Meyer gaped for a half second, then burst into laughter himself. "Pardon
my point of view, Mr. Stanton! I guess I _am_ a little slow!"
Mannheim said: "Precisely! Whether the Nipe has courage or patience or any
other human feeling depends on his own abilities and on how much
information he has. A man can perform any action without fear if he knows
that it will not hurt him--or if he does _not_ know that it _will_." He
glanced at the screen. The Nipe had settled down into his "sleeping
position"--unmoving, although his baleful violet eyes were still open.
"Cut that off, Meyer," the colonel said. "There's not much to learn from
the rest of that tape."
"Have you actually managed to build any of the devices he's constructed?"
Stanton asked.
"Some," said Colonel Mannheim. "We have specialists all over the world
studying the tapes. We have the advantage of being able to watch every
step the Nipe makes, and we know the materials he's using to work with.
But, even so, the scientists are baffled by many of them. Can you imagine
the time James Clerk Maxwell would have had trying to build a modern
television set from tapes like this?"
[Illustration]
"I know exactly how he'd feel," Meyer said glumly.
"You can see, then, why we're depending on you," Mannheim told Stanton.
Stanton merely nodded. The knowledge that he was actually a focal point in
human history, that the whole future of the human race depended to a
tremendous extent on him, was a realization that weighed heavily, and, at
the same time, was immensely bracing.
"And now," the colonel said, "I'll turn you over to the psychology
department. They'll be able to give you a great deal more information on
the Nipe than I can."