VIII

The involuntary start that shook the pine cone from his hand freed

Phil's nostrils of the anaesthetic. Rapidly clearing eyes watched the

cone fall near his feet and roll a few inches. A hawk that had been

wheeling in the sky at the edge of his vision was still wheeling. Only

seconds had elapsed, but this time there remained a clear recall of all

that had transpired in those few seconds of lost time--seconds in which

he had lived another's memories as though they were his own.

Reluctantly, impelled more by fascination than intent, he raised his

head and faced his companion. The compassionate eyes that met his did

hold certain childlike qualities of freedom from suspicion or hardness,

but the gaze was not that of a simple child, nor was the bearing.

Incongruity sparked a scarcely-controllable impulse to hysterical

laughter. A small boy seated on a log, regarding his elder with gentle

kindliness and understanding! Phil made a sound deep in his throat and

swung his head away, afraid he was going to be sick. "Timmy" made no

move. The silence endured, as it had to endure until one reaction or

another prevailed. Gradually Phil worked to a conclusion.

"You call it a 'blunder,'" Phil said thickly. "You made a freak of an

unborn baby for your own ends, and you call it a blunder. Anyone else

might be content with a little innocent butchery, but not you ... you

take over children, body and soul!"

"No."

"What we've been calling Timmy is a secondhand suit of clothes for

_you_! And you claim you're not a monster!"

"Nor am I."

Phil struggled for violent words to match his feelings, then sighed

heavily. "No," he agreed, despite himself. "You are not. I know that.

Maybe you've controlled me just as you tricked me into entering your

mind and living your memories but, sickened as I am, I still can't help

believing you more implicitly than I've ever believed anyone. Nor do I

see any reason to."

[Illustration]

"You've never known anyone as surely as you know me, now that our minds

have been in phase. Emotional reactions stemming from a dozen hidden

causes may mislead you, but at the back of your mind you _know_ me."

"And you know--me."

"I know only what I need to know about you. Your private memories are

your own and will always remain so unless you invite me to share them."

"Yet you opened all yours to me?"

"Far from it. At this point it would give you too much to digest all at

once. The major part of my concentration was required to maintain mental

contact without any help from you, and to blanket the interference set

up by the analytical part of your ego through its fixed, deep-rooted

conviction equating the individual with mental isolation. Faced with

absolute proof to the contrary, your analytical mind still tries to

insist that what it has always believed to be true must still be true,

otherwise everything is suspect and, therefore, anti-survival. In other

words, on a survival level your mind tries to reject free telepathy

as it would reject any other upsetting of the basic tenets of your

existence. That and the disharmony existing in your mind is a large part

of the 'protecting' aura of discordance that seals you off from me.

The memories I shared with you I selected and edited for expediency.

Unfortunately, your physical reaction to a startling thought caused you

to break away before you had the full truth and left you with a false

impression."

"Either the memories you fed me were truth, or they were lies. Which

is it?"

"The data was true, but your interpretation of it is false because you

are still in a state of shock, still fighting for survival on a moronic

level. What do you take me to be?"

"You name it. By your own admission, at best 'you' are a false

personality forcibly impressed on a helpless mind that never had a ghost

of a chance. In effect, you are a parasite living on a host, the

reincarnation of an ego that should be eleven years dead."

"Not eleven years dead--only eight."

"What difference does ... _eight_?"

"Eight years dead."

Prickles crawled over Phil's scalp and his mind raced. A series of

memories snapped into place.

"Eight. And I laughed at Clancey!"

"I know--I heard. You were getting too close for comfort so I distracted

you by giving you a headache."

"Stop--let me get my breath!" His voice rose until it threatened to

crack. What am I talking to! A _dog_?"

"Yes."

"_Homer_? I don't believe it!"

"Watch." The boy slipped from the log and sat beside it on the ground,

his back braced. "Timmy would simply fall on his face," he explained,

and with the words the face became empty and the mouth hung foolishly

open. Control had been relinquished. The corner of Phil's eye caught

an answering movement that his senses wanted to reject, but he turned.

Homer had raised his head painfully and was looking directly at him,

unmistakable intelligence in the exhaustion-glazed eyes. The fringed

lips curled back, the throat worked. Strange sounds were forced out,

growling but not doglike.

"Ar-ro ... ar-rik." It was a barely recognizable distortion of

"Hello-Warwick." "Ok-all ... orr ... ron." Vocal-cords-wrong?

"Im ... ork." Tim-talk?

The gray-muzzled head sank back wearily. A scuffling sound drew Phil's

dazed eyes and he turned back in time to see Tim sit up again briskly,

ignoring the old dog.

* * * * *

"I hate that mangled speech, don't you, Uncle Phil? I'll still call you

that, if you don't mind. You're still as much my uncle as you ever were,

and I'm the only Tim you've known." He watched Phil anxiously. "Knocks

the wind out of you, doesn't it? But ordinary speech is painfully

limited to begin with, without trying to force it from poor old Homer."

He chattered on nervously, giving Phil time to collect himself. "You

see, Timmy is as mindless now as when he was born, three years before

'my' ship crashed in the swamp over there. Look back through your

newspaper files and you'll find a brief mention of a mysterious

explosion reported during a night of heavy rain. That was us." He wet

his lips, watching the silent white face. "Look, I had nothing at all to

do with Timmy being born an imbecile. He's like a car that functions

well enough if a driver takes over the physical controls that Timmy is

incapable of handling for himself. Lacking a driver, the controls and

the car stand idle. It is only the body that I manipulate, not the

dormant, disconnected mind. For myself, although I can't help

identifying myself emotionally and subjectively as the Challon,

Objective reason assures me that I am Homer, with a complete but false

set of memories and an artificially stimulated intelligence.

"As the Challon, I realized that the embryo Homer was of low actual

intelligence, but high potential intelligence. The dangerous peculiarity

of this planet is that several of the higher species have no known or

recognized function for the most important portion of their brain. It

lies fallow, unused, blocked off much as Timmy's whole mind is blocked

off from his service. In eight years I have done no more than form the

mere skeleton of a theory to account for that, but the means of

correction was obvious from the start. Like the appendix that floats

free at one end and serves no known purpose, the brain has an incomplete

neural path of an unusual nature that has effectively camouflaged its

true purpose. The intended function of the connection was the energizing

of that prime center which you have not yet discovered and without which

you differ from Timmy only in degree, for you cannot realize more than a

fragment of your incredible potential.

"The same condition exists among the higher mammals. Releasing Homer's

blocked potential placed at his service the intellectual capacity of a

very clever human--according to your false standards--but not of a human

genius. If I had not imposed my ego on him ... you see, I cannot help

thinking of myself as the Challon, although I know I am Homer ... if

I had not robbed Homer of his identity and self-will, of his right

to possess and control himself, he would have developed personality,

characteristics and aptitudes of his own, appropriate to a canine of

high intelligence. As it is, there are false memories of aptitudes Homer

never had nor could have. Physical limitations alone make some of them

impossible. How could a dog tinker with machinery, for example? Yet I

'remember' working on machines of my own design. Homer's mind, in other

words, remembers as first-person data experiences it never had.

"In actual fact, 'I' who speak to you now am no more than the record

contained in a book. In terms of personality, Homer is the hidden

structure giving strength and substance to a false facade. 'I' am the

false facade, faithfully copied from another structure. 'I' am a

superimposure of ephemeral data, governing its own employment by a mind

that has been restricted from developing its own data. The 'I' that

speaks to you has no real existence, though its pattern is being subtly

and continuously altered by that which it cloaks. If you put a drop of

intense stain and a drop of powerful scent into a large tank of

distilled water, you change the superficial character of the water, make

it seem to be other than what it is. But it remains essentially a tank

full of water, now containing an obtrusive trifle of alien matter in

addition to the hydrogen and oxygen that decide its most significant

properties. That is what the Challon did to Homer--he released the

potential, then accidentally but indelibly stained it with his own

personality.

"To me, now, it merely _seems_ as though I first suffered death and then

an unwelcome resurrection, awakening in despair to find myself usurping

the helpless body of an almost new-born animal. Nothing physical or

spiritual of the Challon survived, but the embryo mind had been fed a

ready-made identity and so believed that it had already existed as a

Challon before re-birth as a dog. Its brain received instantly all 'my'

training, so that it became at once 'mature.' What I have endured in

these eight years--the isolation of mind and inadequacy of body--have

been a blunderer's reward visited upon his victim as a further injury.

Now that Homer lies near death--and 'I' with him, of course--I welcome

'our' approaching release from an unhappy situation.

* * * * *

"Wait--let me finish. Your main concern is what will happen to Timmy

when 'we' die, but it will be simpler to understand if I explain as much

as I can first. Finding myself to be a rational mind in the helpless,

immature body of an animal, I thought I was isolated forever. In

choosing the embryo to begin with, I was driven by the need for haste

and had not understood the limitations of a canine in a human world, nor

would I have had any alternative if I had fully understood. When it was

too late, it was not difficult to predict my future. I had no means of

communicating with the dominant species, Man. In time, if I survived

the hazards a puppy is exposed to, I could reveal my unusual

intelligence--could even learn to communicate in some hopelessly labored

manner. By using my store of inherited knowledge I could, if anyone

would take a dog seriously, advance your science. But I could do nothing

toward my main goals without exposing myself as an imitation Challon,

and that I must never do lest I loose terrible consequences.

"I knew that the life span of my new body was pitifully short. The

female had suffered repeated convulsions that affected the formation of

the embryos and we were an ugly litter of little mongrels, doomed by our

physical imperfections to a shorter-than-normal life if we were allowed

to live and exposed to early drowning if we could not quickly charm

ourselves into a home.

"The remainder of the litter--my brothers and sisters, if I could think

of them as such--were callously placed in a weighted sack and tossed

in the swamp, but by that time I had found a home. The Douglas home.

Their child, Timmy, was an imbecile whose short-circuited mind lay

open to me. I found by hasty experiments that Homer's mind was capable

of controlling and manipulating the imbecile, like a puppeteer. The

difficulties of controlling two bodies at once are tremendous, which is

why Homer always struck you as clumsy and almost half-witted--he had to

receive the absolute minimum of concentration so that his exhaustion at

climbing the bluff this afternoon, for example, was not recognized in

time. Well, there it is. I took over Timmy's helpless body eight years

ago--too abruptly and with many errors--but it insured my survival for

a short time at least. Now that time is at an end and the greater part

of what I must do is still to be done--"

* * * * *

Phil sat with his face averted, his hands clenched between his knees.

"The instinct to survive," he said in a muffled voice. "I can't blame

you for what you did, but it was cruel! What a damnable trick to play

on the parents!"

"Believe me, I know what you feel but there was no other way."

"No other!" He swung around, his face mottled and his breathing heavy.

"Whatever you are, you made a Machiavellian puppet-master out of a

lousy, flea-bitten mongrel! Was it beyond _those_ powers to heal Timmy's

mind?"

"I am not a psychopathic criminal."

"Do you imply that healing Timmy would involve repeating the swindle you

worked on Homer?"

"No. I could have by-passed the simple neural block that was leaving

Timmy helpless, and so have given him what to you would have seemed his

normal intelligence. In addition, I could have completed the work that

nature left incomplete in all of you, and so have released his full,

enormous capabilities. I could have done all this--can still do it--and

still leave Timmy's ego untouched, to develop in its own way, among its

own kind, knowing nothing of me for what I am."

"But you haven't done so. Why? Why!"

"I dared not."

"Danger? From a small boy?"

"Deadly danger--danger of infection that might threaten every

intelligent race in the galaxy and even spread across the great gulfs of

space beyond--"

"All this from poor little Timmy?"

"From what he might thereby become."

"I'm licked." Phil threw out his hands angrily. "I try to get a straight

answer and all I get is implications. You tell me an outrageous story,

and I believe you. You tell me you've neatly arranged to break the

hearts of two of my best friends, and I respect your good intentions in

doing so. Why? I love you like a brother, but I'm ready to take a rock

and crush your skull in for a monster. I mean it! I could kill Homer

with a single kick! I could--"

"I know, and I'm afraid of that hysterical impulse. I know the nature of

the struggle going on in your mind better than you do, but only you can

fight for control. I must wait for the outcome. When you have control of

yourself--"

"You're so bloody sane and smug you with your secondhand suit and

hand-me-down knowledge!" He jumped up in a fury and turned his back on

Timmy, addressing himself directly to Homer whose patient, pain-filled

eyes held undeniable understanding. "Look at you! The telepathic genius

with personal immortality--at a price only you could stomach! Too bad

you got caught short and had to live in a cur! Tough, isn't it, having

to wait for a mere moron to get control of himself! _You_ know all the

answers--why don't _you_ control the situation?"

"Because the hand-me-down knowledge is no longer backed by the mental

capacity of a Challon."

Phil stiffened as Tim's answering voice sounded behind him, quiet and

friendly. Against his will, he turned back to the boy and seated himself

again on the log. The boy's eyes caught and held his.

"The morality and outlook of the Challon are my morality and outlook,

whether I wish it so or not." Tim might have been making a pleasantly

inconsequential remark about the weather for all the importance he

seemed to attach to his statement, yet his eyes held the strained,

tight-lipped face. "The insight and understanding bequeathed by the

Challon are sufficient to keep Homer's mind sane under long stress,

and of course--"

His soothing voice went on and on, and presently his lungs expelled

a soft breath of relief as Phil relaxed a trifle, still breathing

raggedly. Alert eyes watched him mop his damp forehead but the quiet

words flowed in an unhurried stream, soothing, distracting, keeping the

thread intact. At last the crises seemed behind them. "... So I can only

wait for you to absorb the emotional impact of what I've told you. I had

planned to prepare you, to break it gently if I could, but ... you

understand?" The voice paused, then repeated gently and insistently,

"You understand, don't you?"

"Uh ... yes. Homer--"

* * * * *

"He can't last much longer, and so of course I can't. I've landed one

kick after another right smack in your emotional solar plexus and you're

trying to catch your wind." Tim's hand casually struck a match for the

cigarette Phil had put unlit in his mouth and the man leaned forward

automatically, puffed, and automatically muttered a word of thanks. The

quiet voice went on, taking an even more casual note. "What with trying

to examine the implications of everything at once, you've stirred up a

fine old Irish stew of fears, resentments and envies, all of them trying

to reconcile the certain knowledge that I can be trusted and the

essentially neurotic fear that I'm playing you for an almighty sucker.

"Remember, it has been even harder for me to reconcile myself to you

human beings than it can possibly be for you to accept the existence

of the Challon. The concept of telepathy is not a completely new or

alien one to you, but the concept of a nontelepathic civilization was

dismissed by the Challon ages ago as a simple contradiction of terms,

a self-evident absurdity such as lifting oneself by one's bootstraps.

"It seemed so obvious that a civilized society could not develop without

the capacity for intelligent coöperation, and intelligent coöperation of

any real complexity was impossible without adequate communication. What

means of communication could adequately replace the direct linking of

mind and mind? Failing any answers short of fantasy, the proposition

always remained a sort of classroom joke with us. In fact, several

classic satires exist on the subject and one of the least

successful--because it seemed too ridiculous--suggested an elaborately

coded system of vocalizing. We have a very elementary spoken language

and a more complex code of inscriptions for essential records, but

neither the written nor the spoken system could possibly be called an

adequate means of communication.

"I realize now that one of the satires was not the rather frightening

effort that it seemed to be, but a brilliant scientific prediction of

the probable development and history of a race of highly intelligent

nontelepaths. The composer of the epic pointed out that where the

culture and character of the Challon neither permitted nor desired

concealment of any sort, a race that lacked adequate communication would

have no choice but to live as disharmonious groups of strangers, never

truly knowing either their fellows or themselves. He postulated what

you now call traumatic experiences which, unrecognized and, therefore,

untreated, would fester in secrecy from childhood onward until they

manifested as compulsive drives or inhibitive complexes. He invented

deranged emotions which you describe as 'guilt' and 'shame' and he

showed how they would cause buried memories to erupt in changed form,

lead to cankerous misunderstandings, cause unhealthy repressions, and

foster frustrations.

* * * * *

"But his master-stroke--and this was pure genius, for it was almost

inconceivable--was when he traced the development of his 'nontelepathic

civilization' to the point where he predicted criminals, criminal and

moral codes of unbelievable complexity, and a great multitude of harmful

and illogical taboos, local customs, and regional superstitions.

It was a superb achievement of creative imagination and scientific

deduction--but not even its creator thought it was more than an exercise

in fantasy and perhaps not in the best of taste. The basic assumption

was simply too absurd for serious consideration."

"Yeah. I guess we were as indigestible to you as you are to me. Maybe

I'm getting over it. Sorry ... uh ... Homer."

"Call me Tim. I don't think of myself as Homer and my Challon

identification is a mental-verbal linkage. Even 'Challon' is a

compromise simplification."

"I guess it would be. Those cracks I made--"

"Forget them. To what you call the hag-ridden moron jittering out of

sight in your mind, so many things equate to a threat to survival.

And so many survival reactions outlast their usefulness, becoming

essentially antisocial and antisurvival. For a telepathic race there

are no false fronts or motives or impulses. In a nontelepathic society,

nothing but false faces are ever seen."

"It's beginning to get home to me ... what about that night near the

swamp?"

"My poor Challonari. The shockwave of 'my' death left it alert but

bewildered. It could not recognize nontelepathic intelligences and tried

to turn them aside like the first one. Their deaths are on my head--or

on the organic dust that eight years ago was a Challon. The Challonari

was confused by the contradictions of my present identity, subtly

altered as it has been by Homer's channeling mind, and went insane when

faced with a basic conflict of duties. It was like ... losing a simple

child."

"So we return to Timmy."

"And to you."

"Me? I'm going downhill fast. Let's have it before I hit rock-bottom and

_really_ get around to reacting. And let's have a few straight answers.

You could have by-passed the first block that makes Timmy an idiot.

O. K., why didn't you?"

"I would have lost control of him at once, of course. For one thing, as

an ordinary child his mind would be closed to me just as yours is and I

would be a voiceless animal with no protector, my existence likely to

end at the bottom of a river in a weighted sack."

"No dice. Remember, I know you too well to believe you'd place your own

interests first, much as I hate to admit it."

"As Homer I might, survival being a basic drive. As the Challon-Homer,

however, I needed a better reason than simple self-preservation. I have

that better reason. It lies in you, in Timmy, and in all your kind.

Perhaps you'll see the connection when I tell you that although the

Challon are the most intelligent race yet known to exist, Homo sapiens

is _at present_ not far behind them. Only more efficient communication

and the great strides that it makes possible has advanced the Challon

culture and science so disproportionately far beyond your own."

* * * * *

"So the Challon are a bit brighter and a lot more advanced than we are.

O. K., they seem like a good bunch ... or are they? Come to think of it,

I saw them from your viewpoint which was predisposed to favor them."

Another thought struck him and he fell silent for a moment. "You say we

are almost their equal _at present_. What happens--if this inhibited

potential you speak of--is released--if Man is made whole?"

[Illustration]

The answer came quietly.

"You would have no equal in the known universe."

Phil's face grew thoughtful, sober, while the Challon-Homer watched

through Tim's eyes the progress of a calculated gamble.

"Would the Challon--resent--our becoming superior?"

"For the same reason that the present Challon superiority is not

resented by races of lower intelligence, they would not themselves

resent the appearance of intellects far greater than their own."

"I have a feeling there's a lot more in that answer than meets the eye.

Can you estimate to what extent we would surpass the Challon?"

"If my Challon memory serves me, they had no knowledge of any

mind-structure of a capacity remotely approaching that of Man. It is

a maze, incredibly complex, with far-reaching resources I can only

guess at. The Challon part of my mind has the profoundest admiration

for a superb mechanism it can only dimly comprehend, but beneath the

Challon"--the voice dropped almost to a whisper--"beneath the Challon is

the dog, and the dog sees his god." The power of that factor he had not

considered.

Phil laughed uneasily, both shocked and repelled.

"I hope you're joking. We sound like the sweet-smelling Flower of

Creation! When a dog reaches the level you ... um ... Homer has, it

becomes Man's equal, not his pet."

"Until Man's advance thrusts the dog back to an even lower relative

position, as it inevitably must when ... if ... Man comes into his own.

I told you I dared not leave myself isolated and speechless by clearing

the simple short-circuit immobilizing Timmy. Now you see why I dared not

go even farther and release--untrained _and with no hope of adequate

training_--the true Homo superior, the transcendent man."

"That's like turning a tiger loose in a kindergarten! Give a man a

really high-powered intellect and for all his shortcomings--"

"The intellect is nothing. The data, the circumstances, the influences,

the environment that shape the intellect, _these_ are what count. Your

theorists say that although Man may some day create wonderful mechanical

brains with a creative capacity almost equal to Man's own, you can never

create a brain that is your superior. That is true, and the reasoning is

obvious. In a more limited sense, your body repairs itself daily but it

cannot improve on itself, it cannot spontaneously develop functions it

never had--_it cannot even repair severe damage without outside help_.

The same applies to the mind. A sick mind cannot achieve the objectivity

needed to repair itself, if the damage is too great. No, the intellect

is nothing until it learns. What would Timmy have learned, and from

whom? Take a minute to think of _all_ the connotations." Phil thought of

some of them, uneasily. "Assume that from the start his status as Homo

superior was recognized ... is that a fair assumption?"

"It ... ah ... would sooner or later become apparent."

"After how much damage had been done that could not be undone, since

Homo sapiens cannot ever be competent to guide and train Homo superior?"

"Well ... what about what he could learn from your Challon mind?"

* * * * *

"I would have no voice and no assurance that telepathy would be

possible. No influence that I could exert on him at any time could hold

him, if other factors impelled him to break free. A few months ago I

recalled a formula known to the Challon and with nothing more than

household chemicals prepared the quick and harmless anaesthetic I used

with you. What brought it to mind was a side-reaction reported as a

curiosity in one of the scientific journals Jerr ... Dad subscribes to.

It had an unexpected side-reaction for me, too, making direct telepathic

contact possible with you, but only under difficult and limited

conditions."

"There's a fortune in that alone--"

"That was an unworthy thought, Phil, typical of insecurity. I dare not

turn loose an immature, untrained, Homo superior, the only one of his

kind."

"But why the only one? Why not others as well so that they could work

in unison?"

"Don't you understand yet? _You are not sane!_ This planet is a

hell-house of disordered personalities, a place of horror, a

plague-spot. Suppose I had retained Timmy as my voice and planned on

releasing the inhibited potential of many people. I would have to start

with one man _and that one man would at once become my master_! If he

wished, he could be the master of all the earth. Could I risk that?"

"We have men of good moral character--"

"By what standards acceptable to all? A good churchman, perhaps, whose

first thought would be to bring everyone into the saving grace of his

religion? Or an atheist, who would take care that no rascally churchman

got the upper hand? Can you think of any man who does not have strong

opinions on at least one subject? Who does not have one thing that he

is a little bit more afraid of than anything else? One man who could

be raised to power first and not insist on at least one positive or

negative qualification for all who were permitted to follow? Something

they must either be or not be? Yourself, for example.

"Would you suggest that a Russian be chosen first? Or a Frenchman or an

Englishman? Or am I wrong in thinking you would 'naturally' want one of

your own countrymen to be chosen, purely as a precaution? But which one

of your countrymen? Among all your acquaintances, is there even one whom

you would trust not to react emotionally on at least one count, thus

automatically rendering him unfit to play god? Bearing in mind that the

first human being to find his full potential placed at his command will

be a titan with the power to prevent any peer being raised to oppose

him, would you feel safe with the choice of anyone except--yourself?"

"Are we that bad?"

"At birth, no, but from birth onward you are exposed to infection and

you sicken to a greater or lesser degree depending on the concentration

of infection around you. Let me answer you this way. Suppose the

spaceship were found and examined, what would happen? Among other tools

there is a prospecting instrument on board that is a rough approximation

of a disintegration beam--it punches neat holes in solid rock by a

process that leaves an exceedingly heavy dust behind--for a short while.

Then something happens to the molecular bonds of the heavy dust, and the

little holes become very big holes. Its principles would take you some

years to work out, but its manufacture and operation are fairly obvious.

What would be the fate of that very useful tool?"

"I can't deny that its possibilities as a weapon would be seized upon,

but with such a weapon--"

"Ah, yes--no one would dare to go to war. At any rate, not with the

country possessing the weapon."

"It could stop all war."

"If your part of the world threatened the other part of the world and

put a halo around the 'or else'. What would the other part of the world

do when the first news of the spaceship leaked out, as it would do

immediately?"

"O. K.--I guess you know as well as I do."

* * * * *

"I'm not trying to ride you, Phil, but I want you to see that Fear

and a desire for the security you can never know in your present

state dominate almost every important act. As a people, a race, a

species, you are unsane. What am I to do? To die in peace, leaving you

as you are, without hope or help, is against every Challon instinct.

To leave unrealized the human potential with its tremendous promise

is unthinkable. Your race might destroy itself before your secret is

rediscovered millennia from now, and the greatest wonder of creation

be lost forever. Even the spaceship which I have failed to destroy

with its innocent secrets, could destroy you simply by being found.

What am I to do?"

"I ... think you already have an answer."

"Yes, with your consent and only with your consent."

"You have it."

"You don't know--"

"You have it, I said. I trust you."

"Man puts his faith in Dog? Well, it will not be for the first time.

Remember us, Man, when you come into your own. Now--I must invade your

mind, without reserve. You understand? Nothing known to you will be

unknown to me. Are you willing?"

"Another of those Mickey Finns?"

"Yes, it is the only way. I will plant certain inflexible prohibitions

which will forever destroy your self-will in regard to certain courses

of action--they will be ones which you might at some time feel to be

wise, but which I know to be ultimately destructive. In return, I can

give you a measure of sanity greater than you have known. You will lose

your hags, but you will never be entirely your own master again. You

will follow the course I have planned for you for the rest of your life.

It is the best I can do with my limited ability, and I cannot guarantee

that I am doing what is right."

"And Timmy?"

"I have already seeded in his memory banks--a careful and painstaking

job this time!--all the memories and knowledge appropriate to the boy

his parents think him to have been, plus other information which will

become available to him at the right time. Every day for eight years I

gave him the memories for that day, planning for the time when I could

pay my debt by releasing him."

"You take eight years that were otherwise useless to him and give him

the rest of his life for his own. Fair enough."

"No, his life is not his own. It belongs to his whole race. Your work

will be to supervise his training until the time is ripe, and then

to awaken the dormant memories that will tell him what has happened

between us."

"How do I do that?"

"Think of it as long-term posthypnotic suggestion. It is one of the

least complicated matters to arrange. A simple, spoken phrase that you

will not remember until the right moment will be sufficient to trigger

the memory release. We must hurry now. Homer's breathing--can you hear

it? His lungs have almost failed. After I enter your mind, my last act

will be to release the simple block that makes Timmy an imbecile ...

he will awaken and not know that he has slept all his life until this

moment when he becomes in actuality an ordinary, quite intelligent boy.

He will not grieve unduly for Homer, and I who have two bodies and am at

home in neither of them will be a record that will finally be erased.

Are you ready?"

* * * * *

"No--wait. I must know what all this is leading to!"

"We have so little time! Well, then, it is leading to broken hearts, to

hatred, and to injustice. Perhaps to martyrdom, perhaps to glory. If my

plans fail, your lot will be public anathema as a fool or a murderer,

for I will prohibit you from ever clearing yourself by speaking the

truth about it."

"Who would believe it!"

"Enough would become curious. A little research along the right lines

and you would prematurely learn your own secret. Then a race of mad

demigods would be loosed through the void, an all-conquering scourge

instead of a blessing. I would sooner have your whole race die with your

very existence unsuspected, than have you live in infamy, the unchecked

tyrants of the stars. Not even the Challon could stand against you,

nor could they coerce a single one of you whose whole potential had been

released."

"Then what hope--"

"Timmy's newly-awakened mind will be completely sane. The aids I have

given it may keep it sufficiently sane for the next few years, despite

infection on all sides. In those years you will watch over him and

accumulate the funds that will be needed. That will not be difficult.

You must buy the lands surrounding the spaceship and build a laboratory

where you will conduct some dangerous experiments, thus explaining the

need for an isolated location. The laboratory is only a blind. The ship

must be freed from the swamp and repaired in some minor respects, then

an 'accidental explosion' one night will destroy the buildings to cover

the take-off. Timmy will be presumed killed in the explosion. His

parents will grieve, the public may blame you, and you will sink into

obscurity. You may live long enough to learn whether Timmy ever

succeeded in reaching Challon in a spaceship not designed for his race.

My memories and implanted commands will constantly guide and instruct

him--"

"How ... how old must he be?"

"As young as possible. As soon as all is ready. Tomorrow, if that were

possible."

"A child!"

"For at least a little while he will be more than the equal of a 'good'

man. Child, or youth, or man, I will free him from fear and loneliness

on the long voyage. If he reaches Challon, they will understand and

perhaps not think I have blundered too badly. They will heal him, study

him, free him. Then it will be his problem to free his race. If you are

very lucky, you may still be alive at that time."

"And if he never reaches--"

"You will never know. Are you ready?"

Phil looked desperately at the setting sun and the long, long shadows,

as though he were a doomed man awaiting execution.

"Get on with it," he said huskily.

* * * * *

Very little happened. There was a small lapse of time during which

an observer would have seen certain lines of tension vanish almost

magically from the man's face--might even have thought that some

years seemed to drop from his age. Presently the man roused himself,

stretching with the careless vigor of a youth as he experienced a serene

peace of mind that he had not known since he was very young indeed. He

glanced casually at the boy seated near him--a boy who looked at the

world with an air of fleeting puzzlement--then dropped on his knees and

cradled an ugly, grizzled head in his arms. A last flicker enlivened the

eyes and a dry tongue touched his hand just once.

That was all.