* * * * *
"Come in, Sethos. What can I do for you?"
Sethos looked around the room anxiously.
"I want to make a request, Mr. First, if it isn't too late."
"Too late?"
"I would like to see Hol before he leaves. Is he still here?"
"Perhaps I can arrange it. His time is budgeted, you understand."
"I _must_ see him."
Mr. First was silent for a moment, and Sethos realized he was contacting
someone. Then, he announced, "Yes, he's willing to see you. Go through
this door. His compartment is the second down the corridor."
Sethos thanked him and hurried out. Finding the door, he hesitated an
instant, then went in.
"Good morning," said Hol.
There was a second man standing beside him, dressed in the same manner
and of the same stature as Hol.
"I had to see you," Sethos began hastily, not expecting to encounter two
men.
"I see. This is Bek, a field observer. He was at your party last night."
Sethos remembered the stranger he had taken for a spying apprentice on
the hillside. He felt embarrassed, but brushed it aside.
"I ... want you to take me with you."
Hol looked at his companion.
"I don't fit here," Sethos went on. "Mr. Third himself said I'm more
intelligent than the others--I'm the only one who knows what your visit
means. I want to go where people are interested in learning and
progress. If I stay here I'll have to fool around with a hobby the rest
of my life. There's no work, no expansion. You can see why I have to
leave, can't you? I'm the _curious_ type."
"You don't know what you're asking."
"Why? Can't you take me with you? What harm would it do?"
"Well, there are rules."
"But--I'm not just anybody. I'm an exception to the rule. I qualify as a
genius--you mean there isn't a place for me _somewhere_ in the universe?
Surely you can use a smart man!"
"You are a genius, that's true," said Bek, in a deep, serious voice. "As
long as you remain here. Hundreds of centuries ago, your ancestors
discovered principles that are not even expressible in your language,
and learned to apply them to matter. Soon they knew no boundaries. The
earth was not forgotten, but it was no longer important. It still is
only a statistic. And we are here to examine it briefly. We have many
others to visit.
"You see, Sethos, man changed out in space. He is a long way from your
ancestors who started all this. But before those ancient men left, they
established Earth as a control planet, to maintain forever a specimen of
the original stock. It may have been done out of his egocentric ideas at
the time, but it proved wise, for such a specimen is valuable in our
research."
"Sethos," said Hol, seeing the bewilderment on the young man's face,
"the mechanoids who attend your little community are more than one
hundred thousand years old. That is how long your little culture has
been faithfully preserved, just as it was then. You would not be capable
of living elsewhere in the universe now. You could survive, perhaps,
bright as you are, for a century or so, and then die, unhappy,
maladjusted, never finding another of your own level. You are, after
all, a savage."
Sethos was dazed.
He--an atavism, a prehistoric man! No wonder his people behaved as they
did--they were merely a docile herd of caged animals, kept complacent
and well-fed by the keepers outside. An extinct beast, left to be tended
until the earth reached the end of its course as a flaming speck in the
infinite cavern of space!
"You--you _must_ take me! I couldn't stand it now. How can I go back,
knowing we're just a miserable experiment? Please--I'll go crazy!"
"Even now you exhibit one of your primitive traits--pride of being a
man. But you will adjust to life. It is as it should be."
"But--"
"I'm sorry. There's nothing we can do."
"No, wait--I...."
The two men were gone.
Sethos stared. He was alone in the room. A constriction grew in his
throat, and he felt weak. Indeed, man had changed.
"Sethos?"
Mr. First stood in the door.
"Yes...."
Now the pattern was clear. Sethos--the curious man, the genius--was
doomed. He had lost a battle in which he never had a chance. Still, he
had fought.
But walking down the corridor with the mechanoid, he knew that no one
lost completely. He knew that Sethos, the human, the adjusted hobbyist,
would soon look back on this night as though it were an ordinary phase
of life.
Then, on the table, with the gently humming mechanism lowered to his
head, the knot in his throat softened.
"All yours," said Mr. First to Mr. Third.
"A remarkable case," said Mr. Third. "Sometimes I wish we kept a record
of his kind. It might be very interesting."
"Someday, perhaps. When our work grows dull."