If there was a flaw in Eternity, it involved women. He had known the flaw for what it was from almost his first entrance in to Eternity, but he felt it personally only that day he had first met Noys. From that moment it had been an easy path to this one, in which he stood false to his oath as an Eternal and to everything in which he had believed.



For what?



For Noys.



And he was not ashamed. It was that which really rocked him. He was not ashamed. He felt no guilt for the crescendo of crimes he had committed, to which the latest addition of the unethical use of confidential Life-Plotting could only rank as a pecadillo.



He would do worse than his worst if he had to.



For the first time the specific and express thought came to him. And though he pushed it away in horror, he knew that, having once come, it would return.



The thought was simply this: That he would ruin Eternity, if he had to.



The worst of it was that he knew he had the power to do it.