THE WORLD JONES MADE

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

UNDER ITS cloud layer the surface temperature of Venus varied from 99 degrees Fahrenheit to 101 degrees Fahrenheit. The lower atmosphere was a mixture of ammonia and oxygen, heavily laden with water vapor. Among the oceans and rolling hills toiled a variety of life forms, building and evolving, planning and creating.

Louis and Irma were repairing a turbine-driven tractor, when Dieter excitedly put in his appearance. "It's ready!" he shouted, standing in the entrance of the shed. "We're going to start!"

From under the tractor, Louis stuck out his head. "What's ready?" he demanded sourly.

"The corn. We're going to harvest it. We've got all the equipment down there; Vivian's hooking it up." Dieter danced up and down with frenzy. "You all have to pitch in—this stuff can wait. I rounded up Frank and Syd; they're on their way. They'll meet us along the route. And Garry's tagging along."

Grumbling, Louis dragged himself out from under the tractor. "It isn't corn. Stop calling it corn."

"It's corn in the spiritual sense. It's the essence of corn."

"Even if it's dark green?" Irma asked, amused.

"Even if it's purple-striped and silver polka-dotted. Even if it stands ninety feet high and has lace-embroidered pods. Even if it spurts ambrosia and coffee-grounds. It's still corn."

Louis stood wiping his forehead. "We can't come until the tractor's working." It was fifty miles to Dieter's place, across rolling country. "I think we need a new ignition coil; that means back to the ship."

"The heck with it," Dieter said impatiently, "I've got my dobbin cart—we can all fit in that."

The dobbin cart and the dobbin itself waited quietly. Louis approached cautiously, his eyes narrow with suspicion. "What do you call it?" He had seen the animals a long way off, but never this close. The dobbin was mostly legs, with immense flat feet like leather suction cups. A matted pelt, ragged and uneven, hung over it. The dobbin's head was tiny; its eyes were half-shut and indolent. "How'd you trap it?" he asked.

"They're tame enough, if you have the patience." Dieter climbed up into the cart and grabbed hold of the reins. "I've taught the hell out of this thing. They're sort of quasi-telepathic; all I have to do is think what I want, and off it goes." He wrinkled his nose contemptuously. "Forget that tractor; you can't keep it running anyhow. This is the vehicle of the future—the dobbin cart is the coming thing."

Irma got gingerly into the cart beside Dieter, and after a moment Louis followed. The cart was crude but solid; Dieter had laboriously constructed it during the last four months. The material was a now-familiar, heavy bread-like plant fiber that rapidly hardened on exposure. After it had been aged and dried, it could be cut, sawed, polished, and stained. Occasionally, migratory animals gnawed the material away, but that was the only known hazard.

The dobbin's vast flat feet began rhythmically to pound; the cart moved forward. Behind them, Louis' cabin dwindled. He and Irma had single-handedly built it; a year had passed in which much had been accomplished. The cabin, made of the same bread-like substance, was surrounded by acres of cultivated land. The so-called corn grew in dense clumps; it wasn't really corn, but it functioned as corn. Bulging pods ripened in the moist atmosphere. Around the base of the crop, insects crept; predators devouring plant-pests.

The fields were irrigated by shallow trenches bringing water out of an underground spring that spilled up to the surface in a hot, bubbling torrent. In the warm, humid atmosphere, almost unchanging, virtually hothouse in its stability, four crops a year were possible.

Parked in front of the cabin were half-assembled machines carted from the wreckage of the ships. Gradually, Irma was reconstructing new implements from the remains of the old. The fuel pipes of the ships were now sewage drains. The control board wiring carried electricity from the water-driven generator to the cabin.

Standing glumly in the shed beyond the cabin were a variety of indigenous herbivores, drowsily munching moist hay. A number of species had been collected; it wasn't yet established what each was good for. Already, ten types with edible flesh had been catalogued, plus two types secreting drinkable fluids. A gargantuan beast covered with thick hair served as a source of muscle-power. And now the big-footed dobbin that Dieter used to pull his cart.

The dobbin raced determinedly down the road; in a matter of seconds it had hit full velocity. Feet flying, it sped like a furry ostrich, tiny head erect, legs a blur of motion. Blop-blop was the noise a running dobbin made. The cart bounced wildly; Louis and Irma held on for their lives. Delirious with joy, Dieter clutched the reins and urged the thing faster.

"This is fast enough," Irma managed, gritting her teeth. "You haven't seen anything," Dieter yelled. "This thing really loves to run."

A wide ditch lay ahead, a tumble of rocks and shrubs. Louis closed his eyes; the cart was already on the verge of bursting apart. "We won't make it," he grunted. "We'll never get across."

As it reached the ditch, the dobbin unfolded two stubby, ratty-hided wings and flapped them energetically. The dobbin and the cart rose slightly in the air, hung over the ditch, and then bumpily lowered on the far side.

"It's a bird," Irma gasped.

"Yes!" Dieter shouted. "It can go anywhere. That's my good dobbin." He leaned precariously forward and whacked the thing on its shaggy rump. "Noble dobbin! Majestic bird!"

The landscape shot past. To the far right rose a hazy range of mountains, mostly lost in the drifting swirls of fog that kept the surface of the planet always damp. A solid skin of growing vegetation and creeping insects... everywhere Louis looked there was life. Except at one charred spot at the base of the mountains, a black sore already beginning to turn green as plant-life quietly covered it.

The scout domes had been there. The non-Venusians who had preceded them, cooped up in their "refuges," their airtight stations. Now they were dead; only the eight Venusians remained.

When the second ship had landed, the ambulances were already on the way. The second landing was more successful; nobody had been hurt, and the ship was virtually undamaged. The ambulances had collected the injured and taken them to the installations set up in anticipation of their arrival. During the first month, the non-Venusians had cooperated fully—in spite of orders from the Crisis Government. Then, toward March, the Crisis Government had stopped transmitting. A week later a heavy-duty projectile had come bursting down on the non-Venusian domes; within a day only the eight Venusians were extant.

The death of the non-Venusians was a shock, but a shock they could recover from. The problem of their own existence was simplified; now they were totally on their own, without communication of any sort with non-Venusians.

Between the ruined domes and their own ships and installations there was ample intact equipment at their disposal. Promptly, they had begun carting it off and putting it into operation. But a lethargy crept over them. Finally they had ceased the regular pilgrimages; they stopped collecting the Earth-manufactured materials, the elaborate machinery and industrial products.

None of them really wanted to go on from the point at which they had left off. In actuality they wanted to start from the bottom up. It was not a replica of Earth-civilization that they wanted to create; it was their own typical community, geared to their own unique needs, geared to the Venusian conditions, that they wanted.

It had to be agrarian.

They already had crops and simple cabins, irrigation ditches, clothing woven from plant fibre, electricity, a pair of dobbin-drawn carts, sanitation and wells. They had domesticated native animals; they had located natural building materials. They were shaping basic tools and functional artifacts. In their first year, thousands of years of cultural evolution had been achieved. Perhaps, in a decade—

Off beyond the meadow was a long gully. Occasional drifters lay here and there among the shrubbery; a cloud had come settling down, the week before. And beyond the gully, in the shadows of a wide ridge, rested an immense wad of white material.

"What's that?" Dieter inquired, interrupting Louis' thoughts. "I've never seen that life form."

In the second dobbin cart, Frank and Syd approached. The Venusians gathered silently, uneasy in the presence of the ominous mound of white. In Syd's arms the baby stirred fitfully.

"It doesn't belong here," Frank said finally.

"Why do you say that?" Dieter asked. "Who are you to pass judgement?"

"I mean," Frank explained, "it's not Venusian. It came down a day or so after the drifters."

"Came down!" Dieter was perplexed. "What do you mean?"

Frank shrugged. "Like the drifters. It descended."

"I saw another one," Irma volunteered. "Apparently it's a second interstellar life form."

Abruptly, Louis' hand closed around Dieter's shoulder. "Take the cart over to it. I want to examine it."

Dieter's face sagged resentfully. "Why? I want to show you my corn."

"The hell with your corn," Louis said sharply. "We better take a look at that thing."

"I looked at the other one," Frank said. "It seemed harmless. I couldn't see any special characteristics... it's a single cell, like the drifters." He hesitated. "I broke it open. It's got a. nucleus, cell-wall, granules within the cytoplast. The usual stuff; it's definitely a protozoon."

Dieter headed the dobbin cart toward the wad of white. In a moment they had drawn up beside it and halted. The other cart followed. One of the dobbins sniffed at the white wad; without comment he began to nibble.

"Leave that alone," Dieter ordered nervously. "Maybe it'll poison you."

Louis leaped down and strode over.

The wad was faintly moist. It was alive, all right. Louis got a stick and began prodding it experimentally. Here was a second life-form out of space, a rarer form, not as common as the smaller drifters. "Just two?" he asked. "Nobody's seen any more?"

"There's one over there," Irma said, pointing.

A quarter of a mile away a third wad had recently landed. From where they stood they could see it sluggishly stirring... the wad was making its way slowly over the ground. Its movement slowed. Presently it came to rest.

"It's dead," Dieter commented indifferently.

Louis walked over toward it, across the spongy green surface of plant life. Tiny animals scuttled underfoot, hard-shelled crustaceans. He ignored them and kept his eyes on the looming wad of white. When he reached it, he discovered that it wasn't dead; it had found a hollow depression and was laboriously anchoring itself. Fascinated, he watched it exude a slimy cement. The cement hardened, and the wad was tightly fixed to the ground. There it rested, obviously waiting.

Waiting for what?

Curious, he walked all around it. The surface was uniform. It certainly looked like a cell, all right: a giant single cell. He picked up a rock and tossed it; the rock embedded itself in the white substance and stuck there.

No doubt it was related to the drifters. Two stages, perhaps; that was the probable explanation. The drifters, he knew, were incomplete; they lacked the ability to ingest food, to reproduce, even to stay alive. But this thing was clearly staying alive: it was getting itself set up. A symbiotic relationship, perhaps?

While he was studying it, he noticed the drifter.

The drifter was coming down. He had seen it happen before, but it always fascinated him. The drifter was using the air as a medium: carefully it maneuvered itself like a weed-spore, first floating in one direction, then in another, keeping itself aloft as long as possible. The drifters didn't like to land; it meant an end to mobility.

There it came, drifting down to its death, to expire fruitlessly. The senseless mystery of the interstellar creature: wandering millions, billions of miles, over centuries—for what? To wind up here, to perish without purpose?

The familiar cosmic meaninglessness. Life without goal.

In the last two years billions of drifters had been exterminated. It was tragic, stupid. This one, hovering momentarily, was trying to keep itself alive one last second, before it fell to its pointless death. A hopeless struggle; like all of its race, it was doomed.

Suddenly the drifter folded into itself. Its thin, extended body snapped together like a rubber band; one second it was spread out, catching air currents—the next second it was a thin elongated pencil. It had literally rolled itself up in a tube. And now, thin and tube-like, it dropped straight down.

The tube-like projectile fell expertly, purposefully, directly into the wad of white dough.

It neatly penetrated the white wad. The surface closed after it, and no sign of it remained.

"It's a house," Dieter said uncertainly. "That's a dwelling, and the drifter lives in it."

The white mass had begun to change. Incredulous, Louis saw it swell until it was almost double its original size. It couldn't be; it was impossible. But even as he stood there, the wad divided into two hemispheres, joined, but clearly distinct. Rapidly, the white mass grew and formed four connecting units. Now growth was frantic; the thing bubbled and swelled like yeast. Two, four, eight, sixteen... geometric progression.

A chill, ominous wind eddied around him. The undulating shape seemed to cut off the sunlight; all at once he was standing in a darkening shadow. In panic, Louis retreated. His terror spread to the two dobbins; as he reached out to take hold of Dieter's cart the birds suddenly unfolded their wings and bolted. Dragging the carts after them, they floundered away from the swelling white shape. He was left standing alone, impotent and stunned. "What is it?" Frank was shouting. Hysteria rose up into his voice; now they were all yelling. "What is it? What's happening?"

Dieter leaped to the ground and stood with his feet braced apart, the reins gripped. "Come on," he shouted to Louis. "Get in!"

With a snarl of aversion, the dobbin shuddered away from Louis. Ignoring it, he clambered into the cart and sat hunched over, lips moving, face white. Dieter leaped back in, and the cart began to move away.

"It's an egg," Syd said faintly.

"Was," Louis corrected. "Not now. Now it's a zygote."

The cosmic egg had been fertilized by the micro-gametophyte. And Louis, watching, knew what the drifters were.

"Pollen," he whispered, stricken. "That's what they've been all the time. And we never guessed."

The drifters were pollen, radiating in clouds across space between star systems, in search of their megagametophytes. Neither they nor the white wad was the final organism; both were elements of the now visibly growing embryo.

And he realized something else. Nobody had guessed, but Jones must have known this—and for some time.

The team of biologists spread out their reports. Jones barely glanced at the collection of papers; he nodded and moved away, deep in brooding thought.

"We were afraid that might be it," Trillby, the head of the team, said. "That explains their incompleteness; that's why they don't have digestive or reproductive systems." He added, "They are a reproductive system. Half of it, at least."

"What's the word?" Jones asked suddenly. "I forget."

"Metazoon. Multi-celled. Differentiated into various organs and special tissues."

"And we haven't seen the final stages?"

"God no," Trillby said emphatically. "Nothing like it. The organism uses the planet as a womb; the most we've observed is the embryo and what might correspond to the fetal stage. At that point, it bursts off the planet. The atmosphere, the gravitational field, are a medium for early development; after that it's through with us. I suppose the final organism is non-planetary."

"It lives between systems?" Jones inquired, frowning. His face was wrinkled and preoccupied; he only half-heard the man. "It breeds on planets... sheltered places."

Trillby said: "We have reason to believe that all the so-called drifters are pollen grains from a single adult plant—if those terms have any meaning. Maybe it's neither plant nor animal. A combination of both... a plant's immobility and using a plant's method of pollination."

"Plants," Jones said. "They don't fight. They're helpless."

"Generally speaking. But we shouldn't assume that these—"

Jones nodded absently. "Of course... it's absurd. We can't really know anything about them." Wearily, he rubbed his forehead. "I'll keep your report here. Thanks."

He left them standing there, surrounding their report like a cluster of anxious hens. Offices danced past him, and then he was out in the barren, drafty corridor that connected the administrative wing with the police wing. Glancing at his pocket watch he saw that it was almost time. Time. Infuriated, he stuffed the watch away, hating to see its placid, contemptuous face.

For one year, he had mulled the report over in his mind. He had memorized it word for word—and then sent out the team to collect it. They had done a good job: it was an exhaustive study.

From outside the building came sounds. Shuddering, Jones halted, aware of them in a vague way, conscious that the unending murmur was still there. Shakily, he ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing it back as best he could. Putting himself in some semblance of order.

He was a plain little man with steel-rimmed glasses and thinning hair. He wore a simple gray uniform, with a single medal on his sunken chest, plus the regulation crossed-flasks armband. His life was an endless procession of work. He had a duodenal ulcer from tension and worry. He was conscientious.

He was licked.

But the crowd outside didn't know that. Outside the building, it had grown to monumental size. Thousands of people, collected together in an excited clot, yelling and waving their arms, cheering, holding up banners and signs. The noise drifted and eddied, a distant booming that had been going on—with few respites—for over a year. There was always somebody outside the building, screeching his head off. Idly, Jones considered the various slogans; in an automatic, almost bureaucratic way, he checked them against the program he had laid out.

WE HAVE FAITH

NOT YET BUT NOT LONG

JONES KNOWS—JONES DOES

Jones knew, all right. Grimly, he paced around in a circle, arms folded, impatient and restless. Eventually, after tramping down the hedges around the police building, the crowd would disperse. Still cheering, still shouting slogans at one another, they would drift off. The organization die-hards would go take ice-cold showers, would return to their various posts to plot the next stage of the grand strategy. None of them realized it yet: the Crusade was over. In a few days the ships would be coming back.

At the far end of the corridor a door was pushed aside; two men appeared, Pearson and an armed, gray-uniformed guard. Pearson came toward him, a tall, thin, man, pale, with tight-set lips. He showed no surprise at the sight of Jones; coming almost up to him, he halted, scrutinized the smaller man, glanced around at the armed guard behind him, and shrugged.

"It's been a long time," Pearson said. He moistened his lips. "I haven't seen you since that day we first picked you up."

"A lot has changed," Jones said. "Have you been well-treated?"

"I've been in a cell for just about a year," Pearson answered mildly, without rancor, "if you call that being well-treated."

"Bring in two chairs," Jones ordered the guard. "So we can sit down." When the guard hesitated, Jones flushed and shouted: "Do as I say—everything's under control."

The chairs were lugged back; without preamble, Jones seated himself. Pearson did the same.

"What do you want?" Pearson demanded bluntly.

"You've heard about the Crusade?"

Pearson nodded. "I've heard."

"What are your feelings?"

"I think it's a waste of time."

Jones considered. "Yes," he agreed. "It is a waste of time."

Astonished, Pearson started to speak, then changed his mind.

"The Crusade is over," Jones stated. "It failed. I'm informed that what we call drifters are the pollen of immensely complicated plant-like beings, so remote and advanced that we'll never have anything more than a dim picture of them."

Pearson sat staring at him. "You mean that?"

"I certainly do."

"Then we're a—" He gestured. "What are we? Nothing!"

"That's a good way of putting it."

"Maybe they think we're a chemical."

"Or a virus. Something on that order. On that scale."

"But—" Haltingly, Pearson demanded: "What are they going to do? If we've been attacking their pollen, destroying their spores—"

"The final adult forms have a direct, rational solution. Very shortly they'll move to protect themselves. I can't blame them."

"They're going to—eliminate us?"

"No, they're going to seal us off. A ring will presently be set up around us. We'll have Earth, the Sol System, the stars we've already reached. And that's all. Beyond that—" Jones snapped his fingers. "The warships will simply disappear. The blight or virus or chemical is contained. Bottled up inside a sanitary barrier. An effective solution: no wasted motions. A clean, straight-to-the-point answer. Characteristic of their plant-like form."

Pearson pulled himself upright. "How long have you known this?"

"Not long enough. The war had already begun. If there had been spectacular interstellar battles"—Jones' voice died to a baffled, almost inaudible whisper—"People might have been satisfied. Even if we had lost, at least there would be glory, struggle, an adversary to hate. But there's nothing. In a few days the ring will be installed and the ships will have to turn back. Not even defeat. Just emptiness."

"What about them?" Pearson pointed toward the window, beyond which the noisy crowd cheered on. "Can they stand hearing it?"

"I did my best," Jones said levelly. "I bluffed and I lost. I had no idea what we were attacking. I was in the dark."

"We should have been able to guess," Pearson said.

"I don't see why. You find it easy to imagine?"

"No," Pearson admitted. "No, it's difficult."

"You used to be Director of the Secpol," Jones said. "When I came into power I had the Security setup disbanded and atomized. The structure is gone—the camps are closed. Enthusiasm has kept us unified. But there won't be any more enthusiasm."

Sick fear settled over Pearson. "What the hell is this?"

"I'm offering you your job back. You can have your badge and desk again. And your title: Security Director. Your secret police, your weapons-police. Everything the way you had it... with only one change. The Fedgov Supreme Council will stay dissolved."

"And you'll have ultimate authority?"

"Naturally."

"Go jump in the creek."

Jones signalled the guard. "Send in Doctor Manion."

Doctor Manion was a bald, heavy-set individual in a spanking white uniform, nails manicured, hair faintly perfumed, lips thick and moist. He clutched a heavy metal box, which he laid gingerly on the table.

"Doctor Manion," Jones said, "this is Mr. Pearson."

Reflexively, the two men shook hands; Pearson stood rigid as Manion rolled up his sleeves, glanced at Jones, and then began opening the steel box. "I have it here," he confided. "It's in perfect shape; survived the trip beautifully." With pride, he added: "It's the finest specimen obtained, so far."

"Doctor Manion," Jones said, "is a research parasitologist."

"Yes," Manion quickly agreed, moon-like face flushed with professional eagerness. "You see, Mr.—Pearson? Yes, you see, Pearson, as you probably realize, one of our big problems was screening returning ships to make sure they didn't pick up parasitic organisms of a non-terran nature. We didn't want to admit new forms of pathogenic"—he snapped open the box—"Organisms."

In the box lay a curled-up intestine of spongy gray organic material. The coil of living tissue was surrounded by a transparent capsule of gelatine. Very slightly, the creature stirred; its blind, eye-less tip moved, felt about, pressed itself to the surface with a damp sucker. It might have been a worm; its segmented sections undulated in a wave of sluggish activity.

"It's hungry," Manion explained. "Now, this isn't a direct parasite; it won't destroy its host. There'll be a symbiotic relationship until it's laid its eggs. Then the larvae will use the host as a source of nourishment." Almost fondly, he continued: "It resembles some of our own wasps. The full course of growth and egg-laying takes about four months. Now, our problem is this: we know how it lives on its own world—it's a native of the fifth Alphan planet, by the way. We've seen it operate within its customary host. And we've been able to introduce it into large-bodied Terran mammals, such as the cow, the horse, with varying results."

"What Manion wants to find out," Jones said, "is whether this parasite will stay alive in a human body."

"Growth is slow," Manion bubbled excitedly. "We only have to observe it once a week. By the time the eggs are laid, we'll know if it can adapt itself to a human. But as yet, we haven't been able to obtain a volunteer."

There was silence.

"Do you feel like volunteering?" Jones asked Pearson. "You have your choice; take one job or the other. If I were you, I'd prefer the one I was used to. You were an excellent cop."

"How can you do this?" Pearson said weakly.

"I have to," Jones answered. "I've got to have the police back. The secret-service has to be re-created, by people who are experts."

"No," Pearson said hoarsely. "I'm not interested. I won't have anything to do with it."

Doctor Manion was delighted. Trying to contain himself, he began fussing with the gelatine capsule. "Then we can go ahead?" To Pearson he revealed: "We can use the surgical labs here in this building. I've had opportunity to inspect them, and they're superb. I'm anxious to introduce this organism before the poor thing starves."

"That would be a shame," Jones acknowledged. "All the way from Alpha for nothing." He stood toying with the sleeve of his coat, while he pondered. Both Pearson and Manion watched him fixedly. Suddenly Jones said to the doctor: "You have a cigarette lighter?"

Mystified, Manion dug out a heavy gold lighter and passed it to him. Jones removed the plug and drizzled fluid onto the gelatine capsule. At that, Manion's face lost its smug optimism. "Good God—" he began, agitated. "What the hell -"

Jones ignited the fluid. Stunned, helpless, Manion had to stand there as the fluid, the capsule, and the organism within, blazed up in an acrid flicker of orange fire. Gradually the contents cooled to a black, bubbling slime.

"Why?" Manion protested weakly, not comprehending.

"I'm a provincial," Jones explained briefly. "Strange things, foreign things, make me sick."

"But -"

He handed Manion back his lighter. "You make me sicker. Take your box and get out of here."

Dazed, overwhelmed by the catastrophe, Manion gathered up the cooling metal box and stumbled off. The guard stepped aside, and he vanished through the door.

Breathing more easily, Pearson said: "You wouldn't cooperate with us. Kaminski wanted you to help Reconstruction."

"All right." Jones nodded curtly to the guard. "Take this man back to his cell. Keep him there."

"How long?" the guard inquired.

"As long as you can," Jones answered, with bitterness.

On the trip back to organizational headquarters, Jones sat bleakly meditating.

Well, he had expected to fail, hadn't he? Hadn't he known that Pearson would refuse? Hadn't he previewed that whole miserable episode, known he couldn't go through with the torture? He could—and would—say he had done it, but that didn't change the facts.

He was on his way out. There was a terrible, brutal time left for him, and nothing more. What he did now was desperate; it was ruthless and it was final. It was something people were going to discuss for centuries to come. But, frantic as it was, it was still basically and undeniably his death.

He had no certain knowledge of what was to become of society because he would not be around to see it. Very shortly he would die. He had been contemplating it for almost a year; it could be ignored temporarily, but always it returned, each time more terrible and imminent.

After death, his body and brain would erode. And that was the hideous part; not the sudden instant of torment that would come in the moment of execution. That, he could bear. But not the slow, gradual, disintegration.

A spark of identity would linger in the brain for months. A dim flicker of consciousness would persist: that was his future memory; that was what the wave showed him. Darkness, the emptiness of death. And, hanging in the void, the still-living personality.

Deterioration would begin at the uppermost levels. First, the highest faculties, the most cognizant, the most alert processes, would fade. An hour after death, the personality would be animal. A week, after, it would be stripped to a vegetable layer. The personality would devolve back the way it had come; as it had struggled up through the billions of years, so it would go back, step by step, from man to ape to early Primate to lizard to fish to crustacean to trilobite to protozoon. And after that: to mineral extinction. Final merciful end. But it would take time.

Normally, the devolving personality would not be aware, would not be conscious of the process. But Jones was unique. Now, at this moment, with his full faculties intact, he was experiencing it. Simultaneously, he was fully conscious, totally in possession of his senses—and at the same time undergoing ultimate psychic degeneration.

It was bearing. But he had to bear it. And every day, every week, it grew worse—until finally he would in actuality die. And then, thank God, the ordeal would end.

The suffering he had caused others did not compare with that which he had to undergo. But it was right; he deserved it. This was his punishment. He had sinned, and retribution had come.

The final, somber phase of Jones' existence had begun.