She spun to face him, and gasped. Her skin seemed to turn gray, and her
eyes opened to double their normal size. She took one tottering step
toward him and halted.
"Illusion!" she whispered hoarsely, and slumped to the ground in a
faint.
She was reviving before he could raise her from the ground. She swayed a
moment, staring at him. "You're not dead!"
"What's so wonderful about that around here?" he asked, but not with
much interest. With the world going to pot and only a few days left, the
girl's face and the slim young body under it were about all the reality
left worth thinking about. He grabbed for her, pulling her to him.
Bertha had never made him feel like that.
She managed to avoid his lips and slid away from him. "But they used the
snetha-knife! Dave Hanson, you never died! It was only induced illusion
by that--that Bork! And to think that I nearly died of grief while you
were enjoying yourself here! You ... you mandrake-man!"
He grunted. He'd almost managed to forget what he was, and he didn't
enjoy having the aircraft worker find out. He turned to see what the
reaction was, and then stared open-mouthed at his surroundings.
There were no lights from the plane factory. In fact, there was no plane
factory. In the half-light of the sky, he saw that the plant was gone.
No men were left. There was only barren earth, with a tiny, limp sapling
in the middle of empty acres.
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