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crying now.

  "I ... I just can't. It's no good." He stood up.

  She reached out and caught his hand. "Then take me with you. I've heardyou at night pacing in your room. I don't know what it is that drivesyou on and on, but if space is what you want, let me go with you. I canhelp you, darling. You'll see. And some day when you grow tired ofspace, we can come back to Elysia." She was babbling now.

  He pulled roughly away. "No! It's no good. I'm--If only I _could_stay." He brushed her hair softly with his palm and as she reached outtoward him he turned and walked swiftly toward the house, pitying andhating himself by turn, while Lara sat forlornly by the pool lookingafter him.

  He began to sweat before he reached the house and his knees began totremble so, he had to stop for a moment, to keep his balance.Determinedly he started forward again and continued on past the house tothe highway that wound by half a kilometer away. There he hailed apassing ground car and rode to the spaceport, where a few judiciouslydistributed credits facilitated his immediate clearance. Before the shiphad even left the atmosphere he rammed in the subspace control.

  * * * * *

  MAY 4, 437th Year GALACTIC ERA

  Tantalus lay far out on a spiral arm, well away from the main stream oftraffic that flowed through the galaxy. It was a fair planet boasting anequable climate, at least in the tropic zone. But as yet the populationwas small, consisting mostly of administrative officials who servedtheir alloted time and thankfully returned to their home planets closerto the center of population.

  Tee entered the towering building and after consulting a wall directorystepped into the antigrav chute and was whisked high up into the heartof the building. He stepped out before a plain door and as he advancedthe center panel fluoresced briefly with the printed legend--GALACTICPRISON AUTHORITY, Ary Mefford, Administrator for Tantalus.

  He hesitated for a moment, then squaring his shoulders stepped forward,and as he crossed the beam the door swung open before him. Thegray-haired man sitting at the desk studying a paper, looked up andsmiled politely. He indicated a chair with a nod then bent his headagain. After a moment he shoved the paper aside and looked questioninglyat Tee.

  "I want to give myself up," blurted Tee.

  "I'm the administrator for Hades," said the man calmly. "I think youwant the _local_ authorities."

  "You don't understand. I escaped from Hades."

  "No one escapes from Hades," replied the administrator.

  "_I_ escaped!" insisted Tee. "Ten years ago. You can check. I'm tired ofrunning. I want to go back."

  "This is most unusual," said the administrator in a disturbed voice. Helooked unbelievingly at Tee. "_Ten years_ ago you say?"

  "_Yes! Yes!_ And I'm ready to go back, before it's too late. Can't youunderstand?"

  The administrator shook his head pityingly. "It's already too late. I'msorry." He bent his head guiltily and began to fumble with the papers onhis desk.

  Tee started to say something, but the administrator raised his head andsaid slowly, "It was too late the day you left Hades. Nothing I cando." He looked down again. Tee turned and slowly walked out the door.The administrator didn't look up.

  As Tee walked aimlessly down the deserted corridor, his footsteps echoedhollowly like a dirge. A line from an old poem sprang to his mind: "Weare the dead, row on row we lie--" He was the dead, but still he chasedthe chimera of hope, yet knowing in his heart it was hopeless.

  * * * * *

  JUNE 11, 437th Year GALACTIC ERA

  The _Starduster_, pocked and pitted from innumerable collisions withdust particles, sped out and out. The close-packed suns of the centralhub lay far behind. Here at the rim of the galaxy the stars layscattered, separated by vast distances. A gaunt hollow-eyed figure satin the observation bubble staring half-hopefully, half-despairingly atthe unimaginable depths beyond the rim.

  * * * * *

  JUNE 12, 437th Year GALACTIC ERA

  On and on past the thinning stars raced the patient electronicbloodhound; invisible, irreversible, indestructible; slowly, butinexorably accelerating. It flashed by the planet Damocles at multiplesof the speed of light, and sensing the proximity of the prey on which itwas homed, spurted into the intergalactic depths after the recedingship, intent on meshing with and thereby distorting the encephalographpattern of its target. It was quite mindless, and the final pattern itsmeshing would create would be something quite strange, and not veryhuman.

  THE END