In
the end, it got a bit tedious, queuing to see the millionaire. As
befitted our colour, marshals waved us through the outer gates into the
court of preliminary investigation; but here we waited for some hours
with perhaps a thousand others until, eventually, there were checks on
the authenticity of our displays; and then more serious enquiries into
records. In eight of our group a deficiency was revealed. Our number
fell to twelve.
After that it was the whole day
progressing along an upward-spiralling ramp, rehearsing answers to
hypothetical questions, eyeing each other until we reached the first
level platform and presented ourselves.
"You have been informed," said the evaluator, "that only one qualifies here. I decide who".
Tests continued throughout the night; but I experienced no difficulty
in producing correct responses. As the sun rose, the other eleven of my
group were on the downward ramp, while I rejoined the slow onward
climb.
It was not easy to avoid contact with those around
me, who - also sole survivors of their groups - attempted to find out
in disingenuous conversation what level of competition they now faced.
I feigned an auditory defect and gave short, bizarre, answers. I was
soon left to myself.
The second level was reached, once
again, some time towards evening. Here the questioning was more
indeterminate, designed to pick up motivational anomalies, signs of
ambivalence.
But my preparations were adequate. The
reasons for wishing to observe the millionaire were seen to reflect an
inherent temporal sense, developed to a keen historical perspective. My
experience would have novelty.
And so I rose to the third
and final level. The thousands which had presented themselves at the
outer gate had been winnowed down to some twenty - the maximum
permitted at any one time - being those most likely to pass on
something of value. It was possible, indeed, that we might be the last.
The existence of the millionaire was after all a statistical
improbability, and one which grew steadily more improbable as the years
passed.
We passed through various final security screens; but, again, my
preparations proved faultless. A chain of locks took us up a gentle
pressure gradient and into a hall where the millionaire īs chamber hung
suspended in an intricate maze of conduits. We began the last stage of
the journey: a spiral ramp leading to the viewing platform. I made
myself ready.
Looking down at the
millionaire in its envelope of support machinery, I found it difficult
to believe that such a misshapen, pallid being was of any cosmic
significance. Yet its race had at one time dominated our space, not
through force, but through the irresistible spread of its freely-shared
technologies and cultures.
And now, here was the last of
them. The natural ageing of the species had at some point deprived it
of fertility; but its biology had been engineered to give each
individual effective immortality.
Yet, in the end, they
could not defeat the grindstone of time. Accident, conflict, the
wear-and-tear of existence had whittled the numbers down: from
trillions to billions, and then to millions; from millions to
thousands, hundreds, tens; and at last to one, who, according to the
records, was over a million years old. The millionaire.
My
moment had come. Reciting the codes, I focused energies on the being
below, and watched as the radiance flowed from its body, turning the
liquids in the surrounding tubes to vapour, the metals and synthetics
to liquid. Attendants reached out for me; but it was over. The light
below ended as suddenly as it had come, leaving only black dust.
So died the last of the human beings. A thousand civilisations,
smothered in infancy by human benevolence, had been avenged. 
