In the darkness Grew's pipe was a sullen red glow and the dim shadow of him hunched over the shining chessboard as if it had the less life of the two. He might have shaken his head curtly, but Schwartz could not see that. He didn't have to. He sensed the other's negation as clearly as though a speech had been delivered.

Schwartz tried again. "Do you know where I can get a map?"

"No maps," growled Grew, "unless you want to risk your neck in Chica. I'm no geographer. I never heard of the names you mention, either. What are they? People?"

Risk his neck? Why that? Schwartz felt the coldness gather. Had he committed a crime? Did Grew know about it?

He asked doubtfully, "The sun has nine planets, hasn't it?"

"Ten," was the uncompromising answer.

Schwartz hesitated. Well, they might have discovered another that he hadn't heard about. But then why should Grew have heard about it? He counted on his fingers, and then, "How about the sixth planet? Has it got rings?"

Grew was slowly moving the King's Bishop's Pawn forward two squares, and Schwartz instantly did the same.

Grew said, "Saturn, you mean? Of course it has rings." He was calculating now. He had the choice of taking either the Bishop's Pawn or the King's Pawn, and the consequences of the choice were not too clear.

"And is there an asteroid belt-little planets-between Mars and Jupiter? I mean between the fourth and fifth planets?"

"Yes," mumbled Grew. He was relighting his pipe and thinking feverishy. Schwartz caught that agonized uncertainty and was annoyed at it. To him, now that he was sure of Earth's identity, the chess game was less than a trifle. Questions quivered along the inner surface of his skull, and one slipped out.

"Your book films are real, then? There are other worlds? With people?"

And now Grew looked up from the board, eyes probing uselessly in the darkness. "Are you serious?"

"Are there?"

"By the Galaxy! I believe you really don't know."

Schwartz felt humiliated in his ignorance. "Please-"

"Of course there are worlds. Millions of them! Every star you see has worlds, and most of those you don't see. It's all part of the Empire."

Delicately, inside, Schwartz felt the faint echo of each of Grew's intense words as they sparked directly from mind to mind. Schwartz felt the mental contacts growing stronger with the days. Maybe, soon, he could hear those tiny words in his mind even when the person thinking them wasn't talking.

And now, for the first time, he finally thought of an alternative to insanity. Had he passed through time, somehow? Slept through, perhaps?

He said huskily, "How long since it's all happened, Grew? How long since the time when there was only one planet?"

"What do you mean?" He was suddenly cautious. "Are you a member of the Ancients?"

"Of the what? I'm not a member of anything, but wasn't Earth once the only planet?…Well, wasn't it?"

"The Ancients say so," said Grew grimly, "but who knows? Who really knows? The worlds up there have been existing all history long as far as I know."

"But how long is that?"

"Thousands of years, I suppose. Fifty thousand, a hundred -I can't say."

Thousands of years! Schwartz felt a gurgle in his throat and pressed it down in panic. All that between two steps? A breath, a moment, a flicker of time-and he had jumped thousands of years? He felt himself shrinking back to amnesia. His identification of the Solar System must have been the result of imperfect memories penetrating the mist.

But now Grew was making his next move-he was taking the other's Bishop's Pawn, and it was almost mechanically that Schwartz noted mentally the fact that it was the wrong choice. Move fitted to move now with no conscious effort. His King's Rook swooped forward to take the foremost of the now-doubled White Pawns. White's Knight advanced again to Bishop 3. Schwartz's Bishop moved to Knight 2, freeing itself for action. Grew followed suit my moving his own Bishop to Queen 2.

Schwartz paused before launching the final attack. He said, "Earth is boss, isn't it?"

"Boss of what?"

"Of the Emp-"

But Grew looked up with a roar at which the chessmen quivered. "Listen, you, I'm tired of your questions. Are you a complete fool? Does Earth look as if it's boss of anything?" There was a smooth whir as Grew's wheel chair circled the table. Schwartz felt grasping fingers on his arm.

"Look! Look there!" Grew's voice was a whispered rasp. "You see the horizon? You see it shine?"

"Yes."

"That is Earth-all Earth. Except here and there, where a few patches like this one exist."

"I don't understand."

"Earth 's crust is radioactive. The soil glows, always glowed, will glow forever. Nothing can grow. No one can live-You really didn't know that? Why do you suppose we have the Sixty?"

The paralytic subsided. He circled his chair about the table again. "It's your move."

The Sixty! Again a Mind Touch with an indefinable aura of menace. Schwartz's chess pieces played themselves, while he wondered about it with a tight-pressed heart. His King's Pawn took the opposing Bishop's Pawn. Grew moved his Knight to Queen 4 and Schwartz's Rook side-stepped the attack to Knight 4. Again Grew's Knight attacked, moving to Bishop 3, and Schwartz's Rook avoided the issue again to Knight 5. But now Grew's King's Rook's Pawn advanced one timorous square and Schwartz's Rook slashed forward. It took the Knight's Pawn, checking the enemy King. Grew's King promptly took the Rook, but Schwartz's Queen plugged the hole instantly, moving to Knight 4 and checking. Grew's King scurried to Rook 1, and Schwartz brought up his Knight, placing it on King 4. Grew moved his Queen to King 2 in a strong attempt to mobilize his defenses, and Schwartz countered by marching his Queen forward two squares to Knight 6, so that the fight was now in close quarters. Grew had no choice; he moved his Queen to Knight 2, and the two female majesties were now face to face. Schwartz's Knight pressed home, taking the opposing Knight on Bishop 6, and when the now-attacked White Bishop moved quickly to Bishop 3, the Knight followed to Queen 5. Grew hesitated for slow minutes, then advanced his outflanked Queen up the long diagonal to take Schwartz's Bishop.

Then he paused and drew a relieved breath. His sly opponent had a Rook in danger with a check in the offing and his own Queen ready to wreak havoc. And he was ahead a Rook to a Pawn.

"Your move," he said with satisfaction.

Schwartz said finally, "What-what is the Sixty?"

There was a sharp unfriendliness to Grew's voice. "Why do you ask that? What are you after?"

"Please," humbly. He had little spirit left in him. "I am a man with no harm in me. I don't know who I am or what happened to me. Maybe I'm an amnesia case."

"Very likely," was the contemptuous reply. "Are you escaping from the Sixty? Answer truthfully."

"But I tell you I don't know what the Sixty is!"

It carried conviction. There was a long silence. To Schwartz, Grew's Mind Touch was ominous, but he could not, quite, make out words.

Grew said slowly, "The Sixty is your sixtieth year. Earth supports twenty million people, no more. To live, you must produce. If you cannot produce, you cannot live. Past Sixty-you cannot produce."

"And so…" Schwartz's mouth remained open.

"You're put away. It doesn't hurt."

"You're killed?"

"It's not murder," stiffly. "It must be that way. Other worlds won't take us, and we must make room for the children some way. The older generation must make room for the younger."

"Suppose you don't tell them you're sixty?"

"Why shouldn't you? Life after sixty is no joke…And there's a Census every ten years to catch anyone who is foolish enough to try to live. Besides, they have your age on record."

"Not mine." The words slipped out, Schwartz couldn't stop them. "Besides, I'm only fifty-next birthday."