"What shall I do?"
"Stay with him and wait," ordered Prime Center. "This is the first time the hopes of humanity lie in one man. Remember that. We can only serve," he added bitterly. "He hasn't tested the final limitation? Good. Keep me informed."
John Davis Drumstetter stayed beside his huge mind machine for nearly a week, and, though he was only sixty, he looked like an old man when he greeted Monica and Norcross at the end of that time.
"The relay is finished," he announced. "It's being installed in the Last Hope now. That's what I'm calling my ship, the ship to make mankind free of the stars. My work on Earth is nearly done."
"But, Johnny darling," said Monica Drake Lane, looking up at him through her eyelashes, "what about our marriage?"
He looked at her with grim pity. "The bower was an old bower," he answered. "Did you have the courage to be a unique in a patterned world? Can you reproduce, Monica Drake Lane?"
"Oh, Johnny—"
"The final limitation!" he said. "Humans have the power to command pseudo-life. Pseudo-life, answer! I command!"
She sank to the ground.