Should that make me proud? As to what supersedes me"

"Don't! I shudder to think!" the Highest said, thrust-ing out a manicured hand. "I concede your point: you are suitably humble about your own might."

"What's the good of all this talk?" It was One-Eye. He had stood helplessly by with Welded and Prim, his mind filled with fruitless plots of escape. Much of what you had said had been either unheard or had gone over his head, but from the last few remarks he had caught one idea: that you were a sort of superman. Now he came up to you with a mixture of defiance and cajolery.

"You got us here, you can get us back," he said. "And let's not hang about. You heard what His Highness said about this place disintegrating. Get us back to Owlenj if you're such a superman."

You shook your head.

"You'd be no better off on Owlenj, of that I a.s.sure you," you told him. "I'm sorry you had to be involved in this, but it's been no worse for you than hiding out in the ruins of a city. And I'm no superman"

"No superman!" One-Eye said angrily. He turned to the Highest and exclaimed, "No superman, he says.

Yet he drank down enough poison for an army, he fended off those swords-you saw him!-he withstood a bombard-ment just then"

"Listen to me!" you interrupted. "Those things belonged to a different principle. Watch this!"

You walked over to a wall It was built of solid blocks of marble, polished and selected for its delicate pattern-ing. You placed one hand with extended fingers upon it and pushed; when you withdrew your hand, five short tunnels had been pierced in the marble.

It was a simple demonstration. They were properly impressed.

You wiped your hand and returned to them, but they shuffled away from you, their lips pale.

"Yet I am no stronger than you," you told them. "You must believe that, for it is the truth. The only difference is this: that I come from a freshly created world, new minted by the inexorable processes of continuous creation. And you-come from an old world."

"This we know" The Highest began.

"Yes, you know it all: now try and understand it! Think of your galaxy. How old is it? You do not know exactly, but you know it is incredibly old. The truth is, it is wearing out, as everything wears out in time.

Ask yourself: what is everything made of? A tissue of energies which outcrops and becomes matter in the form of protons and neutrons. That tissue of energy, since the beginning of time, has been running down, wearing thin -and of course all matter, which is composed of it, has worn thin with it. The great magical batteries of this galaxy are slowing: so all protons and neutrons lose their polarity. These basic bricks of which everything is built are now almost literally sparked out: their charges have run low, they cannot combine as they used to. Steel has not the strength that paper once possessed, wood is water."

Prim interrupted.

"You're trying to deceive us!" he told you in a trembling voice. "It's only you who can pierce marble with a finger, or withstand poison, swords or bombard-ment. We should die! Do you take us for fools?"

"No," you replied. "You would die, as you say. You are composed of the same exhausted nucleii as everything else; that is exactly why you could not detect this whole process for yourselves long ago. I can withstand almost anything you have to offer only because the very stuff of which I am made is new. I am the one fresh factor in an exhausted galaxy."

You paused and went over to the Highest. He had become very pale, swaying on his heels. But he recovered himself manfully and said, "I was about to call my ministers in; they will have been listening over micro- phones to this" He hesitated and then continued mockingly, "-this my audience with you.

But if what you say is true, then nothing we can do is of avail. We- we are all fading into shadows...."

He pulled himself up and said, "This ravening monster we loosed between us out in s.p.a.ce-I suppose that merely hastens the exhaustion process?"

"Yes. The fabric is torn; the gap widens to embrace your whole galaxy."

The Highest closed his eyes, as if he could grasp the situation better in darkness. Standing thus, he looked almost wistful, but when, he raised his lids again his regard fixed on you with the alertness of a bird.

"So. Our poisons cannot affect you," he said. "Yet you manage to live among us. How can our food nourish you?"

"You have a sharp enough intelligence to answer that yourself?" you told him. "I brought my private supply of calories with me when I left my own world. I was not unprepared. I even had to bring oxygen concentrates."

You then told the Highest of the effects your un-exhausted air had had on Shouter, the spoolseller, how he had been riddled as if by unseen radiations. And you told him how useful Shouter's microspool library had been.

"You are quite the opportunist," the Highest said. "My congratulations to you."

He pulled at his lip and looked for a moment almost amused.

"Have you a moment to spare, if the question has meaning any more? Will you come with me? Perhaps you other gentlemen will excuse us; by all means take a ship back to Owlenj, or wherever it is, if you think it's worth it. I leave it entirely to you. You are no longer of the remotest importance. My guards will not molest you."

Something in his manner had subtly changed. He motioned to you with a sharp gesture and made for a rear door. What did you do? You took a last look over your shoulder at the desolate group whose function in life had abruptly vanished, gave One-Eye a mocking salute, and followed the Highest out of the door, closing it behind you.

The Highest walked down a corridor at a smart pace which belied his earlier languor. He flung open another door and you both emerged on to a balcony overlooking the proud city of Nunion. A cool evening wind blew; cloud masked the setting sun. The great panorama of avenue and river lay strangely deserted, from the distant spires of Ap-Gleema to the pavement of the Osphors Concourse. Nothing stirred except a fabric far below in a mansion window.

"How long would this exhaustion business have taken if we had not hurried it on?" the Highest asked almost casually, leaning on the rail and looking down.

"It must have been worsening for centuries," you told him. "It might have gone on for centuries more. . .

You stopped, afraid of inflicting further hurt. You felt almost a softness for him, and for all men, all the myriads of them, whether they cheated or played fair, loved or hated. All their follies and limitations were forgiven: they were primitive mechanisms coming from the dark, fading back into the dark, with a glimpsing of awareness to give them poignance.

The Highest took a deep breath of evening air.

"I'm glad it's ending now! It's well, it's the end, that's all"

He took another lungful of the darkening wind.

"And for the first time-I'm not bored! I've had to live too long at court."

He gave a shaky laugh.

"And you have a ringside seat, my friend. It will indeed be a fine sight for you to see us dissolve like sugar in a strong drink! You must get back, though, before all our fine ships disintegrate. They won't be capable of carrying you much longer. Handle the toys carefully or you'll break them."

"I'll manage," you said. "Have you ever heard of three totally unaccountable vessels discovered at the dawn of the Longevity Epoch-The Kakakakaxo-Popraca-Luna Antiquities, as my microspools called them? To the end, their origins have proved a mystery. Now I feel I must take my own life-spark back to my galaxy in perhaps the same way that those vessels brought the original life-spark to yours."

The Highest shook his head, momentarily beyond speech.

You added gently, "Don't forget everyone must be told what is happening. That seems to me imperative."

"I will not forget."

He turned and faced you.

"I'm still not sure what impulse brought you here. A sort of nostalgia? Mere curiosity? A desire to gloat per-haps? Or pity? What feelings do you have for-us poor shadows?"

And what unexpected weakness was it choked the words in your throat? Why did you turn your face away so that he could not see your eyes?

"I wanted man to be aware of what is happening to him," you said at last. "That much was owed to him.

I- we owed it to him. You are-our fathers. We are your heirs...."

He touched you gently, asking in a firm voice, "What exactly do you want me to tell the people of the galaxy?"

You looked out over a city now p.r.i.c.ked with lights, and up to the drab evening sky. You found comfort neither there nor in yourself.

"Just tell them what a galaxy is," you said. "Don't soften the picture. They are brave at facing hard facts.

Explain to them how a galaxy is nothing more than a gigantic laboratory for the blind experiments of nature. Explain to them how little individual lives mean in the laboratories. Tell them that this laboratory here is clos-ing down. A newer one, with more modern equipment, is opening just down the street."

"I'll remember," the Highest said. Now his face was a shadow in the shadows. Night fell over the old city.

We who have already superseded you record these scenes now in your honour, as you once honoured man. Requiescat in pace.

Also by Brian Aldiss and available in the NEL series.

EARTHWORKS.

THE INTERPRETER.

s.p.a.cE, TIME AND NATHANIEE.

THE AIRS OF EARTH.

THE DARK LIGHT YEARS.

The Canopy of Time Brian W. Aldiss NEW ENGLISH LIBRARY.

TIMES MIRROR.