you have any bombs?"
"Throw a bomb! You with the beard! Throw a bomb!"
"Let 'em have it!"
"Toss a few A Bombs!"
* * * * *
They began to laugh. He smiled. He put his hands to his hips. Theysuddenly turned silent, seeing that he was going to speak.
"I'm sorry," he said simply. "I don't have any bombs. You're mistaken."
There was a flurry of murmuring.
"I have a gun," he went on. "A very good one. Made by science even moreadvanced than your own. But I'm not going to use that, either."
They were puzzled.
"Why not?" someone called. At the edge of the group an older woman waswatching. He felt a sudden shock. He had seen her before. Where?
He remembered. The day at the library. As he had turned the corner hehad seen her. She had noticed him and been astounded. At the time, hedid not understand why.
Conger grinned. So he _would_ escape death, the man who right now wasvoluntarily accepting it. They were laughing, laughing at a man who hada gun but didn't use it. But by a strange twist of science he wouldappear again, a few months later, after his bones had been buried underthe floor of a jail.
And so, in a fashion, he would escape death. He would die, but then,after a period of months, he would live again, briefly, for anafternoon.
An afternoon. Yet long enough for them to see him, to understand that hewas still alive. To know that somehow he had returned to life.
And then, finally, he would appear once more, after two hundred yearshad passed. Two centuries later.
He would be born again, born, as a matter of fact, in a small tradingvillage on Mars. He would grow up, learning to hunt and trade--
A police car came on the edge of the field and stopped. The peopleretreated a little. Conger raised his hands.
"I have an odd paradox for you," he said. "Those who take lives willlose their own. Those who kill, will die. But he who gives his own lifeaway will live again!"
They laughed, faintly, nervously. The police were coming out, walkingtoward him. He smiled. He had said everything he intended to say. It wasa good little paradox he had coined. They would puzzle over it, rememberit.
Smiling, Conger awaited a death foreordained.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _If Worlds of Science Fiction_ September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
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