The spider-thing paused in its march, swung its clicking, ghastly head about as though confused, and altered direction by an inch. Away from Marmorth. It descended on Krane.

The black-bearded man looked up, saw it coming toward him, heard Marmorth's words. Even on the floor, half-sunk in shock, he shouted, pounding his fists against the floor of gla.s.s, "Wrong, wrong, wrong! You're wrong! I can prove my Theorem is correct! The basic formation of the Judiciary should be planned in an ever-decreasing system of--"

Marmorth didn't even listen. He knew it was drivel! He knew the man was wrong! But the spider-thing had stopped once more. Now it paused between the two of them, its bulk shivering as though caught in a draft.

Krane saw the hesitation on the monster's part, and rose, the old confidence and impudence regained. He wiped his balled fists across his eyes, clearing them of tears. He continued speaking, steadily, and to Marmorth's ears, in the voice of a fanatic. The man just could not recognize that he was wrong.

"You're insane, man!" Marmorth interjected, waving his hands with fervor. "The setup must be balanced between a code of fair practices with a Guild system blocking efforts on the part of the Genres to rise into control of the gross planetary product!" He went on and on, outlining the Theorem.

Krane, too, shouted and gesticulated, both of them suddenly oblivious to the monstrous, black spider-thing which had stopped completely between them, vacillating.

When Marmorth stopped for an instant to regain his breath, the beast twisted its neckless head toward him.

Marmorth then speeded up his speech, spewing out detail upon detail, and the beast slowly sank back into uncertainty.

It was obviously a battle of belief. Whichever combatant had more conviction--that one would win.

They stood and shouted, screamed, outlined, explained and delineated for what seemed hours. Finally, as though in exasperation, the spider-thing began to turn. They both watched it, their mouths working, words pouring forth in twin streams of absolute sincere belief.They watched even though...

...the starships fired at each other mercilessly. Blast after blast exploded soundlessly into the vault of s.p.a.ce.

Marmorth found his fingers twisted in the epaulet at his right shoulder.

As he watched Krane's Magnificent-cla.s.s destroyer wheel in the control-room screens, a half-naked, blood- soaked and perspiring crewman burst into the cabin's entrance-well.

"Captain! Captain, sir!"

Marmorth looked over the plastic rail, down into the well.

"What?" His voice snapped with brittleness.

"Cap'n, the port side is riddled! We're losing pressure from thirteen compartments. The Reclamation Mile is completely lost! The engineers' group was in one of the compartments along that mile, Cap'n! They're all bloated and blue and dead in there! We can see them floating around without any..."

"Get the h.e.l.l out of here!" Marmorth turned, lifting a s.p.a.cetant from his chart-board, and flinging it with all his strength at the crewman. The man ducked and the s.p.a.cetant bounced off the bulkhead, snapping pieces from its intricate bulk.

"You maniac!" he yowled, leaping back out of the well, through the exit port, as Marmorth reached for another missile.

Marmorth shut his eyes tight, blanking out the shuddering ship, s.p.a.ce, the screens, everything.

"Right, right, right, right, right! I'm right!" he shouted, lifting clenched fists.

The explosion came in two parts, as though two torpedoes had been struck almost simultaneously. The ship rocked and heeled. Bits of metal sheared through the outer bulkheads, crashed against the opposite wall.

As the lights went dead, and the screams drove into his brain, Marmorth shouted his credo once more, with all the force of his conviction, with all the power of his lungs, with all the strength in his gasping body.

"I'm right! May G.o.d strike me dead if I'm not right! I know I'm right, I made an inexhaustible..."

...check!" he finished, opening his eyes and looking back down at the chessboard. The pieces, happily, had not moved. He still had Krane blocked off.

"I say check," he repeated, smiling, steepling his fingers.

Krane's black-bearded face broke into a wry grimace.

"Most clever, my dear Marmorth," he congratulated the other with sarcasm. "You have forced me to touch a p.a.w.n."

Marmorth watched as Krane, with trembling fingers, reached down to the jet p.a.w.n. It was carved from stone; carved with such care and intricacy that its edges were precisely as they had been desired by the master craftsman. They were razor sharp.

The pieces were all cut the same. Both the blanched alabaster pieces before Marmorth, and the ebony-stone players under Krane's hand. The game had been constructed for men who played more than a "gentleman's game."

There was death in each move.

Marmorth knew he was in the ascendant. Each of them had had two illusions--that remembrance was sharp- -and this was Marmorth's. How did he know? The older man looked down at the intricately carved chess pieces. He was white, Krane was black. As clear as it could be.

"Uh, have you moved?" Marmorth inquired, his voice unctuous with casualness. He knew the other had not yet touched his players. "I believe you still lie in check." He was enjoying toying with his once-arrogant foe.

He thought he heard a muted, "d.a.m.n you!" under Krane's breath, but could not be certain.

Slowly Krane touched the player, carefully sliding the fingers of his hand across the razor-thin, razor-sharp facets. The piece almost slid from his grasp, so loosely was he holding it, but the move was made in an instant.

Marmorth cursed mentally. Krane had calculated beautifully! Not only was his King blocked out from Marmorth's Rook--Marmorth's check-piece--but in another two moves (so clearly obvious as Krane had desired it) his own Queen would be in danger. In his mind he could hear Krane savoring the words: "Garde! I say garde, my dear Marmorth!"

He had to move the Queen out of position.

He had to touch the Queen!

The most deadly piece on the board!

"No!" he gasped.

"I beg your pardon?" said Krane, the slash-mouth opening in a violent grin.

"N-nothing, nothing!" snapped Marmorth. He concentrated. Deadly poison, instant-acting, lay filmed on those razor edges.There was little chance he could maneuver that thousand-keen-edged Queen without poisoning himself for his trouble. Lord! It was an insoluble, a double-edged, dilemma. If he did not move, Krane would win. If he won, it was obvious Marmorth would die. He had seen the deadly dirk's hilt protruding slightly from Krane's c.u.mmerbund when the other had sat down. If he did move, he would convulse to death before Krane's taunting eyes.

You shall never have that pleasure! he thought, the bitter determination of a man who will not be defeated rising in him.

He approached the Queen, with hand, with eye.

The base was faceted, like a diamond. Each facet ended in a cutting edge so sensitive he knew it would sever the finger that touched it. The shape of the upper segments was involved, gorgeously-made. A woman, arms raised above her head, stretching in tension. Beautiful--and untouchable.

Then the thought struck him: Is this the only move?

Deep within his mind he calculated. He could not possibly recognize the levels on which his intellect was working. In with his chess theory, in with his mental agility, in with his desire to win, his Theorem rearranged itself, fitting its logic to this situation. How could the Theorem be applied to the game? What other paths, through the infallible truth of the Theorem--in which he believed, now, more strongly than ever before--what other paths could he take.

Then the alternative move became clear. He could escape a route, escape the garde, escape the taunting smile of Krane by moving a relatively safe Bishop. It was not a completely foolproof action, since the Bishop, too, was a razored piece of death, but he had found a way around the certain success of Krane's maneuverings.

"Ha!" A terrible smile burst upon his face. His eyes bored across to the other's. Krane turned white as Marmorth reached out, touched the one piece he had been desperately hoping the older man would not consider.

He felt the uncontrollable tightening in his throat as he realized the game would go on, and on, and on and...

...he unclenched his fist as the volcano leaped up around them.

It was more than the inside of a volcanic cone, however. The Corridor was there, too. The dung-brown walls of smooth rock shivered ever so slightly, and both men knew the Silver Corridor was just beyond their vision.

They could see it glimmering with unreality.

It was almost as though they were looking at a double exposure; an extinct volcano superimposed over the shining tube of the Silver Corridor.

It isn't far away, thought Marmorth. This must be the last illusion! Is there a certain pattern to these things?

Then he felt, with a blissed release of nervous tension, Someone is going to win soon.

He stared up at the faint patch of gray sky, visible through the roundly jagged opening at the cone's top. The walls sloped down in a fluid concavity. Here and there across the rough floor of the cavern, stalagmites rose up in sharp spikes.

And there--over and through the walls of the dead formations--the Corridor hung faintly. A ghostly, shivering, not-quite-real shadow, inside the substance of their illusion.

They stood and stared at each other. Each knowing he was not really in the heart of a volcano, but in a metal corridor. Each knowing he could die as easily by this illusion as he could at the other's hands.

Was this the end? Were there a limited number of illusions to each Affair? Who had won? Could there be a winner?

They stared at each other, across the dusky interior of the extinct volcano.

"I'm right," said Krane, hesitantly.

"You're wrong," answered Marmorth quickly. "I'm the one who's right!"

In a moment they were at it again, each screaming till his lungs were raw with the effort, and red patches had appeared in Marmorth's cheeks. They paused for an instant, gathering air for another tirade, Krane looking about for a weapon.

They were both as they had begun. Naked save the breechclouts which clung to their b.u.t.tocks.

They resumed their shouting, the sound reverberating hollowly in the dim interior of the volcano. The sounds. .h.i.t them, bounced across the stone walls, reverberated again. The fury had been built to a peak and pitch they both knew could not be exceeded. They had strained every last vestige of belief and conviction in their minds.

As Marmorth realized he was at the pinnacle of his belief, he saw the same conviction come over Krane's face. He knew that from here on in, it would be a physical thing, with both of them stalemated in illusory power.

Then the woman-thing appeared.

She grazed into being between them. She wasn't human. There was no question about that. Marmorth took a halting step backward. Krane remained rooted, though his pale face had blanched an even more deadly shade. A strangled, "My G.o.d, what is it?" slipped past Marmorth's lips.It was less than human, yet more than mortal; it was a travesty of a human being. A mad nightmare of a vision! Like some fearsome G.o.d of an ancient cult, it paused with long legs apart, hands on hips.

The woman's body was lush. Full, high b.r.e.a.s.t.s, trim stomach, exciting legs. Gorgeously proportioned and exciting, the torso and legs, the chest and arms, were normal--even exaggeratedly normal.

But there all resemblance to a woman ceased.

The head was a strangely lizardlike thing, with elongated snout, wattles, huge glowing eyes set atop the skull. Looking out through flesh-sockets thick and deep--little hummocks atop the face--the eyes were small, crimson and cruel.

The nose was almost nonexistent. Two breather-s.p.a.ces pulsed, one on either side of a small rise in the yellowed, pocked flesh of the head.

The mouth was a wide, gaping, triangular orifice, with triple rows of shark teeth in the upper and lower jaws. The woman-thing looked like a gorgeous female--with the wierdly altered head of a crocodile.

The ebony, leathery, bat's wings rising from the shoulder blades--quivering--completed the frightening picture.

Wisps of smoky, filmy garments were draped over the woman-thing's shoulders, around her waist. She stood unmoving.

Then she spoke to them. It was not mental.

It actually sounded; but not from the body before them. They knew it was--her?--but it did not come from her at all. The fearful mouth remained almost shut, propped slightly open on the sharp tiers of teeth.

The voice issued from the walls, from the tips of the stalagmites, from the high, arching roof of the volcano; it boomed from the rocky floor--it even floated down the length of the infinitely-stretching Corridor.

The voice spoke in thunder, yet softly.

Well, Gentlemen?

Krane stared for a second at the woman-thing; then he looked about wildly, trying to find the source of the voice. His head swung back and forth as though it was manipulated by strings from above. "Well, what?" he shouted to no one.

Have you realized the truth yet?

"What truth? What are you talking about? Who is that? Is it you?" chimed in Marmorth, bathed in sudden fear. He pointed an accusing finger at the woman-thing.

The Corridor shimmered oddly. It lived just behind the stone walls of the volcano.

I'm a voice, Gentlemen. A voice and an illusion. Just an illusion, that's all, Gentlemen. Just an illusion from both of your minds. Made of equal portions of your minds. For you are one as strong as the other.

There was a pause. Then: But tell me, have you realized what you should have known before you were foolish enough to enter the Corridor?

Krane looked at Marmorth with suspicion. For the first time it occurred to him that perhaps this was a trick on the other's part. Marmorth, recognizing the glance, shrugged his shoulders eloquently. "No! Tell us, then! What should we have known?"

The only real answer as to who is right; which Theorem is the correct one!

"Tell me, tell me!" they shouted, almost together.

There was silence for a moment. The woman-thing ran a scarlet-tipped hand across the hideous lizard snout, as though searching for a way to phrase what was coming. Then the single word sounded in the heart of the volcano.

Neither.

Krane and Marmorth stared past the woman-thing, stared at each other in confusion. "N-neither?" shouted Marmorth incredulously. " Are you mad! Of course one of us is right! Me!" He was shaking fists at the gruesome being before him. Illusion, perhaps; but an illusion that was goading him.

"Prove it! Prove it!" screamed Krane, stepping forward, flat-footedly, as though seeking to strike the woman-thing. Then the voice gave them the solution and the proof that neither could contest, for both knew it to be true on a level that defied mere conviction.

You are both egomaniacs. You could not possibly be convinced of the other's viewpoint. Not in a hundred million years. The message dies between you. You are both too tightly ensnared in yourselves!

The woman-thing suddenly began to shimmer. She became indistinct, and there were many shadow-forms of her, surrounding her body like halos. Abruptly, she disappeared from between them. Leaving them alone in the quickening darkness of the volcano's throat.

Alone. Staring at each other with dawning comprehension, dawning belief.They both realized it at the same moment. They both had the conviction of their cause, yet they both knew the womanthing had been right.

"Krane," said Marmorth, starting toward the black-bearded man, "she's right, you know. Perhaps we can get together and figure..."

The other had started toward the older man as he had spoken. "Yes, perhaps there's something in what you say. Perhaps there's a..."

At the instant they both realized it--the instant they considered the other's viewpoint--the illusion barriers shattered, of course, and the red-hot lava poured in on them, engulfing both men in a blistering inferno.What kind of a culture are we breeding around us? A society in which everyone tries to be average, right on the norm, the common denominator, the median, the great leveler. College kids demonstrating a callow conservatism that urges them not to stick their heads above the crowd, not to be noticed. Political candidates so bland they must of necessity be faceless to gain identification with their equally faceless const.i.tuents. A sameness in thinking, in demeanor, in dress, in goals, in World Communism, famine, plague, pestilence or the singing of The Everly Brothers, I fear for the safety of my country and its people from this creeping paralysis of the ego. I have tried to say something about it in