"Ready, sir?"
"Ready," said Jason Wall. Ready to destroy the human race—
His vision flashed and blurred. Time moved backward for him.
A forest trail. Animals used it, had carved it out of the wall of jungle. And the first man?
Armed with a revolver, Jason Wall left the now useless time-chair and hid himself beside the trail. He waited three days, living on berries and a small marsupial creature he had caught with his bare hands. If First Man was around, he didn't want to frighten him off with gun-fire.
At last, First Man came.
He was, Jason Wall observed with objective detachment, a noble-looking creature. The first true man. Over six feet tall, perfectly proportioned. He looked quite the healthiest man Jason Wall had ever seen. If looks meant anything, he had never known a day of disease in his life, and never would. Jason Wall's determination to kill grew.
He did not have to wait long. When First Man came by his hiding place he stood up, pointed the revolver, and fired it point-blank.
He was, naturally, ready for the end. The death of First Man ought to mean the death of all men, the sudden blotting out, in all ages, of all mankind and all traces of mankind.