it may; I care not if presently the sun come nearer, and the water dry
up, and the days grow longer and longer, till the day and the year
become of the same length. I care not; my people, such as be left of
them, shall own what there is, and shall live as long as life is
possible.

I shall leave behind no race of weaklings. Every man shall be fit to
live, and the fittest of them all shall live the longer. And he, no
matter how many cycles hence, shall look back to Strokor, and to Ave,
his wife, and shall say:

"I am what I am, the last man on the world, because Strokor was the
fittest man of his time!"

Aye; my fame shall live as long as there be life. Tonight, as I speak
these things into the word machine, my heart is singing with the joy of
it all. Thank Jon, I were born a man, not a woman!

Tomorrow I go to fetch Ave. I shall not send for her; I cannot trust her
beauty to the hands of my crew. The more I think of her, the more I see
that mine whole life hath been devised for this one moment. I see that,
insignificant though she be, Ave is a needed link in the chain. I have
come to want her more than food; I am become a lovesick fool!

Aye! I can afford to poke fun at myself. I can afford anything in this
world; for I be its greatest man.

Its greatest man! Here is the place to stop. There is no more I can say,
the story is done; the story of Strokor, the greatest man in the whole
world!