For the last time, Thaar spoke to Earth.

“Bill!” it repeated desperately. “Surely all human beings can’t be like you!”

Bill turned and looked into the swirling tunnel. Strange—it seemed to be lighted with flecks of starlight, and was really rather pretty. He felt proud of himself: not many people could imagine that.

“Like me?” he said. “No, they’re not.” He smiled smugly across the light-years, as the rising tide of euphoria lifted him out of his despondency. “Come to think of it,” he added, “there are a lot of people much worse off than me. Yes, I guess I must be one of the lucky ones, after all.”

He blinked in mild surprise, for the tunnel had suddenly collapsed upon itself and the whitewashed wall was there again, exactly as it had always been. Thaar knew when it was beaten.

“So much for that hallucination,” thought Bill. “I was getting tired of it, anyway. Let’s see what the next one’s like.”

As it happened, there wasn’t a next one, for five seconds later he passed out cold, just as he was setting the combination of the file cabinet.

The next two days were rather vague and bloodshot, and he forgot all about the interview.

On the third day something was nagging at the back of his mind: he might have remembered if Brenda hadn’t turned up again and kept him busy being forgiving.

And there wasn’t a fourth day, of course.