I mean, when you're a
child, somehow, you don't pay attention. I suddenly realized tonight
that I didn't really _know_ the Incinerator." The Attendant smiled. "We never know anything, do we, really? I'll be
glad to show you around." "Oh, no. Never mind. It--it's a wonderful place." "Yes, it is." The Attendant took pride in it. "One of the finest in the
world, I think." "I--" Lantry felt he must explain further. "I haven't had many
relatives die on me since I was a child. In fact, none. So, you see I
haven't been here for many years." "I see." The Attendant's face seemed to darken somewhat. What've I said now, thought Lantry. What in God's name is wrong? What've I done? If I'm not careful I'll get myself shoved right into
that damnable fire-trap. What's wrong with this fellow's face? He seems
to be giving me more than the usual going over. "You wouldn't be one of the men who've just returned from Mars, would
you?" asked the Attendant. "No. Why do you ask?" "No matter." The Attendant began to walk off. "If you want to know
anything, just ask me." "Just one thing," said Lantry. "What's that?" "This." Lantry dealt him a stunning blow across the neck. He had watched the fire-trap operator with expert eyes. Now, with the
sagging body in his arms, he touched the button that opened the warm
outer lock, placed the body in, heard the music rise, and saw the inner
lock open. The body shot out into the river of fire. The music softened. "Well done, Lantry, well done." *       *       *       *       *

Barely an instant later another Attendant entered the room. Lantry
was caught with an expression of pleased excitement on his face. The
Attendant looked around as if expecting to find someone, then he walked
toward Lantry. "May I help you?" "Just looking," said Lantry. "Rather late at night," said the Attendant. "I couldn't sleep." That was the wrong answer, too. Everybody slept in this world. Nobody
had insomnia. If you did you simply turned on a hypno-ray, and, sixty
seconds later, you were snoring. Oh, he was just _full_ of wrong
answers. First he had made the fatal error of saying he had never been
in the Incinerator before, when he knew damned well that all children
were brought here on tours, every year, from the time they were four,
to instill the idea of the clean fire death and the Incinerator in
their minds. Death was a bright fire, death was warmth and the sun. It
was not a dark, shadowed thing. That was important in their education. And he, pale thoughtless fool, had immediately gabbled out his
ignorance. And another thing, this paleness of his. He looked at his hands and
realized with growing terror that a pale man also was non-existent in
this world. They would suspect his paleness. That was why the first
attendant had asked, "Are you one of those men newly returned from
Mars?" Here, now, this new Attendant was clean and bright as a copper
penny, his cheeks red with health and energy. Lantry hid his pale hands
in his pockets. But he was fully aware of the searching the Attendant
did on his face. "I mean to say," said Lantry. "I didn't _want_ to sleep. I wanted to
think." "Was there a service held here a moment ago?" asked the Attendant,
looking about. "I don't know, I just came in." "I thought I heard the fire lock open and shut." "I don't know," said Lantry. The man pressed a wall button. "Anderson?" A voice replied. "Yes." "Locate Saul for me, will you?" "I'll ring the corridors." A pause. "Can't find him." "Thanks." The Attendant was puzzled. He was beginning to make little
sniffing motions with his nose. "Do you--_smell_ anything?" Lantry sniffed. "No. Why?" "I _smell_ something." Lantry took hold of the knife in his pocket. He waited. "I remember once when I was a kid," said the man. "And we found a cow
lying dead in the field. It had been there two days in the hot sun. That's what this smell is. I wonder what it's from?" "Oh, I know what it is," said Lantry quietly. He held out his hand. "Here." "What?" "Me, of course." "You?" "Dead several hundred years." "You're an odd joker." The Attendant was puzzled. "Very." Lantry took out the knife. "Do you know what this is?" "A knife." "Do you ever use knives on people any more?" "How do you mean?" "I mean--killing them, with knives or guns or poison?" "You _are_ an odd joker!" The man giggled awkwardly. "I'm going to kill you," said Lantry. "Nobody kills anybody," said the man. "Not any more they don't. But they used to, in the old days." "I know they did." "This will be the first murder in three hundred years. I just killed
your friend. I just shoved him into the fire lock." That remark had the desired effect. It numbed the man so completely, it
shocked him so thoroughly with its illogical aspects that Lantry had
time to walk forward. He put the knife against the man's chest. "I'm
going to kill you." "That's silly," said the man, numbly. "People don't do that." "Like this," said Lantry. "You see?" The knife slid into the chest. The man stared at it for a moment. Lantry caught the falling body. III

The Salem flue exploded at six that morning. The great fire chimney
shattered into ten thousand parts and flung itself into the earth and
into the sky and into the houses of the sleeping people. There was fire
and sound, more fire than autumn made burning in the hills. William Lantry was five miles away at the time of the explosion. He
saw the town ignited by the great spreading cremation of it. And he
shook his head and laughed a little bit and clapped his hands smartly
together. Relatively simple. You walked around killing people who didn't believe
in murder, had only heard of it indirectly as some dim gone custom
of the old barbarian races. You walked into the control room of the
Incinerator and said, "How do you work this Incinerator?" and the
control man told you, because everybody told the truth in this world
of the future, nobody lied, there was no reason to lie, there was no
danger to lie _against_. There was only one criminal in the world, and
nobody knew HE existed yet. Oh, it was an incredibly beautiful set-up. The Control Man had told
him just how the Incinerator worked, what pressure gauges controlled
the flood of fire gasses going up the flue, what levers were adjusted
or readjusted. He and Lantry had had quite a talk. It was an easy free
world. People trusted people. A moment later Lantry had shoved a knife
in the Control Man also and set the pressure gauges for an overload
to occur half an hour later, and walked out of the Incinerator halls,
whistling. Now even the sky was palled with the vast black cloud of the explosion. "This is only the first," said Lantry, looking at the sky. "I'll tear
all the others down before they even suspect there's an unethical man
loose in their society. They can't account for a variable like me. I'm beyond their understanding. I'm incomprehensible, impossible,
therefore I do not exist.