Part 3

"Yes," I said. Then I turned casually, though I didn't feel casual at all. I knew what she was thinking.

"You must be the greatest optimist of all time," she said. "And I'll help you and myself and all of us stay that way. I'll never mention it again. Perhaps we can both forget."

"Try to forget what?" I said, though I knew well enough.

Her eyes fixed mine as only her eyes can. "Forget that the great world we're fighting so hard to build we will be destroying a million years from tonight."

I coughed and ordered another drink for myself. But I can't forget.

End of Project Gutenberg's Prisoner of the Brain-Mistress, by Bryce Walton