"It is too late to do that."

"I can still destroy you."

"No," said Frost, "the transmission of my matrix has already begun. If you destroy me now, you murder a Man."

There was silence.

He moved his arms and his legs. He opened his eyes.

He looked about the room.

He tried to stand, but he lacked equilibrium and co- ordination.

He opened his mouth. He made a gurgling noise.

Then he screamed.

He fell off the table.

242.

He began to gasp. He shut his eyes and curled him- self into a ball.

He cried.

Then a machine approached him. It was about four feet in height and five feet wide; it looked like a turret

set atop a barbell.

It spoke to him: "Are you injured?" it asked.

He wept.

"May I help you back onto your table?"

The man cried.

The machine whined.

Then, "Do not cry. I will help you," said the ma- chine. "What do you want? What are your orders?"

He opened his mouth, struggled to form the words:

"-I-fear!"

He covered his eyes then and lay there panting.

At the end of five minutes, the man lay still, as if in a

coma.

"Was that you. Frost?" asked Mordel, rushing to his

side. "Was that you in that human body?"

Frost did not reply for a long while; then, "Go away,"

he said.

The machines outside tore down a wall and entered

the Man-factory.

They drew themselves into two semicircles, paren- thesizing Frost and the Man on the floor.

Then Solcom asked the question;

"Did you succeed. Frost?"

"I failed," said Frost. "It cannot be done. It is too

much-"

"-Cannot be done!" said Divcom, on the darkband.

"He has admitted it! -Frost, you are mine! Come to me

now!"

"Wait," said Solcom, "you and I had an agreement

also. Alternate. I have not finished questioning Frost."

The dark machines kept their places.

"Too much what?" Solcom asked Frost.

"Light," said Frost. "Noise. Odors. And nothing mea- surable-jumbled data-imprecise perception-and-"

"And what?"

"I do not know what to call it. But-it cannot be

done. I have failed. Nothing matters."

"He admits it," said Divcom.

243.

"What were the words the Man spoke?" said Sol- com.

" 'I fear,' " said Mordel.