heartbeat but the little swish of air passing through his bronchial tubes and the faint creaking of his joints as he moved his hand. These were sounds which the most elaborate stethoscope could bring out but faintly. Perhaps it was the quiet of the room, he thought, and perhaps it was the faint and mysterious aura which the figure, revealed by the sliding wall, diffused.
It was the shape of a man—had been once, that is. For it was so terribly old that the ordinary attributes of humanity were gone from its decrepit frame. It could not move, for it was seated with legs crossed and arms folded over the shriveled breast, these members held in place by padded clamps. The dully-glowing tangle of machinery about it bespoke artificial feeding and digestion; a myriad of tiny silvery pipes entering into its skin must have been man-made perspiration ducts.
The eyes were lost behind ponderous lenses and scanning devices, and there was a sort of extended microphone that entered the very mouth of the creature. Sound-grids surrounded it in lieu of ears that had long since shriveled into uselessness.
The lips unmoving, the creature spoke again: 'You know me?' it whispered penetratingly.
Maclure dredged his memory for a moment, following the clue of the high, crusted brow of the creature. 'You must be Mr. Sapphire, it seems,' said Angel slowly.
'Excellent,' whispered the creature. 'I am Mr. Sapphire—of Planets Production Corporation, Extraterrestrial Mines, Amusements Syndicate, Publishers Associated—can you complete the list?'
'I think so,' said Angel. 'In spite of the very clever management it's almost obvious—after a rather penetrating study—that there is one fountainhead of finance from which springs almost all the industry and commerce and exchange in the system today. I had not suspected that you were at the head and still alive. One hundred and eighty years, isn't it?'
'Yes,' whispered the creature. 'One hundred and eighty years of life—if this is it. Now, Maclure, you do not know why I called you. It is because I am a proud man, and will not be humiliated by death. I shall live, Maclure. I shall live!' The voiceless whisper was still for a moment.
'And,' suggested Angel, 'you want me to help you?'
'Yes. I followed your childhood in the hands of your father. I saw you at twelve the equal of men four times your age, physically and mentally their actual equal. And I know that after the death of your father you chose to disappear. I knew you would do this, Maclure, for a while. It was your intention to slip into the way of the world and forget that you were the infinite superior of your fellows. Well—you succeeded, in your own mind at least. You are well on the way to forgetting that to those around you you are as a man among apes. That is so of all men except you—and me.'
Angel grinned bitterly. 'You struck it,' he said. 'I think you and I stand alone in the world. I was the victim of my father's ambition. What are you?'
'Life eternal,' sounded the voiceless whisper. 'To watch the world and its aspects—to mold it as I will, and eventually—destroy it! Destroy it and fashion another! Maclure, medicine has done all for me that it can.
I am the final example of the surgical art. Once my brain was transplanted into a youthful body, but even I could not stand the shock.
I died, and was revived only with the greatest difficulty.
'Three times since then I have died. The last time it took three hours to revive me. Ten minutes more and I would never have lived again. Under the laws of nature I can last no longer. And so you must come to my rescue.'
'How am I to do that?' demanded Angel.
'For me,' breathed Mr. Sapphire, 'you will suspend these laws. Do not interrupt. I can give you only a few minutes more before I retire for a treatment.
'All creation is in motion, we know. So we are taught. Earth moves about the sun, sun about the great hub of the galaxy, the galaxy in a mighty circle about its own directrix—space itself, 'ether,' so called, is like a mighty ball rolling and tumbling through unimaginable chaos. To this outside of space we cannot attain, for to go to the end of space is to return to the starting point.
'But there is another locus in space—wholly unique, wholly at variance with any other time-and-space sector that may be marked off. Can you conceive of it?'
Angel, his brows closely knit, shot out: 'The vortex! The hub around which space revolves—space at rest and absolutely without motion!'
With the faintest suggestion of mockery in his voice Mr. Sapphire whispered, 'The celebrated superman has it. Utterly unique and lawless—or perhaps with laws of its own? At any rate it must be obvious that the limitations which bind matter in space are removed in this vortex of Dead Center.'
'And I am to find it and release a certain amount of matter, your body, from certain restrictions, that is, human decrepitude?' countered Angel.
'That is it. You will work for me?'
'Damn right I will,' exploded Angel. 'And not for your money or anything you have to offer—but just for the kick of finding your quiet spot and doping it out!'
'That,' whispered Mr. Sapphire, 'is how I had estimated it.' The wall began to slide back into place again, hiding his shriveled body and tangle of machinery, when he spoke again: 'Use the metal tab lying on that table.' He was gone.
Angel looked about, and as a table lit up with a little flash, he picked a tag of some shiny stuff from it and pocketed the thing. He heard the ponderous door grind open behind him.
2
Angel, his mind buzzing with figures and colossal statistics, had aimlessly wandered into the proving room. Assistants leaped to attention, for he was known as a captain in the Tri-Planet Guard. And the ship and plotting were, of course, official business. That was only one of the many ways in which his work had been made easier. But work it still was—the hardest, most grueling kind of work of which any man could be capable. The first job he had ordered had been the construction of immense calculating machines of a wholly novel type.
He could not waste his own time and his own energy on the job of simple mathematics. He just showed up with the equations and theoretical work well mapped out and let the machines or his assistants finish it off.
'At ease,' he called. 'Get back to work, kids.' He ambled over to the main structural forge and confronted the foreman. 'Rawson,' he said,
'as I planned it this job should be finished by now.'
Rawson, burly and hard, stared at Angel with something like contempt.
'You planned wrong,' he said, and spat.
Angel caught him flat-footed. After one belt on the chin Rawson was down and out. 'How much longer on this job?' he asked a helper.
'Nearly done now, sir. Who's stuck with the proving-ground tests?'
'Nobody's stuck. I'm taking her out myself.'
With something like concern the helper eyed Maclure. 'I don't know, sir,' he volunteered. 'In my opinion it isn't safe.'
'Thanks,' said Angel with a grin. 'That's what we aim to find out.' He climbed into the ship—small and stubby, with unorthodox fins and not a sign of a respectable atmospheric or spatial drive-unit—and nosed around. He grunted with satisfaction. No spit-and-polish about this job—just solid work. To the men who were working a buffer-wheel against the hull he called, 'That's enough. I'm taking her out now.' They touched their caps, and there was much whispering as Maclure closed the bulkhead.
With a light, sure touch he fingered the controls and eased the ship inches off the ground, floating it to the take-off field, deeply furrowed with the scars of thousands of departing rockets. There was no fanfare or hullabaloo as he depressed the engraved silver bar on the extreme right of the dash. But in response to that finger-touch the ship simply vanished from the few observers and a gale whipped their clothes about them.
Maclure was again in the black of space, the blinking stars lancing through the infinitely tough plastic windows. And he was traveling at a speed which had never before been approached by any man. 'Huh!' he grunted. 'I always
