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understood instantly.'
She added, 'One more question, 'John Hammond. Omega is an unusual term. What does it mean?'
'... When man becomes one with the ultimate, that is Point Omega.'
It seemed to Hammond that, even as he finished speaking, she was growing remote, withdrawing from
him. Or was it that it was he who was withdrawing? Not only from her, but from everything drifting
away, not in any spatial sense, but, in some curious fashion, away from the reality of the entire universe?
The brief thought came that this should be an alarming and disturbing experience. Then the thought itself
was forgotten.
'There is something occurring,' her voice was telling him 'In the small thing behind the door, the Omega
evolutionary process is completed, in its fashion. In me, it is not completed not quite.
'But it is being completed now...'
* *
He was nowhere and nothing. New word impressions, new thought impressions, came suddenly and
swept through him like the patter of rain.
The impressions took form. It was later in time. He seemed to be standing in the small room next to his
office, looking down at the lanky, redheaded young man sitting groggily on the edge of the couch holding
his head.
'Coming out of it, Vince?' Hammond asked.
Vincent Strather glanced uncertainly up at him ran his hand over the jagged rent in the sleeve of his
jacket.
'I guess so, Mr. Hammond,' he muttered. 'I ... what happened?'
'You went for a drive tonight,' Hammond told him, 'with a girl named Barbara Ellington. You'd both
been drinking. She was driving ... driving too fast. The car went off a highway embankment, turned over
several times. Witnesses dragged you to safety minutes before the car burst into flames. The girl was
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dead. They didn't attempt to save her body. When the police informed me of the accident, I had you
brought here to Research Alpha.'
As he spoke; he had the stunning realization that everything he was saying was true. The accidenthad
happened late that evening, in exactly that manner.
'Well ... ' Vince began. He broke off, sighed, shook his head. 'Barbara was an odd girl. A wild one! I
was pretty fond of her once, Mr. Hammond. Lately, I've been trying to break off with her.
Hammond received the impression that much more had happened. Automatically, he looked back
through the open door as the private telephone in the inner office signaled. 'Excuse me,' he said to Vince.
As he flicked on the instrument, Helen Wendell's face appeared on the phone screen. She gave him a
brief smile, asked, 'How is Strather?'
Hammond didn't reply at once. He looked at her, feeling cold, eerie crawlings over his scalp. Helen was
seated at her desk in the outer office. She was not in a spaceboat standing off the planet.
He heard himself say, 'He's all right. There is very little emotional shock ... How about you?'
'I'm disturbed by Barbara's death,' Helen admitted. 'But now I have Dr Gloge on the phone. He's quite
anxious to talk to you.'
Hammond said, 'All right, Put him on.'
'Mr. Hammond,' Dr Gloge's voice said a moment later, 'this is in connection with the Point Omega
Stimulation project. I've been going over all my notes and conclusions on these experiments, and I'm
convinced that once you understand the extraordinary dangers which might result if the details of my
experiments became known, you will agree that the project should be closed out and my records
referring to it destroyed at once.'
After switching off the phone, he remained for a while at the desk.
* *
So that part of the problem also had been solved! The last traces of the Omega serum were being wiped
out, would soon linger only in his mind.
And for how long there? Perhaps no more than two or three hours, John Hammond decided. The
memory pictures were paling; he had a feeling that sections of them already had vanished. And there was
an odd, trembling uncertainty about what was left ... thin, colored mind-canvas being tugged by a wind
which presently would carry it off.
He had no objections, Hammond told himself. He had seen one of the Great Ones, and it was not a
memory that it was good for a lesser being to have.
Somehow, it hurt to be so much less.
He must have slept. For he awoke suddenly. He felt vaguely bewildered, for no reason that he could
imagine.
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Helen came in, smiling. 'Don't you think it's time we closed up for the night? You're working too long
hours again.'
'You're right,' Hammond nodded.
He got up and went into the room next to the office to tell Vincent Strather he was free to go home.
[ -: CONTENTS :-]
Him
by A. E. VAN VOGT
As all knew, everything came from Him.
* *
Josiah Him, dictator of Earth except for a few areas of resistance, consisting of a total of about eight
hundred million scientific savages, a portion of whom were located in the western half of North America
and the rest in the great mountain regions of Asia and elsewhere.
These barbaric remnants had, in their madness, declared a state of war on Him. As it developed, the
counterattack from, Him had included an initial surprise invasion which was repelled. After the defeat,
the word from Him was that every means of humanitarian warfare would be employed to defeat the
savages, including in severe emergencies the planarian education plan.
This particular word from Him had come that morning to Edgar Maybank: ... Your assistants, hereinafter
to be called students, have been selected for planarian accelerated education. ... Report July 12 ...'
That wasnext, day!
The man who had climbed onto the bar stool next to Edgar, and who had somehow drawn the
anguished truth out of Edgar, was singularly unsympathetic. He was a big, gentle fellow, who jiggled a
little to the music, but had all the correct attitudes instantly at the tip of his tongue.
'... The word from Him,' he said with quiet certainty, 'is that the planarian system should be used only in
extreme emergencies. All truly patriotic educators should therefore be prepared for the supreme sacrifice.
You are to be congratulated on this rare opportunity to serve Him, but, uh, don't you think that's rather
an unusual get-up for an expert?'
He thereupon eyed Edgar's corduroys and formless shirt.
Edgar said, 'I came straight from work.'
'Oh, straight from the laboratory.'
'I guess you could call it that,' said Edgar absently.
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He was admitting to himself, gloomily, that he had been very remiss in the past, when other people had
been selected for the planarian program. In fact, his indignation against the plan had started belatedly that
morning. What bothered him most was the feeling that he was the victim of a scheme.
'After all,' he said, 'we know that these decisions are not made by Him, but by administrators and
subadministrators '
The older man interjected quickly: 'But always from the highest motives, solely in the name of Him,
responsible to Him '
No question, that was the theory; and Edgar had given lip-service to it for so long that he was now
briefly silenced.
While the dancers writhed around him, and his barmate kept time by moving one portion or another of
his body, Edgar sipped his drink and grimly contemplated the entire planarian idea.
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