Design For Doomsday

With infinite caution, Venard disclosed the memory-crystal, taking it with a kind of dignified stealth from beneath the rags that had once been a shirt. Dreamily he studied the small, delicate translucence of the sphere. He had managed to retain that from the pawing Marties' greedy scanners. Looking back into Venard's eyes from the shifting beauty of the sphere, the three-dimensional, almost frighteningly life-like figure of Vale who had once loved Venard, preened and sighed provocatively. The figure moved, danced in lithe grace through shifting clouds. A strange, heart-aching vision of reality and dream.