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hoped that, since death might be so imminent, the drug would work in time to save his life. It did work in time, although by the time it had taken effect he had slipped into semicoma and delirium.
    Three years later, in 1981, he was still in semicoma and delirium, and the Russian doctors had finally diagnosed his case and ceased to be puzzled by it.
    Obviously Smetakovsky had taken some sort of immortality drug-one which they found it impossible to isolate or analyze—and it was keeping him from dying and would no doubt do so indefinitely if not forever.
    But unfortunately it had also made immortal the pneumococci in his body, the bacteria (diplococci pneumoniae) that had caused his pneumonia in the first place and would now continue to maintain it forever. So the doctors, being realists and seeing no reason to burden themselves by giving him custodial care in perpetuity, simply buried him.

DEAD LETTER
    Laverty stepped through the open French windows and crossed the carpet silently until he stood behind the gray-haired man working at the desk. “Hello, Congressman,” he said.
    Congressman Quinn turned his head and then rose shakily as he saw the revolver Laverty was pointing at him. “Laverty,” he said. “Don’t be a fool.”
    Laverty grinned. “I told you I’d do this someday. I’ve waited four years. It’s safe now.”
    “You won’t get away with it, Laverty. I left a letter, a letter to be delivered in case I’m ever killed.”
    Laverty laughed. “You’re lying, Quinn. You couldn’t have written such a letter without incriminating yourself by telling my motive. Why, you wouldn’t want me tried and convicted—because the truth would come out, and it would blacken your name forever.”
    Laverty pulled the trigger six times.
    He went back to his car, drove over a bridge to rid himself of the murder weapon, then home to his apartment and to bed.
    He slept peacefully until his doorbell rang. He slipped on a bathrobe, went to the door and opened it.
    His heart stood still, and stayed that way.
    The man who had rung Laverty’s doorbell had been surprised and shocked, but he had done the right thing. He had stepped over Laverty’s body into the apartment and had used the phone there to call police emergency. And he had waited.
    Now, Laverty having been pronounced dead by the emergency squad, the man was being questioned by a lieutenant of police.
    “Your name?” the lieutenant asked.
    “Babcock. Henry Babcock. I had a letter to deliver to Mr. Laverty. This letter.”
    The lieutenant took it, hesitated a moment, and then opened and unfolded it. “Why, it’s just a blank sheet of paper.”
    “I don’t know about that, Lieutenant. My boss, Congressman Quinn, gave me that letter a long time ago. My orders were to deliver it to Laverty right away if anything unusual ever happened to Congressman Quinn. So when I heard on the radio—”
    “Yes, I know. He was found murdered late this evening. What kind of work did you do for him?”
    “Well, it was secret, but I don’t suppose the secret matters now. I used to take his place for unimportant speeches and meetings he wanted to avoid. You see, Lieutenant, I’m his double.”

RECESSIONAL
    The King my liege lord is a discouraged man.
    We understand and do not blame him, for the war has been long and bitter and there are so pathetically few of us left, yet we wish that it were not so. We sympathize with him for having lost his Queen, and we too all loved her—but since the Queen of the Blacks died with her, her loss does not mean the loss of the war. Yet our King, he who should be a tower of strength, smiles weakly and his words of attempted encouragement to us ring false in our ears because we hear in his voice the undertones of fear and defeat. Yet we love him and we die for him, one by one.
    One by one we die in his defense, here upon this blooded bitter field, churned muddy by the horses of the Knights while they lived; they are dead now, both ours and