Part 2

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Woodard tried clinging to the worthwhile thought. But it kept shimmering off in the dissolving world. It wouldn't come right. I have nothing to fear but all mankind, he kept hearing.

And maybe it was better that way; at least he knew.

Finally he asked himself: How did I get into this? I who always kept myself to myself to myself to myself.... Oh he was whirling, whirling, and no one could count his r's p.m. ... myself to myself to....

He slumped unconscious in his chair.

Eleven minutes and thirty-one seconds of partitas had elapsed. Nodus so remarked to Russ, who made note.

And the concert continued. But there is small point in detailing Nodus' accounts, as sensibly delivered as before, of the various selections: how he explained his choice of "Bendermeer's Stream" as a follow-up to the partitas; his apologies for the surface scratches that made the Valkyries' ride sound unlubricated; his cautionings about what to look for in the "Romeo and Juliet Overture"; his meticulous timing of these and the other recordings.

Thirty-six minutes and twenty seconds after Woodard's cerebral disintegration came his impalpabilization.

"Three hours, forty-one minutes, twenty-one seconds," Nodus intoned, and Russ jotted down the melancholy figures. The girl emitted a small shriek of joy and started impetuously for the chair that had been Woodard's. But Nodus raised a preventive arm. "Not yet," he warned. "Not for a few minutes. There may be anarchic sonic residuum. We don't know. And anyway--what's there to see this time? Absolutely nothing left."

"Except his car," said Russ. He spoke with a lisping dreaminess.

"You'll park it by one of the fishing piers. Woodard said as he left here that he'd stop for a late swim."

"Just lovely," sighed the girl. And Russ nodded in slow motion.

Nodus smiled almost reluctantly. Perfectionist that he was, it would be long before he was wholly satisfied. He turned to the girl. "Your idea of substituting the partitas for the Mahler 'Farewell' was very sound. I'm interested in the reasoning."

Her nostrils flaring at the heady draught of his praise, she giggled shyly. "I _hoped_ the partitas would work, because Mahler really fractures me. That 'Farewell' would have finished _me_--even where I was sitting."

His glance rested on her as if he would bear this in mind. Then he said "It should be safe to look closely now," and he led his technicians to the vacant chair.

"No nasty mess to clean up!" raved the girl. "Nothing like that Ward, with his dreadful post-distillation residuum!" And as Nodus and Russ exchanged smiles at her woman's viewpoint--"Who's next?" she demanded.

Russ was inspired. "That frightful old woman at the hotel!"

Nodus regarded the girl through narrowed eyes. "The one's been spreading those half-wit tales about you and me."

She did not meet his look. "You'd never get Mrs. Jenson here alone."

"Then with her friends," he said expansively. With upturned hand he warded off protest. "I can tell you now that I expect to be ready--before the season is ended--for _group_ therapy." He ignored her little scream of delight, Russ's slow smile of wonder. "Perhaps you don't quite realize--this evening--how important it's been." His voice had begun to tremble, and he rested a moment to steady himself. "After all the years with warts and small excrescences," he said, his eyes misting. "The humiliation of our work with corns...." He raised his head proudly. "But it was to this that it was all leading...." He pointed to the undefiled chair. "And now it begins to look as if we--and with no billions backing us, mind you--would be ready before the no-fallout bomb!"

The girl looked faint with wonder as Russ lisped complacently, "And without the disastrous destruction of priceless commodities."

THE END