He smiled wryly, tiredly. Then he stood, walked to the windows, and pointed. There, in the afternoon sky, hung a crescent moon, pale and silvery in the daylight, but very clear. A thin streamer of fog was moving across it. "Look at it, Miles – it's dead; there hasn't been a particle of change on its surface since man began studying it. But haven't you ever wondered why the moon is a desert of nothingness? The moon, so close to the earth, so very much like it, once even a part of it; why should it be dead?"

He was silent for a moment, and we stared at the silent, unchanging surface of the moon. "Well, it wasn't always," Mannie said softly. "Once it was alive." He turned away, back to the davenport. "And the other planets, revolving around the same life-giving sun as this one; Mars, for example." His shoulder lifted slightly. "Traces of the beings that once lived there still survive in the deserts. And now… it's the earth's turn. And when all of these planets are used up, it doesn't matter. The spores will move on, back into space again, to drift for – it doesn't matter for how long or to where. Eventually they'll arrive… somewhere. Budlong said it: parasites. Parasites of the universe, and they'll be the last and final survivors in it."

"Don't look so shocked, Doctor," Budlong was saying mildly. "After all, what have you people done – with the forests that covered the continent? And the farm lands you've turned into dust? You, too, have used them up, and then… moved on. Don't look so shocked."

I could hardly say it. "The world," I whispered. "You're going to spread over the world?"

He smiled tolerantly. "What did you think. This county, then the next ones; and presently northern California. Oregon, Washington, the West Coast, finally; it's an accelerating process, ever faster, always more of us, fewer of you. Presently, fairly quickly, the continent. And then – yes, of course, the world."

I whispered it. "But… where do they come from, the pods?"

"They grow, of course. We grow them. Always more and more."

I couldn't help it. "The world," I said softly, then I cried out, "But why? Oh, my God, why?"

If he could have been angry, he would have. But Budlong only shook his head tolerantly. "Doctor, Doctor, you don't learn. You don't seem to take it in. What have I been telling you? What do you do, and for what reason? Why do you breathe, eat, sleep, make love, and reproduce your kind? Because it's your function, your reason for being. There's no other reason, and none needed."

Again he shook his head in wonder that I failed to understand. "You look shocked, actually sick, and yet what has the human race done except spread over this planet till it swarms the globe two billion strong? What have you done with this very continent but expand till you fill it? And where are the buffalo who roamed this land before you? Gone. Where is the passenger pigeon, which once literally darkened the skies of America in flocks of billions? The last one died in a Philadelphia zoo in 1913. Doctor, the function of life is to live if it can, and no other motive can ever be allowed to interfere with that. There is no malice involved; did you hate the buffalo? We must continue because we must; can't you understand that?" He smiled at me pleasantly. "It's the nature of the beast."

And so finally I had to accept it, the condemned man finally exhaling, pausing, then sucking death into his lungs because he can't hold out any longer. There was nothing I could do, but this: I could make the last little time left to us as easy as possible on Becky – if we could only spend it alone.

"Mannie" – I looked up at him – "you said we were friends once, that you remember how it was."

"Of course, Miles."

"I don't think you really feel it any more, but if you can still remember anything of how it was, then leave us alone in here. Lock us in my office, and you'll have just the one hall door to guard. But leave us alone now, Mannie; wait in the hall where you can't see or hear us. Give us that much; we can't get away, and you know it. And how can we sleep with you watching us? It'll come faster this way. Lock us in my office, then wait in the hall, Mannie. It's the last chance we'll ever have to know what really being alive is, and maybe you can remember a little of how that was, too."

Mannie looked over at Budlong, and after a moment Budlong nodded, not caring particularly. Then Mannie turned to Carl Meeker, who shrugged; the little man near the door wasn't even asked. "All right, Miles," Mannie said quietly. "No reason we shouldn't." He nodded at the little man by the door, who stood up and went outside to the building hallway. Mannie walked to the heavy wood door leading to my office, turned the key in the lock, then twisted and tugged at the door handle, testing it. He unlocked it again and held it open for Becky and me to walk through.

Slowly it began swinging shut behind us, and just before it closed, I caught a final glimpse of the little man coming back into the reception room from the building hallway, and his body was nearly hidden by the two enormous pods he was carrying in his arms. Then our door clicked shut, the key turned in the lock, and I heard the faint sound of something brushing against the other side of that door – and I knew that those two great pods were lying on the floor now, by that locked door; so very near to us, yet out of our reach.

Chapter eighteen

I took Becky's arm, holding her hand flat between mine, squeezing it tight between them, and she looked up at me, and managed to smile. I led her to the big leather chair in front of my desk and she sat down, and I sat on the arm, leaning close to her, my arm around her shoulders.

For a little time we were silent, and I sat remembering the night not long ago, yet very long ago – when Becky had come here to talk about Wilma, and I realized she was wearing the very same dress, silk, long-sleeved, and with a red and grey pattern. I remembered how glad I'd been to see her that night, realizing that even though we'd had only a few high-school dates, I'd never really forgotten her. And now I understood a lot of things I hadn't before. "I love you, Becky" I said, and she looked up at me to smile, then leaned her head back against my arm.

"I love you, Miles."

I heard a tiny sound from the locked door behind us, familiar, yet for an instant I couldn't recognize it; it was the snapping sound a dry, brittle leaf makes. Then I knew what it was, and glanced quickly at Becky, but if she'd heard it, too, she gave no sign.

"I wish we'd been married, Becky. I wish we were married now."

She nodded. "So do I. Miles, why didn't we?"

I didn't answer; the reasons were meaningless now.

She said, "We should have, but you've been afraid, for yourself and for me. Mostly for me, I think." She smiled at me tiredly. "And it's true enough that I couldn't take another failure, I just couldn't. But you couldn't protect me against that either; and who else do you think I'd have found who could? Any two people who marry take a chance on failure; we were no different from anyone else. Except that we knew more; we already knew what failure was like, and maybe something of what causes it, and how to guard against it. We ought to have been married, Miles."

After a moment I said, "Maybe we still can." Because she was right, of course; it was simple and obvious; I just hadn't let myself see it. Of course we could have failed; I could have wrecked her life; but that made me no different from any other man who might have done the same thing.

The faint snapping, crackling sound came again from the other side of the door behind us, and then I was on my feet, prowling the little office, hunting for something, anything, that could help us. More than anything I ever wanted before, I wanted another chance; now there had to be away out of this. Remembering to move silently I opened my desk drawer; there lay prescription pads, blotters, celluloid calendar cards, paper clips, rubber bands, a broken forceps, pencils, two fountain pens, an imitation-bronze letter opener. I picked up the opener, holding it like a dagger, my fist clenched on the handle, and looked at the varnished surface of the heavy wood door to the reception room. Then I opened my hand and let the useless object drop silently onto a little scattering of blotters.