  An exact integral expression is found for the amplitude of a Bosonic string
with ends separated by a fixed distance $R$ evolving over a time $T$ between
arbitrary initial and final configurations. It is impossible to make a
covariant subtraction of a covariant quantity which would render the amplitude
non-zero. It is suggested that this fact (and not the tachyon) is responsible
for the lack of a continuum limit of regularized random-surface models with
target-space dimension greater than one. It appears consistent, however, to
remove this quantity by hand. The static potential of Alvarez and Arvis $V(R)$
is recovered from the resulting finite amplitude for $R>R_{c}$. For $R<R_{c}$,
we find $V(R)=-\infty$, instead of the usual tachyonic result. A
rotation-invariant expression is proposed for special cases of the off-shell
disk amplitude. {\it None} of the finite amplitudes discussed are Nambu or
Polyakov functional integrals, except through an unphysical analytic
continuation. We argue that the Liouville field does not decouple in off-shell
amplitudes, even when the space-time dimension is twenty-six.
