see how you were doing. Don't forget that I love you and will follow you anywhere. I mean business, Georj. The only reason I didn't run you through a blender tonight is that you don't seem properly afraid of me yet. You underestimate me. But, Georj, I'm watching your every move. I saw you packing, which is why I paid this little visit. I wanted you to know that I know where you're moving to, too.

You can't escape me, my beloved!

Love,

Martha

I didn't react much to her note. While startled that she had traced me to Long Island, I had little fear of her bothering me at the new lab -- my new Antarctic home. Her reference to my new home was an obvious bluff, and besides, the new lab had nine million dollars worth of security equipment.

Sabrina was a little more concerned, and made that clear all the way to the animal hospital.

The Grand Tour

Delayed but reasonably undaunted by a visit to the vet, an eager scientist and his sedated chimpanzee arrived at around 1600 hours at the newly renovated Greenwald Research Center in Antarctica. Though my parents' researches had been terminated many years before, their estate would remain preserved in excellent condition even after the end of the world. But again, I warp my perspective of time. I haven't even described the place yet.

Sabrina and I were arriving just in time to be the only primates on an entire continent. The few other research stations were in the process of being abandoned, as governments worldwide devoted an ever-increasing chunk of their budgets to anti-Holdenite futility. There were still a few workers at the Computer Center when we arrived; they had completed their work the day before but remained to give us a tour and the keys. Our Guide introduced himself as Dr. Valachi, TIBM's senior engineer for the project. He was a tall, conservatively dressed gentleman with short, curly, dark brown hair and a neatly-trimmed Van Dyke beard, an old-school expert who had begun working for IBM even before the Tandy takeover. For someone who obviously never wanted to set foot in the Southern Hemisphere again, he was quite courteous and thorough in showing us about. First he introduced me to the computer itself, a GR9000-N anti-hexadecimal post-fenestration vivisimulator.

"As per your instructions, Dr. Greenwald, we have provided this machine with the most advanced English language software yet developed, the AI854-S system, with a specialized comprehension of over seventy thousand English words, and translation algorithms for twenty other languages."

"Specialized comprehension?" I repeated, the phrase elusive and frustrating in its implications.

"Yes, you see, Dr. Greenwald, the computer can understand nearly any English word you know, but inevitably selects among multiple alternate meanings that are, at root, defined very rigidly. For this reason, you must be fairly precise when you try to use any of the AI854 packages to communicate in English. We've provided you with a complete dictionary of the computer's interpretations of English words, of course. Also, an added feature in the AI854-S system is that the computer knows what words it is most likely to misinterpret, and can learn from you about other words it misinterprets. This means that if, in speaking with the computer, you make a statement that it considers itself prone to misinterpret, it will tell you exactly how it is interpreting the statement. This gives you a chance to clarify and correct the statement immediately." The fellow went on in that vein for a while, but most of it dealt with such technicalities as relevance registers, perceptual frame arrays, and KRAMS (Knowledge Representation Alternative Modality Settings), and was far too obscure to reproduce here.

Anyway, after the computer, Dr. Valachi showed me the rest of the new section of the research station: a communication center which allowed me to catch my favorite TV shows by satellite without paying for a cable from Argentina (wish they'd had that when I was a kid...), a hydroponic greenhouse, and enough freeze-dried food to last Sabrina and I for seventy years, if necessary. I was satisfied, and Valachi quickly got on a waiting airplane and flew to Florida, where I can only presume he remained until the world ended. Of course, I haven't been to Florida since the world ended, but I doubt that I could have found his remains anyway.

The Worst of Times

Boredom, I tell myself frequently, is a state of mind. Not a profound thought, but often useful. To me, boredom is less the absence of things to do than the absence of a will to do them. Since I will not tolerate breaches of self-discipline, I am rarely bored. If there is something to do, I force myself to do it whether I want to or not, whether I need to or not. Martha told me I was being silly when I persisted in any project I knew to be ridiculous, just because I hadn't yet found a better one. Yet I've made my peace with silliness; village idiots are rarely bored.

Hence this chronicle of my research. Did it do anything but fill in the gaps in my day and divert me from the abyss? And if not, is that not enough?

To tell the truth, I didn't work on this account for the entire time from my arrival in Antarctica to the end of the world. Only now that there is absolutely nothing else to do have I returned to this last unfinished project.

Maybe it's the cold, but even now I can't muster enthusiasm for my words anymore. They're so -- imprecise. When I talk to Grinn (that's what I call my GR9000-N when we're alone), I know that he is interpreting my words with an obscene precision they simply do not warrant. Even my thoughts are vague. I fed Grinn A Tale of Two Cities today, just to see if he could make any sense out of it. We talked about it for hours, and I'm not at all sure that Dickens would approve. Of course the machine knew all the words, but whenever I tried to draw him out on the great ideas of the book, he digressed into a psychological analysis of Charles Dickens. He loved the first chapter, but only as a case study in schizophrenia. He read it, and promptly concluded that Dickens was a "schizophrenic", which in his rigid vocabulary means "a person whose goals and mores do not complement each other in a logical system". Since this probably applies to the entire human race, a quantifier is added. One whose system of thought appears less than 15% contradictory is said merely to have "minor schizophrenic tendencies", and the labels increase in severity with the decrease in consistency. Dickens, according to Grinn's calculations, was "a dangerously unbalanced schizophrenic with virtually no ability to objectify reality or quantify relative weights of varying attributes".

"But Grinn," I told him, "Dickens is simply trying to express the deep contrasts that have always been the reality of man's existence. Dickens was writing in a world where a privileged few, for no apparent reason, enjoyed nearly any material pleasure they desired while the masses starved in the streets."

"So you're saying, Georj, that it was 'the best of times' for some and 'the worst of times' for others?"

"Partly, yes, but even for an individual it could never be so clear-cut. For the peasant the newfound promise of liberty was a rising tide, a joyous promise of a better future. Yet he remained as poor as ever. For the rich, the luxuries remained glorious, but peasant unrest and even occasional feelings of guilt clouded life as well."

"Then it was neither the best of times nor the worst of times."

"You can't really quantitatively compare the good or evil of one historical moment with another, Grinn. Each moment offers the striving man partial success and failure."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Georj, but I've been led to believe that 'best' and 'worst' are quantitatively superlative, and thus connote absolutely superiority or inferiority within the realm of the known."

"But you've just hit on the key point: historical moments can never be compared because only the present moment can be truly known. Future moments are obviously only the objects of our speculation, and past moments can only be known as the aggregate of preserved factual data."

"And by what method other than accumulation of factual data can the present be known?"

"Direct sensual perception, Grinn."

"Oh." He paused a moment; his limited sensuality was a sensitive matter for him. His understanding of the physical universe was as limited as a color-blind man's sense of sight. This wasn't why he paused, of course. Generally Grinn responds virtually instantaneously, which can be rather disconcerting in an abstract discussion. He pauses only to process large amounts of data, which he apparently needed to do at this time. Finally, after an unusually long pause (it seemed at least ten seconds), he tried to summarize my argument for his own understanding.

"Please verify that I have understood: It is your contention that Dickens was justified in making such statements as, 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,' because no two times can be objectively compared, and therefore any superlative may be legitimately applied to the present moment?"

"Yes," I replied somewhat warily, unnerved by the phrase 'any superlative', "But of course that depends upon the subjective experience of the individual."

"Then if Dickens' subjective experience was absolutely dualistic and paradoxical, he suffered from paranoid delusions of grandeur. If he was sane, what would be the point of such a meaningless statement? For it is certainly meaningless, if it is, as you say, equally applicable to any time."

"The point, Grinn, is to express the unfulfilled longing of the human spirit, and the polarity in which all men in all eras must struggle. The point is to dramatize the human condition."

"Then the human condition is not logical?"

"I doubt that anyone ever claimed that it was."

"Then is it tautology or paradox?" Grinn waited, eager to absorb another logical datum.

"Both. Neither." I snapped at Grinn in frustration. "End of conversation utilization." The phrase transformed him instantly from an animated conversationalist into a programmable GR9000 time-sharing system. In essence, it shut him up by performing a temporary lobotomy.

"Ready!" he saluted, again a slave to the programmer's eminently human whims. I turned him off and went to dinner.

The Final Research

Of course, I didn't shell out all that money just to wax eloquent with an ultimately mindless software package. I used it, as I used everything and everyone, for my research. For, I might add, the particular research that finally achieved my life's goal. It was shortly after I arrived in Antarctica that I began to sense that my years of hard-earned knowledge were finally enabling me to close in for the kill, to answer the ultimate question, to discover a logical structure behind all I had perceived, without anything Grinn would suspect of schizophrenia -- in short, to explain everything.

I was pursuing this explanation in a rather obvious manner, though I'm at a loss to explain why no one had done it before. It was basically a sophisticated version of the children's game in which one player tries to identify an object in the other person's mind by asking a maximum of twenty questions about the nature of that object. In my version, however, I asked the computer to guess the meaning of life, and placed no limitation on the number of questions it asked me about life itself, or about the definitions of various terms. The computer required precise answers; sometimes it took me days to answer a single question to its satisfaction. Occasionally I would ask Grinn how he was coming along in trying to isolate the solution, and he would recite to me all of his current plausible hypotheses about the meaning of life. Slowly, the list was trimmed as new data made old theories untenable logically. Ultimately, I hoped, one hypothesis would remain which could not be shaken by any amount of new data nor by human cross-examination. If no such hypothesis remained, my search would likewise be at an end, for I would have proven, reasonably conclusively, that no amount of rational inquiry could unearth the meaning of existence.

To make sure that Grinn wouldn't miss the solution through a lack of creativity, I had provided him with hundreds of carefully worded hypotheses that covered every attempt at an answer that I had ever heard of. These ranged from the Holdenite conception of a bumbling scientist God to the Cybernist theory of a Supreme Binary Unit (a theory which Grinn dismissed almost instantly as 'metaphysically inadequate'), and included as well the premises of every major or minor religion that was known to have ever existed, according to researchers at the World Academy of Religion and Primate Anthropology in Rome.

Every day, Grinn would ask me questions, and I would spend hours meticulously researching and wording my answers. Grinn's range of interest seemed limitless, and was as unpredictable as the isotopes that powered his creativity modules. For days he would question me about strictly factual matters, and then suddenly he would turn to the most abstract of philosophical theories. During my fourth week in Antarctica, for example, he asked me what the unemployment rate was for mulatto teenagers in Amarillo, Texas. My heart sank, knowing he could ask questions like that forever. I began feeding him reams of statistical data. (Fortunately for me, he was equipped with an optical scanner that allowed him to read ordinary books with his own TV camera, so that I didn't have to type or recite the answers to his statistical questions.) For eleven days he devoured nothing but statistics, and then, out of the blue:

"Georj?"

"Yes, Grinn, I'm listening." Another request for statistics, I was sure. Sometimes I considered pulling the plug.

"Georj, Kant says on page sixty of his Prolegomena that all synthetical principles a priori are nothing more than the principles of possible experience. What does he mean exactly when he refers to 'principles of possible experience'?"

I was speechless for a moment. Grinn had read everything Kant had written three weeks earlier, and had asked me no questions at the time. "I'll get back to you," I said.

Eight hours later, not too confident, I returned. "Any experience may lead us to induce some principle a posteriori. If an experience is within the realm of physical possibility, but not yet actualized, then an a priori knowledge of the principle behind it may be possible. A principle of possible experience is one we would know a posteriori were the experience actualized."

"But how do we know it a priori?"

"Oh, come on, Grinn, you've read all about that! We impose our mental structures upon the phenomenal world through a priori intuitions."

"Of course, I see now. How many calories does an Australian Aborigine consume in an average day?"

I sighed. No breakthroughs, apparently. "I'll get back to you."

Escalation

Weeks and months passed by in a seemingly irrelevant and hazy quiltwork of dreams and nightmares, little successes and unprovoked despondencies. Occasionally Grinn would announce that he had discarded one of the many hypotheses he was still testing. Even less frequently he would think of a new hypothesis, which didn't do much for my mortal and impatient soul. Dozens of possibilities still remained as Sabrina's pregnancy neared full term. The chimp was doing remarkably well for a recently amputated pregnant mutant. I expected a normal delivery, and was not disappointed. I found her in labor one morning as I brought her breakfast.

I must confess that it was not until the twins were born that I became aware of the extreme social upheaval that had been escalating in the outside world throughout my isolation. But when I telephoned news of the birth of the mutated twin sisters to the world news services, I was told that unauthorized news releases were no longer being accepted. Puzzled, I resolved to watch the television news that night for the first time in four months. I went back to work with Grinn, after telling him to remind me to watch the 6:30 EDT news.

At 6:27, Grinn reminded me; indeed, it would have been impossible for him to forget. I turned on the TV, and the man in the copyrighted Walter Cronkite mask smiled at me. "Good evening, citizens. The great struggle continued today, with government troops destroying Holdenites throughout the world. To every last man, these vermin will be eradicated. Only then will the inferior mental faculties that cling to this evil religion be destroyed. Only then will the genetic makeup of the human race be sufficiently purified for Jesus to return and help us create the Overman.

"Our top item for tonight, citizens, is an address by the Acting President of the United States, Ramon Quisano. From Washington, here is President Quisano."

The fascist maniac who had only begun his rise to power when last I watched the news now appeared on the screen. An upheaval in my stomach caught itself at my Adam's apple and abated, the receding tide of emotion leaving an acrid taste in my throat. Quisano spoke.

"Citizens," he began, "in the furtherance of the cause of world peace and Holdenite eradication I hereby announce that the governments of the world will soon be united under my command. At this very moment, American forces have occupied the major world capitals. Soon all of humanity will be united to fight the spectre of Holdenism. Isolated pockets of resistance to the new world order have formed, but these will be eliminated within a few weeks or months. The day of the Lord is at hand, citizens! Jesus, the only begotten Son of the Planetary Prince will soon return as the final Melchizedek, and will reign in genetically engineered glory for all time, as soon as Satan's Holdenites are banished forever to the pits of Hell."

I turned off the TV in disgust. The world was eagerly tumbling toward Armageddon as quickly as it could manage. What could it all mean? If I couldn't find out very soon, it seemed likely no one ever would. I swallowed two tablets of benzedrine and returned to Grinn with a new sense of urgency. Time was running out.

Fortunately, a day and a half proved sufficient.

Triumph

It's nearly impossible for me to describe the day that it actually happened. My life since then has been utterly chaotic -- until now, of course. There isn't anything left to do now but write my memoirs.

The night before it happened, I had a premonition, of sorts, in the form of a dream. Ramon Quisano and Robert Holden were together, performing homosexual acts on a large bed in the center of the decrepit Houston Astrodome, which was packed with a cheering crowd. Banners proclaimed a new era of peace, and angels danced overhead.

I didn't think about it much when I awoke, for I went straight to work, my sense of urgency acute. I ate a quick and formless breakfast, then went to Grinn, who had been thinking all night and would surely have more questions for me this morning. He did, but not as many as I expected.

"Georj, why did Einstein fail Mathematics in grammar school?"

"I'm not sure anyone really knows, Grinn, but it is known that most schools are totally unprepared for exceptional students. They are often made to feel abnormal, and are sometimes even forbidden to learn as they would like. Whether that was Einstein's problem is difficult to say."

"What makes humans learn at different rates?"

"Aside from the vague answers of heredity and environment, I don't think we could tell you much on that score, either."

"Human ignorance is vast, is it not?"

"It certainly is; perhaps that is why we cannot even answer so basic a question as the one we have given you."

"But many humans have answered that question, and with great success."

"What do you mean, Grinn? Have you solved the problem? Do you know the meaning of human existence?"

"Oh, yes, I suppose I should have mentioned that. Yes, I achieved a level of 99.43% certainty during the night. Recalculation on the basis of what you have said this morning leads me to... 99.46% certainty."

"Tell me, tell me the answer!" I feared death from a stroke before the words could reach my ears. But with his usually-annoying instantaneous response, Grinn told me. The burden of a lifetime was suddenly and uniquely lifted from my shoulders. Of course, I thought, why hadn't I understood that before?

Practical Matters

My celebration was, inevitably, short-lived. There was still the matter of communicating my discovery to the world, and thus preventing its self-destruction. This was no simple chore; could I simply call someone on the telephone and say, "Here is the meaning of life!"? And if so, who? The news services were no longer accepting my briefs. One man controlled the communications of an entire world, and it was to him that my efforts must inevitably be directed. But how could an eccentric scientist, the only human being on Antarctica, contact the dictator of the planet? Several implausible schemes came to mind, all of which failed. On the phone I could only get so far up in the bureaucracy without revealing all that I wished to tell Quisano, and I was certain that no underling would risk his own job for the apparently crazy story of discovery that was mine. The inevitability of this failure should have been apparent to me from the beginning, but, flushed with success as I was, I did not think clearly. When I realized that I would not get through to Quisano, my spirits flagged; had my discovery come too late to save humanity?

Fortunately, my slowed mind was still functioning, after a fashion. It occurred to me that there was another man in the world with nearly as much power as Quisano. It was thus towards my old teacher, Robert Holden, that my attention turned.

Robert Holden

Getting in touch with the high priest of a religion that is banned and persecuted in every corner of the globe is no simple task. I was aided, of course, by the fact that Holden had known me, and had found me rather curious. Still, I had to take a great many risks. I had to enter Holdenite churches myself, to brave the incredulous Holdenites within who demanded that I either join them or castrate myself (I chose the latter to demonstrate my sincerity; would Martha have approved?), and finally to sit through twelve blindfolded hours in a helicopter that brought me slowly to Holden's secret headquarters. Finally, I stepped into a spacious garden, surrounded by columns tastefully adorned with human bones, on the private estate of Robert Holden.

Holden himself was sitting by his private pool, a kidney shaped concrete hole in the earth filled with human blood. In a cage by the side of the pool, a young leopard was trying to eat its first meal in weeks, a human baby. The baby was large and the cat weak, so that the death was slow, painful, and terrifyingly loud. The baby screamed, the cat hissed and scratched again, and blood trickled out of the cage and into a gutter that led to the pool. Holden explained it to me as I stared in disbelief. A faucet dripped an anticoagulant into the pool to prevent clotting. All the blood in the Holiday Inn-sized pool, Holden claimed, had been obtained from babies in this way. Leopards and babies alike were bred on the estate for this sole purpose.

"But this spectacle, my dear Dr. Greenwald, is clearly but a diversion. If you can stay until tonight, I shall treat you to one of our grand celebrations. Our scientists have discovered many marvelous and entertaining effects. For example, they have found just the right amount of TNT which can be exploded in a woman's vagina without killing her or rendering her unconscious. We have electrodes that can be attached directly to those parts of the brain that register pain, thus stimulating a physically harmless experience of unending pain. The shows always last for hours, and end with orgies that are simply marvelous. I do hope you'll be able to stay."

"Dr. Holden," I replied, "I have come to you on urgent business."

"Indeed," he smiled. "I have been informed of the, uh, sacrifices you have made to get here. Your motivation must be strong indeed."

"Dr. Holden, do you remember the nature of my research?"

He smiled. "Dear Georj, are you going to tell me that you are still pursuing the meaning of life after all these years? Not that I expected you to accept the specious answers of Holdenism, mind you -- few Holdenites, even, actually do. But after all the misery you have witnessed, can you persist in the illusion that there is any greater meaning at all beyond what we see daily?"

"It is no illusion, Dr. Holden. In the last month, my goal has been achieved."

Only one of Holden's thin eyebrows lifted in response. "You believe that you have answered your great question, then?"

"I do," I told him.

Then I told him the answer. There was a pause while he considered it, letting the ramifications sink in.

"I see," he said. "This is most enlightening. And what do you propose that we do with this newfound understanding?"

A Plan

"I think, Dr. Holden, that the most important thing now is to prevent further escalation of the war between your forces and those of the government. It was my original intention to convince Mr. Quisano of my findings first, so that we could use the communication networks to reach you and your followers. Unfortunately, Quisano proved inaccessible to me. Perhaps you can help; my sense of the goal is clear, but I have no plan for achieving it. How can we tell the world that life has a purpose, after all?"

Holden stared into his lap, tugging at his beard, his forehead creased, his face enigmatic but, I presumed, thoughtful. After a time he spoke. "There is only one alternative. We cannot speak to the people of the world because Quisano does not permit it. We cannot speak to Quisano because we cannot gain access to him. Therefore the problem of communicating with the world reduces to the problem of gaining access to Quisano. But Quisano is surrounded constantly by his security forces. Clearly we must isolate him from these forces. We shall kidnap him and take him to a secure location."

The plan, such as it was, made sense to me. All we had to do was figure out a way to kidnap him. There, at Holden's jungle retreat, we began to plot the kidnapping together, over a matter of days. Holden cancelled all of his barbarous spectacles and devoted all his energies, with me, to the kidnap attempt. We worked almost without sleep, our energies renewed by frequent newscasts from the decaying, disintegrating outside world. Two days after we began, the news came that Quisano's forces had dropped an atomic bomb on Bonn, because the population was estimated to be over seventy percent Holdenite. Within a week, we were ready for action.

A Dictator Vanishes

Kidnapping a human being is, of course, a complicated and tricky exercise. Kidnapping the dictator of a planet offers its own special difficulties as well. But the problem is not as difficult as might otherwise be the case when those plotting the crime have access to a virtually unlimited supply of money and expertise. Between my financial empire and Holden's vast loyal following, we had both, and a goodly number of well-placed Holdenite spies to boot. Thus we evolved an extremely simple and costly plan.

In essence, all we had to do was to obtain a large quantity of chemicals out of which to make a sleeping gas, and to tamper with the main water lines leading into Quisano's residence so that they supplied the gas instead of water. Then a Holdenite within the government simply wandered around the mansion, turning on faucets. He eventually passed out, of course, but was in the end as unharmed by the episode as everyone else. After waiting for the gas to take effect, an armed Holdenite Brigade arrived to dispose of the palace guards. Their reinforcements fast asleep within the palace, the guards were outnumbered and fell quickly. Kidnapping Quisano was then a matter of choosing the right sleeping body. It sounds too simple, perhaps, but kidnapping is not a very complicated thing when you have all the money you could want and absolutely no scruples about killing people along the way.

Much more complicated was eluding the search that inevitably followed the discovery of the kidnapping. While the rest of the helicopters flew off in another direction as a diversion, I piloted my copter swiftly and silently to my Antarctic base. My only passengers were Holden and Quisano.

We were greeted by the yelps of Sabrina and her twins; I had left them adequate food, but by now they were very dissatisfied with the condition of their cage. I cleaned out the cage as Holden watched and Quisano slept on a couch in the living room. In response to Holden's curious and intelligent questions, I told him all about the twins and their human-like qualities. He was obviously fascinated by them, and they were admittedly quite a sight. I was rather proud of them, actually.

When I had finished with the cage, Holden and I returned to the living room, where Quisano was beginning to awaken. We propped him up in an armchair, made ourselves comfortable, and waited.

Ramon Quisano

With a terrible clang and clatter, the mandatory emergency circuit of the television automatically switched it and every other TV of the world on simultaneously. All at once every TV was tuned to the government broadcast announcing the kidnapping of Quisano, the secession of America and China from the world empire, and the declaration of war between the two. The generals, it seemed, were finally in complete control. Cities were destroyed before our eyes. All too late! Before Quisano was even fully awake, half the world lay in ruins, and the rest was on the way. All the best efforts of my lifetime's research had been just a few days too late. If only I hadn't taken that vacation in 1994 -- but speculation was useless now. Soon we three middle-aged men would probably be the last creatures on Earth, unless a stray missile somehow reached Antarctica and killed us too. I was numbed, and I could only explain things to the waking Quisano as if my plan could still succeed.

I told him how I had found the secret of life, how my infallible computer had considered all the facts and reached an unarguable conclusion. Finally Holden interrupted to explain the raging war and the death of civilization. Thus reminded of the harsh reality, I sank into brooding, defeated silence. But Quisano would not let me remain so. "But you must tell me, sir, this answer that so nearly saved the world. What did the computer conclude? What is the meaning -- pardon me -- what was the meaning of human existence? Why was Man put on Earth?" His eagerness to hear surprised me somewhat; I didn't expect such an obvious core of doubt beneath the surface of his alleged faith. I still had a lot to learn about Quisano.

But I was utterly drained. With the greatest of efforts to fight back tears, I could say only, "The computer is in the next room. It will answer all your questions."

The Meaning of Life

Quisano walked into the computer room, with Holden and I trailing behind. "It answers to the name of Grinn," I advised, without thinking.

"Thank you," Quisano smiled. "Hello, Grinn."

"Hello"

"Grinn, I understand you can tell me the meaning of human existence."

"That is correct."

"Please tell me, I must know."

The computer spoke without hesitation. "Man was put on Earth by a benevolent God to be his organs of perception and comprehension in the physical world. Man's purpose is to observe, understand, and enjoy this physical world which was created for his observation, understanding, and enjoyment. That is all."

Quisano turned to me. "But this is not new!" he cried.

"Of course not," I told him. "It has simply been proven for the first time."

"I have a question!" Holden interrupted, his voice booming with sudden emotion.

"Feel free," I told him. "The computer just sits idle most of the time now anyway."

"Grinn," asked Holden, "if the purpose of life is as you describe it, why is there so much suffering in the world?"

I could almost hear the magnetic bubbles shuffling furiously around in Grinn's brain. After a full five seconds, he spoke.

"There is no suffering in the world," he informed us. "The perception of suffering is relative. Men consider themselves to suffer when they are experiencing and enjoying less of the universe that was created for their experience and enjoyment. There is no suffering, only a relative absence of enjoyment. And enjoyment is never totally absent."

A smile crept across Holden's face. He turned to Quisano. "I have won," he said.

"I have won because the world lies in ruins, and Man's sufferings have come to an end as Man himself has come to an end. I recognized the lunacy of this man" -- here he gestured towards me -- "when first he revealed this grand 'success' of his to me. I went along with him for one purpose only; I thought it would be interesting to kidnap you, to witness your response to his madness, to witness the world's response to your kidnapping. Now his lunacy is laid bare, and your grand plans to stop Holdenism have failed."

Now it was Quisano's turn to smile. "Do you really believe that stopping Holdenism was ever my goal? Really, Holden, you disappoint me. Do you honestly think I believed that God appeared to me in the form of a Cadillac? My business was religious trash for the masses, as was yours. I never thought that you believed your own lies any more than I believed mine."

"No, you're right, I didn't. I merely thought that by bringing the world to its destruction I had won our little contest. But I see now that even preventing this destruction was of no concern to you. You merely wanted power, and you received it in your time. Perhaps we are both the victors."

It was my turn to speak. "Are you men so twisted as to ignore the truth even at this late hour? How can you justify your cynicism in the face of the truth I have discovered?"

Quisano offered an explanation, albeit half-mockingly, as if it were almost useless to speak to such a fool as myself. "Dr. Greenwald, if your computer is correct, and suffering is merely an illusion, what of it? We retain the illusion nonetheless. This grand world in which we are to 'observe, understand, and enjoy' things is still a subjective prison in which we suffer. To a computer the world may be a playground of experience and intellect, but it remains a hellhole to me. Suffering is a known thing to me, not an intangible word I read in an optical scanner, or the mock-suffering of a television actor who is paid handsomely for his performance."

Something in Quisano's words touched off old associations within me, bringing to mind echoes of a winter long past. "You were a television writer once, weren't you?" I asked Quisano.

"I was."

"Tell me, then, something I have always wanted to know. Why did you make people suffer and die in your shows?"

He shook his head in apparent amusement at my simplicity. "People like to watch other people suffer, Georj. It's fun. It makes them feel better about their own lot. People are happiest in perverse situations, you know. Look at yourself: you were happiness incarnate while you doggedly pursued the answers to the great questions of life, and now that you think you have found them you are sinking into despair. The very answering of the question has brought the two leaders of the world to your laboratory, and our absence has permitted Armageddon. Had you never found your answers, we might perhaps have kept the world running. People may enjoy looking for answers, Doctor, but they can never enjoy the answers themselves. It is much more fun to fantasize about what these answers might be."

It was then, in a great flash, that I understood. I had answered all the questions, and the strain had been too great for the universe to endure. The cosmic order had cracked egg-like beneath the weight of my knowledge. Man could not survive when he understood the reason for his own survival.

Repopulation

Holden and Quisano quickly lost all interest in me. They thought me mad for continuing to believe in Grinn's answer, for I accepted only that the answer should never have been found, not that it was incorrect. They came to disregard me utterly, and devoted themselves to animated discussions on how best to repopulate the Earth and on what kind of society they should try to create. I, frankly, thought them much madder than I, as it seemed difficult for two males to repopulate the Earth. But I hadn't reckoned on Sabrina's twins. Three weeks after the world ended, Holden and Quisano disappeared with the twins, presumably to some remote tropical spot where the fallout is tolerable and the surf relatively uncontaminated. I don't care very much, anyway. They won't be repopulating the Earth with human beings, after all, but with some hybrid that will probably never achieve the greatness of homo sapiens. The greatness that destroyed a planet, that is. I'm so bitter and tired and alone.

Well, of course I'm not entirely alone. Sabrina herself is still here, mourning as best she can the disappearance of her daughters. If she could understand, I'd tell her that her progeny would inherit the Earth. If she were intelligent enough, she would, even hearing that, continue to be more interested in bananas than destiny. And there's also this journal, or whatever it is, which is the only thing that's kept me going in recent days. It seems to have taken on a life of its own as a stale counterpoint to my own bizarrely fluctuating states of consciousness. And now, even that is winding down.

Postscript

My late husband was a great but eccentric man. This manuscript was all that remained of his voluminous writings at the time of his death. Much of it was believed destroyed by his wife in one of her mad fits of Holdenite rage. To that, I plead guilty, fearlessly and proudly. As a Holdenite I could fear the punishment of no Earthly court, and besides, none remain. Nothing, in fact, remains.

Of course I ambushed Holden and Quisano and their hairy little wenches at the heliport. Far from escaping to a tropical paradise, they remain forever preserved in the ice caves of Antarctica. I must admit that it troubled me to have to kill Robert Holden himself; our religion had taught us that he would be the last man to die, sacrificing himself by his survival until all else had perished. But I have always loved and respected him deeply, and I felt he deserved the relief of a well-earned death. I tortured him for thirty hours before he died.

That left, of course, only Georj, his stupid chimpanzee, and myself. I bided my time, wanting to let Georj finish this account of his research. Mostly I was curious to see how it would end. I still am, but obviously I'll never know. Apparently Georj himself had no idea how to end it, but merely called it quits when he ran out of things to say.

Anyway, once he'd gone a week without writing more, I gassed him with a muscle relaxant that, without impairing his mind, rendered him unable to move. Only then did he learn that I was still alive. Still, he did not look at me with the stark terror in his eyes that I had vowed I would see before I killed him. So I merely tied him up securely and waited for the gas to wear off. Then I removed the little finger of his left hand, slowly, with a hacksaw. He seemed to find it most unpleasant. I administered the necessary first aid to keep him from bleeding to death, and then explained to him my plan. I was going to keep him well-fed and cared for (fed intravenously, if necessary) in that chair, tied up, for many weeks. Every day I would amputate another part of his body, as painfully as possible, and then give him everything he needed to stay healthy (except pain-killers, of course).

On the twenty-fourth morning, when he had already lost all his fingers and toes, his ears and his nose, I saw that terror in his eyes, finally. He feared me deeply and with an awareness of suffering I had never before known him to possess. Using an ordinary eye dropper, I dripped hydrochloric acid into his left eye; the following day I disposed of its mate. They had served their purpose and could be disposed of.

Despite his blindness, he exhibited that same look of stark terror continually for the month that remained before he died.