So he went back to the machine and Guru and the little excursions to Bixby's...."
"What's the latest word from that star of yours?" asked Leopold, when McIlvaine came in.
"They want to rejuvenate me," said McIlvaine, with a certain shy pleasure.
"What's that?" asked Alexander sourly.
"They say they can make me young again.
Like them up there.
They never die.
They just live so long, and then they rejuvenate, they begin all over.
It's some kind of a process they have."
"And I suppose they're planning to come down and fetch you up there and give you the works, is that it?" asked Alexander.
"Well, no," answered McIlvaine. "Guru says there's no need for that—it can be done through the machine; they can work it like the disintegrators; it puts you back to thirty or twenty or wherever you like."
"Well, I'd like to be twenty-five myself again," admitted Leopold.
"I'll tell you what, Mac," said Alexander.
"You go ahead and try it; then come back and let us know how it works.
If it does, we'll all sit in."
"Better make your will first, though, just in case."
"Oh, I did. This afternoon."
Leopold choked back a snicker.
"Don't take this thing too seriously, Mac.
After all, we're short one of us now.
We'd hate to lose you, too."
McIlvaine was touched.
"Oh, I wouldn't change," he hastened to assure his friends. "I'd just be younger, that's all.
They'll just work on me through the machine, and over-night I'll be rejuvenated."
"That's certainly a little trick that's got it all over monkey glands," conceded Alexander, grinning.
"Those little bugs on that star of yours have made scientific progress, I'd say," said Leopold.
"They're not bugs," said McIlvaine with faint indignation.
"They're people, maybe not just like you and me, but they're people just the same."
He went home that night filled with anticipation.
He had done just what he had promised himself he would do, arranging everything for his rejuvenation.
Guru had been astonished to learn that people on Earth simply died when there was no necessity of doing so; he had made the offer to rejuvenate McIlvaine himself.
McIlvaine sat down to his machine and turned the complex knobs until he was en rapport with his dark star.
He waited for a long time, it seemed, before he knew his contact had been closed. Guru came through.
"Are you ready, McIlvaine?" he asked soundlessly.
"Yes.
All ready," said McIlvaine, trembling with eagerness.
"Don't be alarmed now. It will take several hours," said Guru.
"I'm not alarmed," answered McIlvaine.
And indeed he was not; he was filled with an exhilaration akin to mysticism, and he sat waiting for what he was certain must be the experience above all others in his prosaic existence.
"McIlvaine's disappearance coming so close on Richardson's gave us a beautiful story," said Harrigan.
"The only trouble was, it wasn't new when the Globe got around to it.
We had lost our informant in Richardson; it never occurred to Alexander or Leopold to telephone us or anyone about McIlvaine's unaccountable absence from Bixby's.
Finally, Leopold went over to McIlvaine's house to find out whether the old fellow was sick.
"A young fellow opened up.
"'Where's McIlvaine?' Leopold asked.
"'I'm McIlvaine,' the young fellow answered.
"'Thaddeus McIlvaine,' Leopold explained.
"'That's my name,' was the only answer he got.
"'I mean the Thaddeus McIlvaine who used to play cards with us over at Bixby's,' said Leopold.
"He shook his head.