"But we do not die!"

Kelexel began to chuckle. This Thurlow was, after all, so transparent and easy to best in an argument. Kelexel controlled his chuckling, said: "We are mature beings who . . ."

"You're not mature," Thurlow said.

Kelexel glared at him, remembering that Fraffin had said this same thing. "We use your kind for our amus.e.m.e.nt," he said. "We can live your lives vicariously without a . . ."

"You came here to ask about death, to play with death," Thurlow said, blurting it out. "You want to die and you're afraid to die!"

Kelexel swallowed, stared at Thurlow in shock. Yes, he thought. That's why I'm here. And this witch doctor has seen through me. Almost of itself, his head executed a betraying nod.

"Your mechanical device is a closed circle, a snake with its tail in its mouth," Thurlow said.

Kelexel found the will to protest: "We live forever by its psychological truth!"

"Psychological truth!" Thurlow said. "That's whatever you say it is."

"We're so far ahead of you primitive . . ."

"Then why're you here asking help from a primitive?"

Kelexel shook his head. An oppressive sense of danger came over him. "You've never seen the web at work," he said. "How can you . . ."

"I've seen you," Thurlow said. "And I know that any school based on mechanism is a closed circle of limited logic. The truth can't be enclosed in a circle. The truth's like countless lines radiating outward to take in a greater and ever greater s.p.a.ce."

Kelexel felt himself fascinated by the movements of Thurlow's mouth. Scalding words dripped from that mouth. More than ever, Kelexel was sorry he'd come here. He could feel a shying away within himself, as though he stood before a closed door that might open any moment onto horror.

"In time, a curious thing happens to such schools," Thurlow said. "Your foundation philosophy begins to circle away from its original straight line. You're close at first. The error isn't recognized. You think you're still on course. And you swing farther and farther afield until the effort to devise new theorems to explain the preceding ones becomes more and more frantic."

"We're totally successful," Kelexel protested. "Your argument doesn't apply to us."

"Past success based on past truth isn't proof conclusive of a continuing success of continuing truth," Thurlow said. "We never actually attain a thing. We merely approach various conditions. Every word you've said about your Chem society betrays you. You think you have the ultimate answers. But you are here. You feel trapped. You know unconsciously that you're in a fixed system, unable to escape, forced to circle endlessly . . . until you fall."

"We'll never fall."

"Then why have you come to me?"

"I . . . I . . .".

"People who follow a fixed system are like processional caterpillars," Thurlow said. "They follow the leader, always follow the leader, led on by the slime trail of the one ahead. But the leader comes on the trail of the last one in line and you're trapped. The trail grows thicker and thicker with your excrescence as you continue around and around the same path. And the excrescence is pointed out as verification that you're on the right track! You live forever! You're immortal!"

"We are!"

Thurlow lowered his voice, noting how Kelexel hung on every word. "And the path always appears straight," Thurlow said. "You see so little of it at a time, you don't notice when it curves back upon itself. You still see it as straight."

"Such wisdom!" Kelexel sneered. "It didn't save your precious madman, your precious Joe Murphey!"

Thurlow swallowed. Why am I arguing with this creature? he wondered. What b.u.t.ton did he push to set me going like this?

"Did it?" Kelexel demanded, pressing his advantage.

Thurlow sighed. "Another vicious circle," he said. "We're still figuratively burning the Jews because they spread the plague. Each of us is both Cain and Abel. We throw stones at Murphey because he's the side we rejected. He was more Cain than Abel."

"You've a rudimentary sense of right and wrong," Kelexel said. "Was it wrong to . . . extinguish this Murphey?"

Oh, G.o.d! Thurlow thought. Right and wrong! Nature and consequences! "It's not a question of right and wrong!" he said. "This was a reaction right out of the depths. It was like . . . the tide . . . or a hurricane. It's . . . when it is, it is!"

Kelexel stared around the primitive room, noting the bed, the objects on the dresser -- a picture of Ruth! How dare he keep a reminder of her? But who had better right? This room was a terrible, alien place suddenly. He wanted to be far away from it. But where could he go?

"You came here searching for a better psychological philosophy," Thurlow said, "not realizing that all such philosophies are blind alleys, little wormholes in an ancient structure."

"But you're . . . you're . . ."

"Who should know more about such wormholes than one of the worms?" Thurlow asked.

Kelexel wet his lips with his tongue. "There must be perfection somewhere," he whispered.

"Must there? What would it be? Postulate a perfect psychology and an individual brought to perfection within such a system. You'd walk around in your never ending perfect circle until one day you found to your horror that the circle wasn't perfect! It can end!"

Kelexel became extremely conscious of every clock-ticking sound in the room.

"Extinction," Thurlow said. "Therein lies the end of your perfection, and fallacy in Eden. When your perfect psychology has cured your perfect subject, it still leaves him within the perfect circle . . . alone." He nodded. "And afraid." He studied Kelexel, noting how the creature trembled. "You came here because you're terrified by the thing that attracts you. You hoped I had some panacea, some primitive word of advice."

"Yes," Kelexel said. "But what could you have?" He blinked. "You're . . ." He gestured at the room, unable to find words to express the poverty of this native's existence.

"You've helped me reach a decision and that's a great favor for which I thank you," Thurlow said. "If I was put here on earth to enjoy myself, that's what I intend to do. If I was put here at the whim of some superbeing who wants to watch me squirm -- I'm not giving him the satisfaction!"

"Is there a superbeing?" Kelexel whispered. "What is there after . . . after . . ."

"With such dignity as I can muster, I look forward to finding out . . . for myself," Thurlow said. "That's my choice, my decision. I think it'll leave me more time for living. I don't think time gives you any rest from this decision until you've made it."

Kelexel looked at his hands, the telltale fingernails, the puckered skin. "I live," he said. "Yet I live."

"But you haven't come to grips with the fact that all life's a between stage," Thurlow chided.

"Between?"

Thurlow nodded. He was speaking and acting from instinct now, fighting a danger whose shape he understood only vaguely. "Life's in motion," he said, "and there's just one big gamble -- the living itself. Only an idiot fails to realize that a condemned man dies but once."

"But we don't die," Kelexel said, his voice pleading. "We never . . ." He shook his head from side to side like a sick animal.

"Yet there's still that cliff you're climbing," Thurlow said. "And remember the attractive abyss."

Kelexel put his hands over his eyes. In his primitive and mysterious way, the witch doctor was right -- hideously, implacably right.

A lurching motion behind Kelexel brought Thurlow's head snapping up, his eyes focused in shock as Ruth appeared there, supporting herself against the doorway. She nicked a glance across Thurlow, down to Kelexel.

"Ruth," Thurlow whispered.