THE ALIEN WAY

Copyright © 1965 by Gordon R. Dickson

e-book ver. 1.0

CHAPTER ONE

. .. Turning in his sleep, Jason Barchar rolled over so that the weight
of his head was upon the right side of his skull, under which the
receiver had been implanted. The area was still tender, even two months
after the operation, so that he rolled a little further, until he was
almost on his stomach, and went back to dreaming about the bears.

He was dreaming that he was again out on the hillside in the Canadian
Rockies, where he had actually been six years before. He was lying very
still in the spring sunlight, with the wide-angle binoculars at his
eyes, looking down into a small natural meadow with only a few birch and
spruce scattered through it. The stiff, broken stalks of winter-killed
grass among the new growth pricked his wrists where his leather jacket
had pulled back to expose the skin, and his elbows were sore from
contact with the rock under the damp surface skin of earth, but he paid
no attention. Below there were about two- dozen of the bears, and the
spring fury of mating and battles was on them. The brown and black cubs
were mostly already up in the trees, and the females were hanging back.
But just below him, in the weedy lists of a little open arena, two males
stalked each other, up on hind legs, necks arched snakelike and heads
thrust forward in rage.

They were lost in their rages. They did not see him up on the hillside,
or the females hanging back, or the cubs in the trees, and they did not
care. There was nothing left for either of them but the other bear
facing him. They were almost formal and completely honest, in their
advancings and their shuffling retreats. Jase's heart beat with theirs.
It was what had made him a naturalist-which like all important work was
a way of thinking, not just the application of a lot of book knowledge
as people thought-and thinking that did not understand things like this
spring fighting of the bears.

They thought the urge to fight, the fighting and the winning or losing,
was a simple matter of automatic instinct and easy reflex. But it was
not so. There was custom to it, and a complex of experience operating on
the part of each combatant. There was desire, and decision, and courage
required from each bear. There was hope and fear, and the need to tell a
bluff from a true threat. There were many factors entering into each
situation in the meadow, each combat-and no two combats were ever alike.

So Jase dreamed that he watched and learned from the bears. While the
hum of the insects in his dream blended with the hum of the
air-conditioner in his bedroom window, and in the window of his living
room beyond. The whole dark, brickwalled apartment in the stifling,
rainy June night was a cool cave of isolation set off from the
unsleeping, night-time streets of Washington, D.C., outside, where the
cabs rolled all night long over the glistening asphalt, past the traffic
signals and the neon signs of restaurants.

In the sleeping apartment, nothing moved. The air-conditioners hummed.
The bedroom was shadowy. The distant light of a street lamp glowed
faintly through the drawn blinds and touched the opposite wall beyond
the bed with two ghostly faint rectangles of light. They seemed on the
verge of merging, so uncertain they were, and pale.

Jase's clothes lay lumped on the chair by the bed. The carpet beneath
the chair was a plane of darkness, reaching toward the open doorway and
through it into the larger space of the living room. There the walls
were lit by three more ghosts of windows. The light showed bookshelves
and a glass case crammed full of the study skins of small animal
specimens, carefully sewn, preserved with borax, and tagged. The number
of them piled in the case made them look like a horde of prisoners. Pent
by the invisible glass walls as the bears were pent by invisible
instinct and desire. On the bookshelves, filling the walls of the room
from floor to ceiling, the faint light through the blinds barely showed
some of the titles: P. Chapin, Preparation of Bird Skins for Study; H.
Hediger, Wildgere in Gefangenschaft; K. P. Schmidt, Corollary and
Commentary for Climate and Evolution, magazine pages extracted and
bound; W. K. Gregory, Evolution Emerging ....

On the desk full of papers the still-uncashed last paycheck made out to
Jason S. Barchar by the newly formed Wildlife Studies Section of the
U.S. Department of the Interior lay shadowy and still. It was a
half-paycheck, since Jase had been on sabbatical leave the last two
months. Under the check was a birthday card two weeks old on which was
scribbled, "With no apologies whatever to A. A. Milne-Hippy Pappy
Bithunday, love, Mele."

Isolated, dark, the apartment slumbered-all but the receiver, the ,tiny
microdevice implanted under Jase's skull, with its hair-thin wire
reaching into certain areas of his brain. Unsleeping, unisolated, the
receiver reached outward through a tight, invisible channel of collapsed
space to a cold, dark fragment of earth, manufacture, so far distant
that it was just being touched just now by the same sunlight that had
shone on those condemned in the Salem Witch Trials in 1692.

Close now, approaching-though he did not know it-that fragment in a
vessel no larger than a thirty-five-foot motor launch on earth, came
another dreamer. A dreamer who had never breathed spring mountain air,
or the damp air of a Washington night, or any earthly air. Neither
stuffed and preserved study specimen nor human book nor neon restaurant
card could have spoken to him intelligibly. No birthday card would have
made sense to him, no signed check supported him, no brown bears' battle
stirred him inwardly.

Still-he dreamed also. He sat with his hands on a sloping table covered
with studs and switches. His hands, like his body, were covered with
black fur. But his flesh was warm. A vital fluid, driven by a heart-like
pumping organ, flowed through veins in his body, refreshed by oxygen
from an atmosphere that Jase also could have breathed.

His mind moved on its own desires. He felt heat, and cold, desires, and
fear, and the necessity of making decisions. There was courage in him,
and hope.

And now, approaching the fragment he did not know was there, as Jase
slumbered back in the humming stillness of his Washington apartment, the
other dreamer dreamed. A dream of a white palace with many levels below
ground but only three above in the light of a star he had not yet found.
And on the topmost level, the mothers of his sons, and his sons-straight
and strong and honorable and dreaming as he did then.

But it was a waking dream he dreamed. And it was the dream of Founding a
Kingdom.

CHAPTER TWO

Therefore it happened that before the sleeper woke, Kator Secondcousin,
cruising in the neighborhood of a Cepheid variable down on his charts as
47391L, but which the sleeper would have called Ursae Minoris or
Polaris, the Pole Star, suddenly found himself smiled upon by the Random
Factor that all seek.

Immediately, for although he was merely a Second-cousin, it was of the
family of Brutogas, he grasped the opportunity that offered itself and
locked the controls. Before him shone his chance of Founding his
Kingdom. Therefore he planned carefully and swiftly. He fastened a
tractor beam on the drifting artifact presented by the Random Factor. It
was a beautiful artifact, even in its fragmentary condition, fully five
times as large as the two-man scout in which he and Aton Maternaluncle,
of the family Ochadi, had been making a routine sampling sweep of debris
from the galactic drift.

Kator locked it exactly in the center of his viewing screen and leaned
back in his pilot's chair. A polished bulkhead on the left of the screen
threw back his own image, and he twisted the stiff, catlike whiskers of
his round face thoughtfully and with satisfaction as he reviewed the
situation with all sensible speed.

The situation could hardly have been more convenient. Aton Maternaluncle
was not even a connection by marriage with the family Brutogas. It was
true that he, like the Brutogasi, was of the Hook persuasion,
politically, rather than Rod. But on the other side of the summing up,
the odds against the appearance of such a Random Factor as this to two
individuals on scientific survey were astronomical.

It cancelled out Ordinary Duties and Conventions automatically. Aton
Maternaluncle-had he been merely an observer outside the situation
rather than the other half of the scout crew-would certainly have
approved of Kator's attempt to integrate the Random Factor positively
with Kator's own life pattern. "Besides," thought Kator, watching his
own reflection in the bulkhead and stroking his whiskers, "I am young,
and my best years of life are before me."

He got up from the pilot's chair, loosened a connection in the body of
the internal ship's recorder, and extended the three-inch claws on his
stubby fingers. He went back to the sleeping quarters behind the pilot
room. On a larger ship the door to it would never have been unlocked.
But on a small ship like this the scouts must endure their work without
benefit of a Keysman. Aton was sleeping on the lower bunk, his back
turned.

Skillfully, Kator drove his claws into the spinal cord at the base of
Aton's round, black-furred skull. Aton sighed and lay silent. He had
felt nothing, Kator was certain. The stroke had been swift and sure.
Kator pulled the heavy body from the bunk, carried it tenderly to the
airlock, and released it into the wastes of outer space. He returned to
the recorder, tightened the loose connection, and recorded the fact that
Aton had attacked him without warning in a fit of insanity, knocking the
recorder out of commission in his attack. Finding Kator alert and
resisting, the insane Aton had then leaped into the airlock and
committed suicide by discharging himself into the airlessness of the
void.

It was true, thought Kator, gratefully, reflecting on his ancestry as he
finished recording the account While others think, I act! had been the
motto of the original Brutogas. Kator stroked his whiskers in
thankfulness to his forefathers.

He suited up in his spaceclothes. A little over hall an hour later in
the time-equivalents of Kator's people, who called themselves the Rural,
Kator had a close-line magnetically fastened to the explosion-ruined
hull of the artifact and was hand-over-hand hauling his spacesuited body
along the line toward the hull. He reached it without difficulty and set
about exploring his find by the headlight of his spacesuit.

It had evidently belonged to a people very much like Kator's own kind.
The doors were the right size, the sitting devices Kator could have sat
in comfortably. Unfortunately, most of the original material of this
obviously space-going vessel had been blasted away by an explosion of
the collapse field that had destroyed it. This was important, highly
important, for the type of faster-than-light drive system used by
Kator's people also utilized a collapsed universe theory, and contained
a field such as this one, which in exploding had left rainbow-colored
streakings on the ruined walls of the artifact.

Of course, nearly everything not bolted down aboard the artifact had
been expelled outward and lost into space as a result of the explosion.
. . . No, discovered Kator-not everything. He discovered a sort of hand
carrying case with a semicircular handle wedged between the legs of one
of the sitting devices. Kator unwedged it and took it back to the scout
with him.

After making the routine safety tests on it, Kator got it open. The find
within was magnificent. Several items of what appeared to be something
like cloth-shaped like a one-piece, continuously solid, thin,
all-covering body harness set-if you could imagine such a thing. There
was no provision on it for fastening either honors or weapons.
Nevertheless, there were honors present, in various shapes and sizes of
metal in the box, mostly ring-shaped and of a size to fit perhaps
fingers or arms. And what was evidently a writing utensil of soft red
wax with a sharpened point and a screw device to project it from its
case.

Enclosed in a clear wrapping material of plastic properties and
artificial construction were two oddly shaped containers, which perhaps
were foot protectors. Soil still adhered to the bottom of them, and
Kator's breath paused in his lungs as he discovered it. He detached the
earth, carried it to a microscope to examine it minutely.

The Random Factor had not failed. Amid the crumbling soil he discovered
and separated out the tiny dried form, the body of a dead organic
creature. -

A dirtworm it was, almost indistinguishable from the primitive form of
the dirtworms at home.

Kator lifted it carefully from the dirt with a specimen clamp and sealed
it into a small cube of transparent preservative material. This, he told
himself, slipping it into his harness pouch, was his. There was plenty
of material in the rest of the artifact for the examiners to work on
back home, to discover the location of the race that had built the
artifact. This small form, the earnest of his future Kingdom, he would
keep close by him. And if the Random Factor continued to associate with
the situation, there could be a use for it ...

Kator logged his position and the direction of drift the artifact had
been taking when he had first sighted it. He headed himself and the
artifact in tow toward Homeworld, and lay down himself on Aton's bunk
for a well-earned rest.

As he drifted off to sleep, he began remembering some of the sweeps he
and Aton had made together in the scout ship before this, and regret was
like a hollow pain within him until the shades of slumber came to soften
it.

They had never been related, it was true, even by the marriage of the
most distant connections., But Kator had grown to have a deep friendship
for the older Ruml, and Kator was not the sort who made acquaintances
easily.

Only, he thought, drowning sorrowfully in the well of sleep, when a
Kingdom beckons, what can you do?

CHAPTER THREE

The sleeper woke and found himself weeping. For a moment he lay without
moving, face buried in the pillow he clutched under the maple headboard
of the bed in the shadowy room. He could think only of the fact that
Aton was dead, that he had killed him.

Then, gradually, the undeviating, comforting hum of the air-conditioner
began to intrude upon the memory of Aton. The softness of the strange
thing that was a pillow next to his face, the yielding, flat surface
that was the bed beneath his horizontal body, began to make themselves
known as things he recognized as belonging to a place where there was no
empty space, no artifact, and no Founding of Kingdoms. Remembrance of
another life woke in the back of the, sleeper's brain and flooded once
more through his consciousness. Wiping his face on the thin white sheet
that covered him, the sleeper sat up in bed.

He was in his own bedroom. On the nightstand beside him the yellow,
luminous figures and hands of his alarm clock glowed in a circle of
obscurity that was the clock's face. It was one-twenty-three in the
morning. He reached out, fumbling for the black shape of the phone on
the bedstand, behind the clock. His sleep-clumsy fingers knocked the
receiver from its cradle before they closed on it. But he got it to his
ear, pulled the cradle forward into the dim light from the windows, and
dialed Mele's number. It rang, and rang again ...

"Hello--" It was her voice, sleep-fogged, suddenly answering.

"Mele ..." he said, and his voice seemed to have trouble getting out of
his throat. "It's me. Jason. I'm through. I connected just now, while I
was sleeping."

"Jase-" She seemed to be waking up to the information at the other end,
fumbling for a moment. Her voice came suddenly, stronger. "Jase? Are you
all right, Jase?"

"Yes." He wiped his face with a shaking hand clumsily and breathed
deeply. It was ridiculous to feel like this, under the circumstances.
But he did.

"Your voice sounds strange. Jase, are you sure you're all right?"

"Yes," he said. "It's just something that happened at the other end.
That's all."

"What?"

"I'll tell you later." He was getting control of himself now. Even to
his own ears his voice sounded more in control, stronger and more
sensible. Businesslike. "I'll get dressed right away and come down to
the Foundation. You'll phone the Board?"

"Right away .... You sound better now."

"I feel better," he said. "I'll get dressed and packed now. Ill be
leaving in about fifteen or twenty minutes. I'll take a cab. Want me to
pick you up on the way?"

"Do that." Her voice came back. It was a bright, warm voice now that it
was waking up, and he loved it very much. 'I'll call the Board people
now and phone you back as soon as I have. 'Bye, sweetheart."

"Good-bye ... sweetheart," he answered and heard the phone click down at
her end of the line. He hung up himself and got out of bed. Standing in
the lower half of his pyjamas in the dark room, feeling the furriness of
the rug underfoot and the wind of the air-conditioner chilling his
perspiration-damp chest, he came all the way awake.

He palmed the switch on his bedside table that turned on the lights of
the room. The sudden, yellow brightness of them made the disordered bed,
the familiar walls seem to jump out at him harsh and unnatural. He shook
his head to get rid of the last of the feeling of being in the mind of
Kator Second-cousin-but did not succeed. Taking fresh shorts and T-shirt
from the dresser drawer, he walked through the door to the bathroom,
opposite the door to the sitting room, which still lay dark.

He showered, and the hot water revived him. He began-and he was awake
enough now to smile at the thought-to feel human again. He left the
shower, lathered, and began shaving automatically. He was beginning to
forget he was anything but a normal, earthbound zoologist in his
twenties.

But as he rinsed off the lather, the shock returned. And with it the
fear he had been pretending was not there. He lifted his face dripping
from the water in the bowl and confronted it suddenly in the dark depths
of the mirror with the fluorescent bulbs on either side of the mirror
harshly lighting it. --And for a second he did not know it.

It was not merely strange to him. It was alien as the face of some
unknown animal.

It was a lean face, he saw, and dark. It was narrow-boned and long. The
bones were slight for a body his height, and the skin was brown from the
constantly being outdoors that was part of. his work as a zoologist and
naturalist. His black hair, disordered now, curled down on a high
forehead from which it was already beginning to retreat slightly. Below
that forehead his eyebrows were black as jet and straight across as the
bar of a gate.

Below these again, his eye sockets were deep, so that his brown eyes
were shadowed normally. Women-not Mele-had told him on occasion that he
had beautiful eyes. The term had always jarred on him. It sounded as if
they were saying that his eyes gave him a look of softness. Now, in the
pitiless light of the fluorescents, there was nothing beautiful about
the eyes he saw. Their color was hard-like brown, weathered granite-but
he remembered the literal jet blackness of eyes reflected from a
polished metal bulkhead.

He turned sharply away from his image, walked swiftly back into the
bedroom, and began dressing. When he was dressed, he pulled the gaudy
plaid shape of a pullman bag from under his bed and began packing. As he
did, the phone rang.

He picked it up before its first ring was finished. "Hello."

"Jase?" asked Mele's voice.

"Yes," he said. "I'm dressed and just getting packed now. I'll get a cab
and be at your place in twenty minutes anyway. . . . Wait upstairs,
though. If there's any delay, I want to be able to get you on the
phone."

"You can call me if I'm in the lobby. The night clerk's always at the
desk there. Just ask him to call me to his phone."

"Oh, yes." He rubbed the fingertips of his right hand across his
forehead. "Of course. I wasn't thinking. You called the Board?"

"Yes. They'll all be there but Wanek. He's on the west coast. --Jase?"
she said. "How do you feel now?"

"Fine," he said. He made himself smile into the phone. "Just fine."

"All right. I'll be waiting for you."

"All right. Good-bye."

"'Bye."

She hung up. He called a cab, was told one would be at the front of his
apartment house in five minutes, and finished packing his bag.

When he got downstairs and stepped out through the front door of his
apartment, die cab-a yellow skimmer-was already waiting at the foot of
old-fashioned granite steps. The air was still muggy with dampness and
heat, but the street and sidewalks were drying back to their normal
dullness. He maneuvered the pullman bag into the rear seat with him.

"Four-twelve North Frontage Road," he said.

"Right," said the driver. The cab whined more loudly and pulled away
from the curb. They whined down the night-time street. From the back
seat Jase could see hair in need of a haircut curling out from under the
cap the driver wore, and he felt a moment's distaste, as at the sight of
some uncared-for and messy animal. He looked away, out the open window
of the cab and watched the lights of Washington sliding by, instead.

When they stopped at last before the wide, twin glass doors through
which he could see the lobby of the resident hotel where Mele lived, he
could see her standing inside. She was wearing a light blue summer dress
that fitted closely on her tall, slim figure with its brown, hair. She
had white gloves on her hands, and her gloved fingers held a slim purse
of a lighter blue than the dress. She did not wait for him to get out of
the cab and come in to get her but came directly out at the sight of the
cab.

He opened the door for her, looking up at her. And she stepped down and
in to settle on the seat beside him. A faint scent of cologne-which he
did not find distasteful but strange-entered the cab with her. She sat
straight, her back barely touching the seat, and her eyes looked
comfortingly into his.

"Twelfth and Independence Avenue," he told the driver, without turning
to look at him. Mele kissed him. Her lips felt cool and strange, as the
smell of cologne had seemed strange to him.

The cab pulled away from the curb once more. She moved over to sit close
to him, slipped an arm through his, and held his right hand with the
hand of the arm she had slipped through his. They sat close together
without talking. He felt strangely like a man who has been ill for a
long time and is now recovered, but who continues to feel the habits of
his sickness clinging to him. The memory of being Kator
Secondcousin-from the moment when Kator picked up the earthworm body
that infected him with the virus-sized mechanisms making contact between
him and Jase possible-stayed wrapped around Jase like a sheet. Like a
sheet of plastic, transparent, but through which all the world with
which he was familiar seemed blurred and distorted.

Mele was not only his observer in this experiment; she was the woman he
intended to many. She loved him. But now, feeling her beside him,
touching, close as she was, she was made somehow removed and strange.

And there was nothing he could do about it. From here the experiment
plunged into an unknown area. And there was no going back.

CHAPTER FOUR

They stopped before the wide steps and heavy bronze doors of the
granite-fronted building that was the headquarters of the Foundation for
the Association of Learned and Professional Societies. Jase paid off the
cab, took his bag, and with Mele mounted the steps and rang the bell.
The night janitor, Walt, let them in.

"They're all here already," Walt told them. 'They're in the Library,
waiting for you."

Jase and Mele went down the wide, green-carpeted hall, past the foot of
the curving stairs with their wide polished balustrade of dark and on
down a narrowed hallway to the point where" it turned to the right. They
turned and passed the first closed door to their left and entered the
second. They stepped into a lighted room, walled in by bookshelves
reaching to the ceiling and equipped with tracked ladders, one on each
side of the room.

In straight chairs that looked out of place near the over-stuffed
furniture elsewhere around the room, the eight members of the Board sat
about a polished table at the far end of the room. Beyond them the tall
green drapes had been drawn across the high windows looking out on the
walled garden of the Foundation.

Jase and Mele went forward and took seats at the table.

"Here you are," said Thomybright.

Jase looked around at them. He was coming out of it, he thought. Here,
in this familiar room where the whole thing had been planned and decided
on, the business with Kator was taking on proper perspective. The eight
men he looked at-none younger than their mid-thirties, and at least one,
Wilder, as old as the mid-sixties-had all the look of men who have
climbed hastily out of bed in the middle of the night. Their hair stuck
out over the ears. Most of them needed a shave, and not all had their
ties straight or shirt buttons buttoned.

They were all good men, top men in the sciences. Jase knew them all.
James Mohn had taught him biology at Wisconsin as a sophomore-for a
moment the sharply pitched streets and wooded campus at Madison rose in
Jase's mind's eye, and then vanished. William Heller had aided him in
getting his present position with the Department of the Interior. And so
forth. But only two of the eight were important at this moment. One was
Joe Dystra, and the other was Tim Thomybright. In his early fifties,
heavy-bodied and powerful, Dystra dominated the table just by sitting at
it. Across from him, the slim, forty-year-old, half-bald Thomybright
looked frail and unimportant.

But this was an illusion. Tim was hard as tool steel. As Secretary of
the Board, he headed up most of its decisions: He and Joe Dystra
complemented each other. Like everybody else in the room-with the
exception of Mele, who was Librarian here at the Foundation-Tim and Joe
were scientists. But both bulged outside their fields, which was
psychology for Tim and physics for Joe. Tim had a flair for politics,
Joe a literal genius for business and organization. And they were both
drivers.

"You're still in contact, Jase?" Dystra asked now, the hard fat of his
face looking bunchy from lingering lines of sleep. Jase nodded.

"I still feel . . . different," he said. Thornybright held up his hand.

"I'm going to turn on the recorder," the thin psychologist said. "The
sooner we get started the better."

He put his hand on the square, polished wood mount rising slightly from
the table top in front of his chair, and everybody in the room heard the
click as it was turned on.

"All right," said Thornybright, "this recording is being made on the
third of June at-" He glanced at his watch. "Two-oh-eight A.M. It is the
forty-sixth meeting of the Board for Independent Foundation Action, of
the Foundation for the Association of Learned and Professional
Societies. Present are Lester Wye, Joseph Dystra, William Heller ..." he
ran on to list everyone about the table.

"... Miss Mele Worman, Foundation Librarian and Observer for our Subject
connected with Bait Thirteen, Jason Lee Barchar," he wound up. "The
reasons behind the action of the Foundation in allowing members to
volunteer for the founding of this Board and this project are a matter
of record. However, now that we've come to a point of decision, I think
it'd be wise to recap." He glanced about the table. "Accordingly, I move
that a rough outline of events leading us to this moment should be
dictated to the recorder now by the Secretary, before this meeting
proceeds any further."

He paused.

"Second," said Dystra.

"All in favor?" Thornybright looked around the table and a chorus of
ayes responded from all but Mele, who had no vote.

"Motion carried unanimously," said Thomybright. He reached into the
inside pocket of 'his snorts coat and took out several sheets of typed
paper, which he unfolded. He began to read from them.

"This Board," he read, in a brisk, dry voice, "was founded a year ago by
volunteer members of the Foundation to invite other volunteers to join
in an independent effort financed by the Foundation to protect our world
of earth against possible contact and destruction by one or more
inimical alien races originating elsewhere in our galaxy. The basis for
fearing such contact is to be found in the Report on the Likelihood of
Alien Contact, issued five years ago after nearly ten years' work by
members of this Foundation and its constituent societies and
organizations. This report, made at Foundation expense and published for
public information, was compiled for the purpose of awakening the
Government of the United States and all other concerned governments of
this planet to a situation brought about by the construction of vessels
capable of reaching the neighboring star systems at speeds in excess of
the speed of light -utilizing the Collapsed Universe Theories of Joseph
Dystra, a member of the Foundation and of this Board."

Thomybright paused and cleared a slight hoarseness from his voice with a
dry rattle of his throat.

"These vessels," he went on, "were put into service and have been in
service for nearly a dozen years now, in spite of strong warnings by
this Foundation. The Foundation, it may be repeated at this point, was
originally founded twenty-three years ago to coordinate the opinion of
those in all countries of the world engaged in pure scientific research
and development The purpose behind its founding was to bring to public,
and particularly governmental, attention the fact that almost since the
beginning of the twentieth century, technological development has been
using up the reservoirs of pure, basic or disinterested research and the
search for knowledge, faster than these reservoirs have been refilled."

"He paused to clear his throat once more.

The reason for this situation, the Foundation has been pointing out for
the twenty-three years since its founding, lies in the fact that
economic competition and public interest have made available large sums
of money for the application of scientifically trained people and
scientific facilities to immediate technologically profitable problems.
So that, while the public standard of technological living has been
growing apace, the world fund of new knowledge out of which this
technological advance was made possible has been dwindling."

He paused and turned to the second sheet of those in his hands.

"The recommendation of this Foundation," he read on, "from the first has
been that the governments of this world counter this situation by making
available a large fund and organization which can compete in facilities
and salaries offered with private industry. So that those qualified to
engage in pure research may be enabled to do so. In the past
twenty-three years the Foundation has implemented this point of view
with no less than six major reports, fully documenting the steadily
worsening situation and setting forth those measures which must be taken
to repair it. In spite of this--"

Thornybright broke off and reached under the table for a glass of water.
He sipped at it, put it back, cleared his throat, and continued to read.

"In spite of this, and in spite of the fact there has been a great deal
of public and even governmental support for such action in all of the
major governments of the world, no such funds and organization have been
provided."

Dystra grunted, grimly. Thornybright glanced at him and then went on.

"With the putting into use of the Collapsed Field Theory Drive and the
penetration of space vessels of human origin beyond the immediate star
systems within a fifty-light-year radius from our Sun, the situation, in
the opinion of this Foundation, has become critical. As the Report on
the Likelihood of Alien Contact stated three years ago, such contact has
become-in the light of present scientific knowledge-a statistical
certainty within ten years from the publication of that Report. Also, as
the Report states, we must face such contact while possessing a
scientifically unbalanced civilization, far overdeveloped in the
technology which provides creature comforts for our own people. And a
civilization which is woefully inadequate in knowledge and science which
would equip us for contact, understanding, coexistence, or conflict with
another, intelligent space-going, and technological race. A race such as
our Report of three years ago estimates we must encounter within a
decade of space exploration such as was then, and is still, going on."

The lean psychologist paused to change sheets of paper again. Jase
glanced to look at Mele, seated at his right, to see how she was
reacting to this rehash of what they all knew. But her profile was as
calm as the profile of the statue of an Egyptian princess of four
thousand years ago. Jase looked back at Thornybright. Inside Jase these
old facts were echoing now with a new effect. He felt chilled and
lonely.

"Accordingly," Thornybright was reading, "this Board was set up to
direct a project in which the Foundation would independently finance and
put into space apparent sections of destroyed earth-constructed
space-going vessels. And these sections were to be sent into yet
unexplored areas of surrounding interstellar space where contact with
other intelligent technological space-going races was considered to be a
high probability. These sections, referred to as Baits, were sent out
equipped with a recent discovery by an independent researchist financed
by the Foundation. This discovery, utilizing the Collapsed Universe
Theory together with recent developments in interpreting, transmitting,
receiving, and associating the electrical activities that accompany
activity of the brain, whether human or belonging to a postulated
intelligent alien, would be embodied in virus-sized mechanisms. These
mechanisms would seek out the circulatory system of any alien contacting
them, travel by means of that circulatory system to his brain, and set
up a transmission link, embodying no time-loss, between this alien and a
volunteer subject responsible to this Board."

He changed sheets of paper for the last time.

"These subjects, Foundation members and members of this Project who have
volunteered and been chosen from among the volunteers as being those
best suited for the duty, have been twelve in number. This- morning, for
the first time, one of them, Jason Lee Barchar, has reported making an
alien contact."

He broke off and turned to Jase.

"He will now describe that contact as fully as possible in this moment,
although a more extensive report will be made by him later at a more
convenient time. -Jase?"

Jase leaned forward with his elbows on the table and began to talk. He
began with the moment a few seconds after Kator had taken off his
spacesuit and handled the dead earthworm he had brought back to his own
scout ship. He confined himself only to Kator's actions after that,
keeping to himself all the strange half-understood emotions and desires
that had also reached him at the time of the murder of Aton
Maternaluncle and afterward as Kator was falling asleep.

His conscience chewed at him for this holding back. But he told himself
that what he did not tell now could go in his more extensive written
report later. Right at the moment he was too exhausted, he was too hard
hit by the contact with the alien mind of Kator, to judge what else he
had felt or had not felt and understood.

"That's the story?" said Dystra finally when he had finished. The eyes
sunk in the fleshy face across the table from him, were penetrating in
their glance.

"That's all that happened," said Jase.

"All right," said Dystra. He had slumped down in his chair, listening.
Now he straightened up and looked across the table to Thornybright,
beyond Mele on Jase's right. "Now we vote on whether to turn this whole
project over to the U.S. government or whether we want to wait a little
longer. --Jase, you aren't voting on this one, unless you have to break
a tie. All right, I move the vote."

"Second," said Heller, thinly, down the table. His bony face smiled at
Jase.

They voted. For waiting were Dystra, Heller, Mohn, and the single
physician on the board, Dr. Alan Creel. For informing the government and
turning over all information and equipment now were Thornybright and the
three remaining board members.

"I think," said Thornybright, precisely, after the vote was taken,
"anyone with any doubts about holding off ought to reconsider. After
all, we've gone as far as private citizens can be expected to go."

"On the other hand," Dystra, "the work of a great many good men and the
cost of a great deal of expensive equipment is tied up in something
that's working for us now. We've turned things over to the authorities
before, only to watch them fumble it and mess it all down the drain
because one branch of the government won't play ball with another
branch." He looked around the table. "Once we turn it over, we can't
take it back. And what we set out to do isn't done. I say, wait until we
can be sure the work will be carried on right, before we turn it over.
If we've contacted the Rural, they've also contacted us. They can
examine our Bait and learn a lot. --How about it? Anyone want to change
their vote?"

He looked around the table again. No one there spoke or moved.

"All right," he nodded at Thornybright. Thorny-bright turned to Jase.

"All right, Jase," he echoed, "it's up to you. Which way do you want to
break the tie?"

Hang on to the project ourselves," said Jase.

He saw them all watching him. He had spoken quickly, so quickly that
Thornybright had hardly had time to finish the question.

"You forget," he said. "Our original idea was that the earthworm
infected with transmitting mechanisms would be passed from hand to hand,
so that we'd have a number of contacts, not just one. So far my contact
has kept it to himself, and his partner is dead. Let's hang on at least
until Kator gets home for it and we have a number of contacts with Ruml
minds."

Thornybright looked around for a final time at the Board members.

"That argument make any of you want to change your vote?" he asked.

Again, nobody moved.

"Nor does it make me want to change mine," said Thornybright. "I still
believe that now contact has been made matters belong in the hands of
the authorities. Anyhow, Jase's vote has decided the question. According
to previous arrangements, Jase will now move here into the Foundation
building, where he can be kept under constant observation and guard by
one of the Board members, and a constant record of information received
from his alien contact can be maintained. --Do I hear a motion to close
this meeting?"

"I so move," said Dystra.

"Second," said Heller.

"It being moved and seconded, this meeting is closed," said Thornybright
and turned off the recorder.

Its click sounded strangely loud in the ears of Jase and seemed to echo
on and on as if it reverberated over an inconceivable distance-a
distance as far as from where he sat now to the scout ship of Kator
Secondcousin, with its artifact in tow, heading back toward the experts
of the Ruml Homeworld.

CHAPTER FIVE

Jason was installed in a room already prepared for the first of the
subjects of the Project to make contact with an alien mind. The room was
in the basement of the Foundation building, between the billiard room
and the bottom level of the library stacks. The library room in which
the Board had met with Jase and Mele actually held only a few of the
Foundation's many and valuable volumes. The rest were in a five-story
stack running from basement to roof in the space formerly used by three
of the four elevators that had served the building when it had contained
offices, before the Foundation had taken over and remodeled it.
Connected by a door to the library room was a small room that was Mele's
office, and a further door in this communicated with the stacks, which
managed to cram two levels of stacks into each of the fifteen-foot
floors of the building.

Jason's basement room had a door leading into the stack, but this was
locked by Thornybright, who took the first shift of keeping him under
observation.

"Sorry, Jase," Thornybright had said, locking it, "but we've got to
stick by the rules. Everything we do will be gone over with a microscope
when the authorities take over."

He settled himself in an easy chair, with the light turned low, while
Jase gratefully turned in to get some sleep on the bed provided. He had
been provided with seconal to knock out the intellectual centers of his
forebrain and insure that he slept rather than contacting Kator again.
The moment he touched the pillow, he felt himself going down into
slumber.

The last thing he remembered was watching Thornybright seated in the
lamplight, reading. The lean psychologist's coat was open, and something
dark and heavy was suspended under his armpit. It took little
imagination to deduce that it was a gun, and loaded. Still, in his
alien-sensitized brain, a little fear moved Jase at the sight of that
weapon, before he went on down into sleep.

After all, the Foundation member responsible for the development of the
virus-sized contact mechanisms had been emphatic about stating that
certain things about them were unknown. They had been tested and
observed to cause no harm, physical or psychological, between human
subjects, or even between human and animal. --But how could anyone
anticipate what would happen in the case of a linkage between the minds
of a human and an alien . . . ?

Sleep put a period to that thought.

Jase woke "about ten the next morning, feeling much more rested and
cheerful. He had breakfast brought to him, went for a walk around the
various floors of the Foundation and out into the walled garden with
Dystra, who was then on shift guarding him. Afterward he came back into
the library to start writing his full report of the initial contact
between his mind and Kator's.

He worked at it through the rest of the morning and the afternoon. When
he was done, he found he still had not mentioned the vague but powerful
emotional feelings that had been part of the contact. He told himself
they were too hard to define, and that succeeding contacts would
probably focus them in to the point where he could justifiably write
them up.

He ate dinner in Mele's office that evening. He thought he noticed her
eyeing him covertly from time to time during the meal, but he paid it
little attention. That night he contacted Kator again. But in this
contact, and in those that followed it for the next ten days, Kator was
still in process of returning to the Ruml Homeworld, the original
birth-planet of the race and capital of the worlds of four star systems
to which the Ruml had spread.

In spite of this, Jase was busy. One of the reasons he had been picked
from the mass of volunteers to be one of the subjects on the Project was
that he could draw. He had trained himself to sketch accurately and
quickly as a tool to aid him in the observation of wild animals in their
natural habitats. He had found that if he sketched an animal, bird,
reptile, or insect, he not only observed it more closely than if he
photographed it, but remembered the observation so that he could recall
details at a later time. Now he spent his days sketching for the Project
the instruments and tools and devices of the Ruml scoutship's interior.
This in addition to recording all the information he was able to absorb.

He found that he had no real thought-contact with Kator, any more than
humans using the tiny mechanism contact device had been able to read
each other's thoughts. He saw with Kator's eyes, he felt with Kator's
body, and the stronger of Kator's emotions moved him to parallel
emotions. In addition to this, he would occasionally be able to catch
and interpret memories of Kator's, when the Ruml concentrated strongly
on them. These came through to Jase not as pictures seen by the human,
but in terms of remembered light, shade, muscle tensions, emotions and
conversations.

Conversations were what disturbed Jase most at first. So Tar Kator had
had no one to talk to, and no reason to speak. The remembered
conversations that rose to the surface of his mind from time to time
came through to Jase in an odd sort of double sensation. Jase would hear
in his human ear the memory echo of strange sounds in the gruff, lower
register of the Ruml. The jaws of the Ruml were longer and narrower than
those of the human, and there were other, more serious differences
toward the back of the mouth and throat. Particularly, there were no
palatal or nasal tones to the Ruml speech at all. English m, n, c, and
j, for example, were completely missing from their language. On the
other hand, their narrow, thicker tongue was capable of rolling English
t, d, and 1 in a manner that a human could not accomplish. Jase would,
in contact, however, hear himself in memory making these sounds and at
the same time get a certain impression of their meanings.

It was necessary to qualify the word "impression" even to himself.
Because what bothered him was something that had never bothered any
human speaking a foreign tongue of earth. To put it clearly, if
confusingly, Jase understood perfectly what Kator remembered saying. But
his human mind was often unable to relate that understanding fully to
human terms.

For instance, when Kator was hungry, he thought of himself as
"permitting" himself to hunger. And yet he had no more conscious control
over his body's sensation of a desire for needed food than Jase did. The
difference was buried in a maze of instinctual and social differences of
the Ruml culture from the human culture.

"I understand, but I can't always translate. And I can hardly ever
translate perfectly," said Jase to Mele, one evening ten days after the
original contact. They were in her office, and he was showing her the
sketches he had made that day while she had been out of the building on
Foundation business. "Not merely the signs and labels of the instruments
on the control panel of the scout, there-" he pointed at the sketch
before her. "But the instruments themselves don't seem to come out quite
right when I sketch them. -Maybe Kator's eyes see a slightly different
spectrum than we do."

"It fascinates you, doesn't it?" she asked, unexpectedly.

Something jumped inside him, uncontrollably. He looked up and saw her
brown eyes-lighter than his own-watching him intently.

"Yes," he said, keeping his voice calm, "I suppose it does. They're like
a new species of animal-"

"No," she interrupted him. "I don't mean the Ruml. I mean the process of
contact fascinates you."

"Not. . . fascinates . . ." he said, slowly. Inside him an inexplicable
fear was beginning to beat.

"Does it frighten you, then?" she asked.

"Frighten ... yes," he admitted. "A little."

"It does something to you," Mele said. "I've been watching. Jase-"

"What?" he said, sharply, shuffling the sketches back into a stack.

"Maybe you shouldn't go on."

"No!" The harshness of his own answer fascinated him. He lowered his
voice and softened it to a reasonable tone. "There's something here more
important than anything we've run into since fire was discovered and
controlled. --I think. I just can't pin it down. Anyway," he added, "we
can't stop now."

"If it was really dangerous for you, the Board would agree--"

"No," he said. "It's not dangerous. Anyway, we can't think of stopping.
We have to go through with it now. --I'll know better about the
limitations of contact after Kator lands. He should be landing tomorrow
afternoon at In Point of the Homeworld."

But Kator landed, not the night after that, but the same night he talked
to Mele. Jase had misunderstood the time interval somehow. In fact, by
the time Jase fell asleep that night and his mind slipped into contact
with Kator, the Ruml was already landed and making his report to the
Ruml authorities in a building near the forty-mile-square landing area
from which the Homeworld sent forth and received its space vessels.

If Jase had not made that mistake-if he had gone to bed, or even closed
his eyes early, as he had planned to do the following day-he would have
gained invaluable data on the landing area and its defenses. Now that
chance was lost

Lying suspended in a pool of darkness in the basement of the Foundation
building, Jason drifted into the slightly stooping, harnessed,
black-furred body hundreds of light years distant that stood facing
three older Ruml on a platform, seated behind something like a desk. It
was Kator who stood there, but it was Jason who stood within him.
Jason-Kator stood before the Panel of Inspectors. Jason stood there,
proud and triumphant, but hiding the double-beat of his warm heart
beneath the formality of his posture.

He had just come through the door on the order of the Inspector's clerk.
He stood now, harness bright, feet solidly planted, knees as close
together as he could bring them and body so stiffly erect that it barely
slanted forward from his hips at all. His whiskers never moved. His
expression was imperturbable, for he, like the Inspectors, was playing
the game that his return was no different than thousands of others that
monthly took place in this building.

"I trust I am among friends," he addressed the Inspectors.

"You are among friends," said the presiding Inspector on the right of
the panel. But the tone of his answer was ironic. Jason did not blame
him. The Inspectors were all men of age and Family. Their harnesses were
heavy with inherited honors, while Jason, in addition to his small
Scouting Honor, had only the small Honor of a lesser Brutogasi: and the
new, if large, Honor of the Random Factor fixed to his harness. And this
last Honor was brilliant in its shininess, almost cheap looking, so new
it was. While the inherited honors of the older men behind the desk were
respectably dull with tarnish and dust.

The polite forms were required before this Panel, where people of all
Honor stood at times-but of course that did not mean that the Inspectors
must actually react toward young Jason as if he were an equal.

"We have examined your report, Kator Second-cousin Brutogasi," said the
Presiding Inspector. "The artifact you brought back is, I believe, being
gone over already at the Examination Center. Have you anything to
add-particularly about the death of your partner on the scoutship."

"It happened so quickly," said Jason. "One moment I was fighting for my
life-the next he was gone, and the airlock inner door was closed behind
him. I couldn't open it against the air pressure inside the ship in time
to stop him from opening the outer door."

"Indeed!" said one of the other Inspectors. There was a faint tone of
respect in his voice, which paid tribute to the coolness of Kator's
answer. It was something for someone just two seasons adult to answer so
well. "Young man, you may even live out a respectable man's lifetime if
you keep on like this."

Kator bent his head in acknowledgment of the compliment. He saw that the
Inspector who had just spoken wore the badge of the Hook party-like
himself and all the Brutogasi. The Presiding Inspector, as well as the
other senior, wore the emblem of the Rods. It occurred to Jason for the
first time that perhaps the whole Panel had wished to express its
approval to him-naturally, the Rods could hardly make such an
expression. Jason glowed inside, and his lungs felt filled with fire.

"Then," said the Presiding Inspector, "if there's no other questions, we
won't keep you. You'll be called to assist Examination Center if any
questions come up about the artifact."

Jason inclined his head again, back to the door and went out. Outside
the clerk handed him the short, ceremonial single-bladed sword -he had
been holding, and Jason reslung it in his harness. The clerk had not
been particularly respectful, but Jason unclipped the top piece of money
from the bandoleer strap of his harness and tipped the man anyway.

"May you found a Kingdom," said the clerk, bowing his head.

The poor lad did not know. Jason went out and took a seat on the
overhead belt into the inner city and the section containing the Castle
of the Brutogas. It was a short walk through narrow shell-paved streets
to the Castle, and many older women who had had their children were at
work in gangs, raking the shell. The shell fragments glittered in the
blue-white light from the pinpoint of the sun, now above the roofs of
the western quarter of the city. The little ornamental pools along the
way glittered also with clean blue water, like Honor settings for the
crystals growing in the center of the circular, or oval, or other-shaped
pool bottoms.

The women sang as they raked-the house songs and the Songs of the
Kingdom Founders. How beautiful, thought Jason, was this city of his
people with the early sun on it and the women singing. At the curve of
one steep, narrow road, he stopped to drink from a double-curved pool
about as wide as his outstretched arms and as deep as his waist.
Magnified, the center of its bottom of white, small tiles, the random
shape of a growing crystal was ruby-colored. It shone like some' great
Honor in the clean water.

"Shade be with me, water be with me, strength be with me," whispered
Jason, lifting his dripping whiskers from the water, speaking the
invocation. He got back to his feet.

A solitary woman was raking nearby. She was of an age to be Jason's
mother, though that was unlikely. Jason's mother was undoubtedly still
in the palace of the Brutogasi. Someday he must look up the records and
see. It was a matter he had always meant to get around to. An honorable
man should know the identity of the woman who bore him and carried him
sleeping in her pouch for seven years.

An impulse-perhaps it came to him from the Random Factor-moved Jason. He
unclipped a coin from his bandoleer and gave it to the raking woman.

"Will you sing a song for me, fruitful lady?" he asked. 'The song of the
founding of the Kingdom of the Brutogas?"

She took the coin, leaned on her rake, and sang. Her voice was
high-pitched and sweet. She was older than he had thought. She sang how
the Brutogas had gone on the great expedition to the third planet of the
second system the people had expanded to. That planet which, full of
jungle or poisonous seas, had destroyed two expeditions before that.
How, with twelve companions out of all those who had gone, the
Brutogas-then Brutogas Thirdcousin's-Firstchild of the Leechena-had
returned with a settlement planted. How he then had accused the other
eleven of crimes against the expedition and dulled them, one after
another, killing all eleven between sunset and sunrise of one day-so
winning the worth of the settlement for himself and Founding the Kingdom
of the Brutogasi for himself.

The song came to an end. The woman went back to her raking. Jason stood,
filled with the pictures the song had painted in his imagination. Like
himself, the original Brutogas had been only a distant connection of an
illustrious blood line. --Not that that had anything to do with it.
Great men appeared in all places-but quality bred quality, there was no
denying that.... And quality was in Jason's ancestry, though he was
several orders of relationship removed from the main line.

He came at last to the gates of the Brutogas Castle and was passed in by
the porter at the gate, who was required to know by sight all those of
the Family. He entered the ground-level courtyard, beneath the second
story, where the immediate members of the family lived, and the
third-the highest legally permissible level of dwelling-where lived the
current Brutogas himself. He, and all the mothers of his sons, spread
out through the nearly half square mile of corridors and rooms.

Jason's room, as a Secondcousin, was on the top of the fifteen basement
levels of the Castle. He went down to it. It felt good to shut the door
behind him on this small, square, blank-walled room with the image of
the first Brutogas in one corner. It was as he had left it to go on
scout work, half a season before. The sunlight slanted in through the
high half-window just at ground level above Jason's head, and the light
fell familiarly upon the small washing pool beneath it, the circular
sleeping pad, and the cabinet of Jason's possessions.

He had just taken off his harness when the door spoke to him, saying
there was someone outside. He opened it and saw the tall shape of Bela
Firstcousin, one generation older than he and one degree of relationship
closer to the present Brutogas. Bela handed him a small, gold-glinting
object.

"This to you from the Brutogas," said Bela. They were relatives and
almost friends, and so they looked at each other with hardly any
guarding tension. "And you are to move up to a room on the ground level
tomorrow."

He saluted and left Jason. Jason looked down at the gold object in his
furry hand. It was a half-Honor, the smaller of two Family tokens which
the Family head could bestow on his lesser relatives. Jason's chest
swelled, and deep feeling moved him. It had not passed unnoticed-the
fact that he, one of the Family, had encountered a manifestation of the
Random Factor like the alien artifact and had then returned alone.

True, there had been only one other man on the scoutship with him . . .
And it had been with eleven others that the original Family head had
fought that past day-to say nothing of those who had been original
members of the expedition from which the original Brutogas and his
companions had returned. But his own modest case had not passed
unnoticed.

His chest expanded with love and pride. He turned toward the picture of
the original Brutogas in the corner and shrank slowly down on his
haunches before it. He crossed his forearms upon his unharnessed chest.
A joy and pain too great to bear moved through him. He stayed in the
reverential position as the sun mounted outside his room and the light
moved across its floor.

"Give me shade ... give me water ... give me strength . . ." he prayed.

Back in his own basement room on earth, Jason-alone woke to find once
more his pillow wet with tears.

CHAPTER SIX

"--But why," demanded Thornybright at the next meeting of the Board,
"isn't he passing the worm along so that we can get the mechanisms into
the bloodstreams and brains of some others of them?"

"You can't influence him in any way?" asked Heller.

Jase shook his head.

"I'm only a passenger," he said to Heller. "I know there was hope that
just by sheer chance, with an alien, a subject like me could exert some
mental pressure, or domination." He smiled for a moment, wryly. "Just
like nobody's ever really given up the fear that maybe Kator is subtly
starting to dominate me. But I give you my word, neither of these things
is happening. It's just as it was when I tested with another human,
before the Program got under way. The sleeping or inactive subject is
simply carried about by the contact. He experiences what the contact
experiences. And that's all."

"You didn't answer my question," said Thornybright

"I don't know the answer." Jase turned to the lean psychologist, looking
past Mele at him. Mele, as usual, was sitting in on the Board meetings
although she remained officially unconnected and unvoting, her only
duties being that of observing and helping Jason with his paperwork and
written reports on the Rural during the daylight hours. "He's hanging on
to it for some purpose of his own. He thinks of it as 'Founding a
Kingdom.'"

"Maybe he plans to use it as some sort of symbol?" said Dystra, looking
shrewdly at Jase. 'To start an uprising against the Family Heads? To put
himself in power through a Revolution against the established procedure
on that Homeworld of his?"

"No. Nothing like that." Jase shook his head. "You can't see their
society as I see it. Any kind of Revolution is ... unthinkable. I don't
mean impossible. I mean .. ."-again he fumbled for a word-"unthinkable.
The Ruml are complete individualists. The structure of social authority
among them is an instinctive, not a sociological, arrangement."
Inspiration came to him. "If you had Kator here right now and you could
explain to him what you mean by 'revolution,' he'd stare at you finally
and say, 'against what?" You see, even if a Ruml should for some-to
them-insane reason, gain the power of life and death over his fellow
Rumls, it wouldn't mean anything."

"Wouldn't mean anything?" echoed Thornybright.

"I mean--" Jason fumbled. "The authority he gained would have no meaning
in terms of desirability to the Ruml nature. What are desirable are
Honors-which are abstract things. It's true they call the badges they
wear on their harnesses, Honors. But the badges are actually just like
our medals-they represent the actual Honors. And the actual Honors have
some deep, basic connection with the instincts of perpetuation and
evolution of the Ruml race."

"You mean?" Thornybright pounced. "That they represent actions showing
survival qualities, or actions leading to the continuance and evolution
of the race?"

"Yes . . ." said Jase, reluctantly. "But I hate to just say yes and let
it go at that. What you say is true, and still-it's more than that to a
Ruml. There's something religious, mystic, deeply noble and emotionally
moving to a Ruml about these Honors. We think of something like, say,
the Congressional Medal of Honor, as something apart from the man who
won it. But to the Ruml, somehow, the man-pardon me, I suppose I ought
to say 'individual', but they think of themselves as 'men,' just as we
do-the man is the Honor. It's as if the awarding of the Honor merely
recognizes something that was already in him-that's been in him, or of
him, or part of him, since the moment of his birth."

He looked around at them with the helpless feeling that he was not
getting through to the human brains behind their human faces. Even Mele
was looking at him without real understanding.

"The Congressional Medal winner-," said Jase. "We'd be shocked of
course, but we wouldn't consider it impossible that someone who'd won it
should later turn out to be a coward, a thief, a murderer-somebody
utterly reprehensive. To the Ruml, that couldn't happen. If a
man-individual-there should receive an Honor as a brave person, it
simply could not happen that at some later time he could prove to be
anything but brave. It never happened in the known history of the race,
it never could happen. Even if it happened, it couldn't happen. If he
should turn out to be a coward, it would be because he was only
apparently being a coward."

"You mean they wouldn't believe it, even if it was true?" said Dystra.

"I mean it wouldn't be true. It actually would be because he was only
apparently being a coward," said Jase. "He just--" He stared around at
them, helpless to explain it, "wouldn't be a coward. He couldn't be."

"What keeps mistakes from happening?" demanded Thornybright. "What keeps
a coward from getting an Honor for bravery through official mistake?"

"The one who received it wouldn't accept it if it didn't fit him," said
Jase. "But it wouldn't go that far. Long before it came to the point of
granting an Honor, it would be clear to those who granted it and the one
who received it whether it was deserved or not."

"These Rumls can't make mistakes, then?" asked Thornybright. The
psychologist's eyes were sharp as hypodermic needles through which the
man's disbelief sought to pump itself into Jase.

"They can make mistakes, but- This is a matter of instinct,-! tell you!"
said Jase. "They don't go wrong about Honors. They just don't!"

Thornybright sat back in his chair.

"Move we turn this Project over to governmental authorities now," he
said. "The alien contact is holding on to the mechanism-infected worm,
and our single human contact is having too large a load of
responsibility laid on him to interpret these aliens to us. Meanwhile
those Rumls at their 'Examination Center' will be deducing more about us
from that Bait every day, in spite of all the precautions we took. We've
got no right to assume the responsibility of contact with a possibly
inimical alien race this way."

"Second," said Jules Warbow, the board member next to him.

"Discussion?" asked Thornybright, looking around the table.

"We shouldn't, that's all," said Jase. "I can't explain that to you yet,
any better than I can explain the Honors or the Founding a Kingdom
business. But I give you my word as the subject involved that we should
continue to keep control of this project a while longer."

They voted. As usual, it was four-four, with Jase casting the
tie-breaking vote that put off the moment of informing governmental
authorities about the project and releasing it from Foundation control.

The Board meeting was adjourned.

The Board members returned to their individual busy lives outside the
walls of the Foundation building. Jase followed Mele back into her small
office adjoining the room and sat down in a chair, as she sat down
behind the desk with the recorder, prepared to type up the minutes of
the meeting.

"They can't quite discard the notion," said Jase, wryly. They can't
forget the possibility that I might be slipping under the domination of
Kator's mind-turning into a sort of TV horror science fiction monster.
That's what's behind most of the opposition. All but Tim Thornybright.
He isn't afraid of man or monster, but he wants to see the project in
government hands and ten times as big as it is now."

He watched Mele.

"Mele," he said, "you don't think I'm coming to be dominated by an alien
mind, do you?"

She had been just about to begin typing, her hands poised. She dropped
them and looked squarely across the desk at him. She took a deep breath.

"No," she said. "But I think you're wrong, Jase."

"Wrong?" Startled, he stared at her.

"Wrong to keep voting so as to break the tie and keep the Project in
Foundation hands," she said. Her brown eyes were almost hard. "You're
too cautious, you're too conservative. It ought to be going on with the
finances and facilities something like the United Nations can put behind
it, not just be confined to one man in a basement and eight
scientists-even if they are some of the best minds in the world-sitting
around a table making decisions."

He looked back at her grimly. She was younger than he was and
adventurous. She had read a great many books, and the books were full of
solutions to things. He had felt the same confidence in book solutions
until he found himself lying out on a mountain hillside watching the
spring fighting of the bears, or following a gang of killer whales
through the icy Antarctic waters for days in a two-man submarine.

"Once you turn it over to the authorities, you can't turn it back," he
said.

"What makes you so sure you're liable to want it back?" she
counterattacked. "You haven't come up with any real reasons, any real,
logical reasons that outside authorities wouldn't understand what you're
doing, as well as the Board and the Foundation."

"The situation there on the Rural Homeworld," he said stubbornly, "goes
beyond logical reasons. Logical reasons are a part of logical thinking.
Logical thinking is a part of the intellectual processes developed in a
civilized, complex society--"

"And the Rural Society isn't civilized, or complex?"

"Yes, of course it is," he said. "But-"

"Honestly, Jase," she said, "honestly now, can't you recognize the fact
that you're dragging your heels about turning the project over not
because of anything to do with the situation of those aliens on their
world? It's nothing more or less but your old play-it-safe, cautious
attitude that makes you want to hang on to being the only contact with
the Rumls until you know everything about them-even if that means forty
years more of study. You won't trust anyone else!"

Decisively, almost angrily, she began to type. Her fingers rattled on
the keys.

"No," he said-so harshly she stopped typing after all and looked up in
faint surprise. "You don't understand, any more than anyone on the Board
does. The instinctive basis of the Rumls' civilization is drastically
different than the instinctive basis of our civilization. Make a mistake
about that and we could find ourselves fighting for our lives against
them when it's the very thing we want to avoid."

She leaned forward with her elbows on the desk, staring levelly at him
from beneath her two arched brows.

"Now it comes out," she said. "You don't trust anybody else to make
contact with a Ruml. Only yourself!"

"I seem to be the only one who understands that instinct can be a
greater determining power than intellect, in matters of survival and
nonsurvival!" he said. He heard his voice raising but was without the
will to control it. "My God, you're a woman. Don't you have any faith in
instinct?"

"I have a good deal of faith in instinct!" she said, icily. "But I
happen to have been born now-not five hundred years ago when men like
you thought women didn't exist outside of the four walls of their own
houses! I've got all the normal, womanly instincts, thanks, but that
doesn't mean I can't control them with the higher centers of my brain
when a conflict comes up."

He sat looking at her. Calmness had come back to him.

"I think," he said, after a moment, "maybe it's your personality that's
the problem here, not mine."

She began to type.

"Or, let's say, as much as mine," he said. "And one thing more. If you
think you can control your instincts, every time, you're as wrong as
everybody else around here seems to be."

He got up and went out, hearing the typewriter continue to rattle
unceasingly behind him. Outside, in the now deserted library room, the
sun had descended, even during his short argument with Mele, into a lean
bank of dark cloud streaking the sunset horizon. Earth's star flooded
the empty room now, with a cold red light that left dusky shadows
lingering in corners and behind the overstaffed chairs. For a moment
Jase leaned against the bookcases along one wall, feeling against the
back of his hand the leather binding of old and honorable books.

He had not meant to fight with Mele. It was bad enough that the Board
did not understand the unexplainable, powerful, emotional force he had
felt in his contacts with Kator. A crisis was bound to come when their
lack of understanding and the possibilities of this force, directed
toward the human race, would bring about a moment of dire peril.

Subconsciously, in that moment, he had counted on the support of Mele.
Now whether it was his fault or hers did not matter, but she, too, had
deserted his standard.

He stood on watch alone, like a single armored and sworded soldier of
the Roman legions in a pass at night, facing north toward the German
wilderness, the darkness and the sound of stirring hordes. The legions
he guarded were all asleep in the camp behind him. He had never felt so
alone in his life.

CHAPTER SEVEN

". . . And you're positive," said the Examiner, "that there's nothing
you've forgotten to tell us about this artifact, nothing you may have
done and forgotten in the process of your boarding and searching it?"

"I've forgotten nothing," said Jase, in Kator's body. "Nothing."

He stood before the Examiner in the Examiner's interview room of the
Examination Center. The Examiner himself was heavy and gray with years.
He was the Aton, an honorable man known to all the worlds of men, head
of a numerous Family, expert in his field of study of space-found alien
fragments and artifacts. He had lived the long lifetime of an honorable
man, and his harness was heavy with Honors. He looked down on Jase now
not only from the raised platform of his padded tuft, but from the
pinnacle of that long lifetime.

"You are only two seasons adult," he said, now, glancing at the papers
of the artifact report on the small table hinged to one side of the
circular tuft, uncurled himself slightly, and straightened up to look
down on Jase "And that's why you're certain. I wouldn't be certain-not
after all these years. No matter how careful I had been, if I'd been in
your place."

"The Random Factor-," began Jase.

"Young man," interrupted the Examiner, but not harshly, "the Random
Factor is a dream, a fantasy. Oh, it exists-it exists. But as part of
the statistical mass of the universe, not as something to be appreciated
and integrated with the individual lives."

He fell silent, staring at the papers of the report. Jase felt emotion
move him, at the sight of this man of age and Honor, lost in the
question of the artifact Jase-Kator, that was-had found. He pulled
himself together.

'Is there something-," he ventured, "something unaccounted for about the
artifact, sir?"

The Examiner raised his eyes from the papers and looked down as if
surprised to see Jase still there.

"Nothing," he said. "Nothing apparent, young man. Only, it seems to me
we're getting surprisingly little information from it. It's almost as if
the explosion that destroyed the craft it was originally had been
intelligently designed to rid the artifact section of as much
information-producing elements as possible."

Jase felt sudden anxiety speed up his heartbeat.

"You mean, sir," he asked, in a calm, controlled voice, "you won't be
able to discover the planet of its origin?"

"Oh, that-yes," said the Examiner. "But there's so much else we ought to
know before we send an expedition to the originating planet-much of
which we ought to be getting from this artifact. And we're not." He
looked again at the papers of .the report. That's why I called you in. I
thought we might get some clue from you . . . Incidentally," his gaze
swung back to center on Jase. "You aren't scheduled to leave on another
Scouting Survey Sweep, I hope? We want you here to answer questions if
need be."

"Sir," said Jase, "I have withdrawn myself from the Scouting Duty
Lists."

"Good . . ." the Examiner nodded. His eyes ranged from foot to head of
Jase's black-furred figure, as erect as the skeletal angle between the
Ruml pelvis and backbone would allow. "By the way, do you think you
might find Honor working on my staff, here?"

"You are too land, sir."

The Examiner nodded.

"I guessed not," he said. "This work here is too slow and dull for the
energies of young bodies. Men your age want active duties like your
Scouting work. Well, I'll leave the offer open. Always provided you
remain a man of adequate Honor, you can come back later on if you want."

He stared down at Jase.

"You may surprise yourself and do just that," he said. "When we're young
we want to do everything overnight. We have wild dreams of great Honors
and the Founding of Kingdoms. And that's the way it should be, of
course. But after a few years it becomes time to remember that for
everyone who founds a Kingdom and a Family, there must be the millions
who care for all the other responsibilities of Honor. For there's a
greater responsibility on all of us even than that of being an honorable
man-you look surprised, young man?"

"I-" Jase stumbled. "I am a Secondcousin only."

"That makes no difference," said the Examiner. "Even an orphan is a
member of the race. And he, too, has his greater responsibility than
that toward his own honor-his share in the responsibility to see that in
the end he is part of an honorable race." He stared at Jase in surprise,
and not without kindness. "-Why do you mourn, young man?"

"-I am not fit!" choked Jase.

"Come!" said the Examiner. "Didn't I say that dreams and fantasies are
proper to the young?- And where would we be if ever and again, at great,
rare intervals, a Founder should not grow out of such dreams? I only
warned you not to forget everything else in the search for personal
Honor. Come-" said the Examiner, again kindly, "I see you're a very
sensitive young man. If you live another five seasons, you may be the
sort of whom we can all be proud. --You may go now."

Jase inclined his head and backed away. He went out, still deeply
affected by what the honorable old man had said. It was not until he was
actually clear of the huge complex of structures that was the
Examination Center, that he got his feelings under control. He headed
toward the Brokerage offices in the city center, wondering about
himself. It was so strange- at one moment his ambition was such that he
seemed to look down on all men, past and present; then, in the next
minute, a word or two like those he had just heard was enough to make
him feel less worthy than the meanest orphan cripple in a charity ward.
He shook his head, baffled.

By the time he had arrived at the Brokerage Center, however, he had put
the emotion behind him and was once more in the vein of the
determination that had dominated his life since the moment when the
artifact had first registered on his Scout Ship instruments. He found
the Broker that Bela Firstcousin had recommended to him and gave the
Broker his list of worths.

The Broker ran a practiced eye down the list and then turned to his
computer connection and checked out the current values of the items on
the list, worth by worth. When he was done, he nodded thoughtfully,
typed out a total, and passed the list back to Jase.

"Not bad at all for a Secondcousin in his second season," the Broker
said. He was a Rod, of the family Machidae, who had always been friendly
to the Brutogasi-it went back to a gift of water made by the original
Brutogas to the young Founder of the Machidae. "Of course, it's that
credit devolving from your public reward for finding that artifact that
boosts the total out of the ordinary. What was it you wanted to do with
the list?"

"Liquidate it," said Jase. The Broker raised his eyebrows.

It took some little conversation for Jase to convince the Broker-a
sensible man already well on his way toward an honorable age-that he
meant what he said. And even more talk to convince the Broker that the
final item of emergency demand upon the Family coffers of the Brutogasi
was to be included in the liquidation.

"That," said the Broker, finally, "you can't do-or rather, I won't do it
for you. Probably, if you can try hard enough, you can find some
unscrupulous individual who'll liquidate it for you-but I won't. What I
will do is lend to you against it-up to three-quarters of its value. At
that, I'm trespassing against my own Honor and the friendship between
our two Families. You realize what'll happen if you can't pay back that
loan within one season, don't you?"

"Yes," said Jase.

"Well, I'll repeat it to you, anyway," said the Broker. "If you haven't
paid it back by due date, it becomes payable against the Brutogas
coffers. And you know what that means. Your family head will pay it
immediately, but the minute he does so, you become a potential liability
to the family-since any further indebtedness would also have to be paid,
but you would have no personal credit with the Family coffers to absorb
the payment. In self-defense, your Family will have to disavow you. Do
you know what it means to live without the protection of your Family?"

"Honorable men have lived that way before," said Jase, stoutly.

"Honorable giants! Honorable geniuses!" said the Broker. "Hardly
anything as feeble as ordinary honorable men. Most ordinary men, no
matter how individually honorable, either suicide shortly afterward or
are killed by some Familied individual, knowing it is quite safe to do
so for private purpose without question-as is only right, of course.
There'd be little point in our having Families if it was easy to exist
outside them. But the point is a disavowed man seldom lasts more than a
matter of days, at best. And it's a purposeless, unrewarding way to come
to death. --You still want to do it, though?"

"Yes," said Jase, though his stomach contracted. His imagination was so
strong that he could almost feel the horrible loneliness of being
without Family or name.

"All right," said the Broker. "--And you won't tell me why you want the
money?"

'Td rather not," said Jase.

"Very well. I've said as much to you as my conscience required, and as
much as mariners will let me. That concludes our business then. It'll
actually take an hour or so to put the papers through, but for practical
purposes you can start honoring drafts against that sum I've written
down immediately."

Jase thanked him and went out.

Outside the office, once more in the white sunlight, Jase wasted no time
taking a shuttle bus through the tunnels to the far side of the city,
where the pools and gymnasiums were. In the Center for the Salles
d'Armes, Jase found and entered one of these establishments where the
instructor specialized in teaching the use of the duelling sword. He
almost passed the entrance at first, for it was a simple, bare room with
only a small pool in the center of it and some bare seating platforms
around the walls. Then he saw the sign, small above the entrance,
announcing that this was the school of Brodth Youngerbrother Clanth,
Swordsmaster. He went in.

Once inside he heard the shuffle of feet and the ring of metal on metal
from an inner room. There was no door to this inner room, which was
surprising-or rather, would have been surprising with anyone but a
Swordsmaster of Brodth Youngerbrother's reputation, Jase (or rather,
Kator) .reminded himself. It would be a matter of Honor with such a
Swordsmaster to employ neither public nor private Keysman.

Jase stepped into the inner room. The scene he entered on was of a
high-ceilinged, brightly lit, rectangular chamber, with three pairs of
fencers fencing, and a lean, tall Ruml almost abnormally erect of back,
moving from group to group and giving instruction. Occasionally he
clapped his hands together for several seconds to get a fencer back into
the steady rhythm necessary for swordswork.

"--Lean into it!" his harsh, rather high-pitched voice was saying
exasperatedly to one of the fencers in the pair farthest from the room's
entrance. "Lean into your stroke! And again! And again! -- The stroke
comes from the hips-so! --And again! --"

Catching sight of Jase, he broke off and came over toward the entrance,
walking with the swift metronomic balance of a trained swordsman-his
footfalls steady as the ticking of a superb piece of clockwork.

"Sir?" he said, looking down at Jase. "I am Swords-master Brodth."

"I want to enroll as a student of the sword," said Jase.

"An Honor to have you-" Brodth inclined his slightly graying head. "You
are undoubtedly aware that my rates are somewhat higher than the
ordinary--r"

"Yes," said Jase. "I know. I don't mind paying triple rates to study
under a Race Champion."

"Thank you," said Brodth, inclining his head again, with no change of
expression. He turned slightly and indicated the fencing couples. "All
three of my assistants are engaged at the moment, so you can pick the
one that you'd prefer. All three have openings in their schedules. If I
might make a suggestion . . . How experienced are you with the duelling
weapon?"

"I've worked steadily with it for two seasons," said Jase. "Of course
... on my own. And with others in my Family."

"I see. Well, if I might suggest Lyth Cousincousin. He may be a little
too strong for you to begin with- he's my best assistant-but if you're
willing-"

"I wanted," said Jase, "to study with you."

"But you are studying with me -- " Brodth broke off. The skin around his
nose tightened, and his eyes narrowed. "Sir," he said dryly. "I am not
for hire. If you wish to study directly with a swordsmaster, there are
other salles darmes - "

"Sir," said Jase. "My last desire as an honorable man is to offend you
in any way. My situation is unusual and severe. Within a matter of days
I'm going to have to fight and beat a man as skilled as the average
Swordsmaster."

Brodth looked at him.

"And who," he inquired, still dryly, "might this man

"I don't know," said Jase. "But hell probably be a Champion of one of
the Heads of Family."

Brodth stared at him for a second longer. Then the tightening about his
nose relaxed, and his eyes relaxed to let humor enter them.

"At least," he said, "you're not some young puppy who thinks he can buy
the right to boast that he has Brodth Youngerbrother for his personal
fencing instructor."

"Sir," said Jase humbly, "I would even be glad to keep it a secret if
you want it so."

Brodth chortled. Like most Swordsmasters, Jase saw, he had long ago got
over being touchy about his personal Honor- which no ordinary layman was
liable to challenge in any case. Jase's hopes lifted. He had hoped for
much, but he had not dared hope that Brodth would be possessed of a
sense of humor.

"Well, well," said the Swordsmaster. "Come here." He led Jase across to
a rack of the long, twin-bladed, basket-hilted duelling foils- identical
in all save edge and point with the actual weapons used in an affair of
Honor. "Choose one," he told Jase, "and run through the first twenty-six
beats of the primary drill. I can tell all I need to know by watching
you."

The fur matting a little with perspiration under his chin, Jase scanned
the rack of swords. There were weights and lengths there for all sizes
of man. As Swordsmaster, let alone the man who had won the supreme
Championship in the interworld competitions of the best of the Rural
race, Brodth would have unhesitatingly chosen the heaviest and longest
for himself. But Jase, only two seasons adult, was barely average height
for a Ruml and no more than average weight.

He reached out and chose a sword that he judged to be even a few ounces
lighter and shorter than the one he exercised with back at the Brutogasi
Castle. He balanced it in his fist, point up, then swung it a few times
to get the feel of the particular suppleness of its long, narrow twin
blades. Then-he stamped once on the floor to give himself the beat and
lunged into the first of the primary drill movements.

He attacked in five movements, retreated in four, attacked in six,
retreated in two, attacked in two, retreated in two, attacked in four .
. . and was suddenly overwhelmed by self-consciousness. His fifth attack
movement, the concluding" lunge, saw him stumble and almost lose his
feet.

He pulled himself erect, his neck-fur soaked with the sweat of
self-hatred and misery. He replaced the sword in its rack and turned to
face the expected cold invitation by Brodth to leave the establishment.

But it did not come. Brodth was looking at him curiously.

"I don't know what . . ." Jase was beginning to stammer, when Brodth cut
him short with a negligent wave of one hand.

"That fault?" said the Swordsmaster. "Nothing. You suddenly remembered I
was watching. In an actual duel you'd have had no emotion left over to
make a fool of yourself. No ..." He considered Jase, rubbing his chin.
"You're not bad. You didn't choose a sword too heavy for you to show off
in front of me. Your reflexes are really excellent. And when you faulted
just now, you didn't try to blame it on an unfamiliar weapon or the
polish on the floor."

He fell silent, rubbing his chin and studying Jase.

"Then . . . ?" asked Jase. "You think it's possible? I could be trained
to win--"

Brodth dropped his hand from his chin.

"Against Family Head's Champion?" he said, frankly. "Never in a thousand
years. As I say, your reflexes are excellent. If that were all-" he
twitched his head, shruggingly, "but you're too small, my young friend."
He looked at Jase almost with sympathy. "A Family Champion will have
half an arm's length reach on you, and a third again the weight-to say
nothing of experience, and possibly reflexes as fast as yours."

He shook his head.

"No," he said. "Take my advice-and I won't even charge you for it. Just
don't challenge this man."

"I'm afraid . . . ," said Jase, "there's no choice."

"No choice?" Brodth stared down at him "What do you mean? He can't have
challenged you-that wouldn't be possible. And he can't crowd you into
challenging him. Look here," said Brodth, "if somebody's been taking
advantage of you on the strength of his position or ability as Champion
to the Head of a Family-"

"No. Nothing like that," said Jase. "As I told you, I don't even know
who I must challenge. But I will be challenging someone like that before
long." He hesitated. "Sir, I repeat the last desire I have is to offend
you, but if you could give me a little help with the sword, even though
you know it's hopeless . . ." He reached and got the list of worths from
his harness pouch and handed it to the Swordsmaster. "I have an adequate
drawing account, and even the instruction of one of your assistants-*

"Sword and my Honor!" exploded Brodth, staring at the list. "You've
pledged your Family coffer-rights? --To pay for fencing lessons?"

Jase's neck trembled. He caught himself just in time from reaching out
to pluck the list back from the Swordsmaster's grasp. He had only
intended to show the other man the total. His eyes burned with
embarrassment. The fencing room seemed to rock around him. He looked
right and left, expecting to see the assistants and pupils all having
ceased fencing and staring at him. But, he saw suddenly, except for
himself and Brodth, the room was empty. The others had concluded their
efforts and gone.

"I plan . . ." Jase's voice was husky. "I plan a great effort. .

"But you young idiot!" said Brodth, with a Master Swordsman's
indifference to the need for respecting other men's touchiness about
name-calling. "Don't you realize you could be disavowed if you can't pay
the pledge in time? And where's someone your age to get a sum like that?
What are you counting on-Founding a Kingdom?"

"Yes," admitted Jase, miserably. "I--"

He broke off, seeing Brodth staring at him, and became belatedly aware
that the other man had not meant his question seriously.

"You . . . are!" said the Swordsmaster, finally. "You actually think . .
. Do you know what the odds are against one man . . . ?"

Jase nodded grimly.

"That's why I didn't intend to mention it to anyone," he said, stiffly.
"May I depend on you as an honorable man to keep my inadvertent
admission to yourself---

"Yes, yes, of course . . ." muttered Brodth, still staring at him.
"What's your name?"

Jase told him. Brodth stared for a second longer, then his eyes lit with
recognition.

"You're the scout that encountered that artifact in space some weeks
back!" said the Swordsmaster.

"Yes," said Jase, shortly. He turned toward the entrance. "Well, sir, if
none of your assistants are able to take me--"

"Wait!" said Brodth.

Jason turned about. The Swordsmaster was looking at him strangely.

"You may not think it," said Brodth, slowly. "But I was a young idiot
myself once. I had thoughts of Founding a Kingdom--" For a moment
emotion lighted his gaze. "And it was not farfetched at that . . ." he
muttered, "Race Champion three seasons running ... I might have gone one
step farther." He raised eyes and voice together and spoke sharply to
Jase. "Come with me."

He led the way back into the anteroom with the pool and by a closed door
Jase had not noticed there before into a room that was half office, half
the lounge of a suite of living quarters. He led Jase on through another
door off the lounge into a room set up like a small, bare gym. On the
walls of it hung various weapons, ancient and modern.

"Our present duelling sword's no good for you," muttered Brodth. "Gives
all the advantage to the taller, stronger man. But here-" He stopped
before a section of the wall. "Look at these."

Jase looked. He saw two twin-bladed swords crossed on the wall. But they
were practically hiltless, and the blades were several times as wide as
the blade of a normal sword and half the length. Between the X formed by
these swords hung two round circles of metal that Kator recognized
suddenly as shields. He was looking at weapons as they had been used
nearly two thousand years before.

"Here," said Brodth, indicating them with a wave of one gray-furred
hand, "are weapons that favor your abilities as the present duelling
swords would favor your opponent. The time is short to make an ancient
Ruml warrior out of you, but-are you willing to gamble, Kator
Secondcousin?"

CHAPTER EIGHT

The days and nights of the Ruml Homeworld were shorter than the days and
nights of earth. But, because Kator thought of the Ruml day as a day in
his own terms, Jase found himself thinking of it in that way as well. So
that Jase found himself oddly, as it were, living in two different time
systems- The hours, days, and weeks of the human world and the time
divisions of the Ruml Homeworld, which went by half again as fast.

The result was not so much confusion in the mind of Jase as an odd type
of schizoid perception, like double vision-or perhaps, Jase thought, it
could be called alternate vision-without unpleasant effects. In any
case, the practical effect of this was to find Jase unconfused but
confusing the others at the Foundation with the frequent fact that
something which was to happen about a week of Ruml time away would
actually be taking place the day after tomorrow by earthly standards.

One case of this was the matter of the duel for which Kator was
training. This by Rural standards was roughly a month of days away. In
earth time it was little more than two weeks distant. Jase's sleeping
hours were spent living with Kator through the practice under Brodth's
instruction with the archaic Ruml sword and shield, and Jase's daytimes
in recording and sketching what he had seen, and his own attempts to
relate it to earthly parallels.

Like most people who end up as zoologists, he had been fascinated by
creatures other than human ever since he was a small boy and had pulled
back to health his first wounded squirrel with an airgun-pellet broken
leg. The mystery of the little universes of Me and death existing in
hollow trees and earthy burrows-as in upland, African ranges of the
elephant, and the ocean-wide hunting grounds of the killer whale-had
always fascinated him. His dream of remembrance, of how he had laid out
on the hillside in the springtime Rockies, watching through his field
glasses the spring fighting of the brown male bears, had been a dream of
anticipation once, when he had been a boy.

It seemed to him that there were identities between all creatures,
including man. They were all related. They were like people without
speech, with different needs and wants and customs. With a little-only a
little-understanding, it had seemed to him that it should be possible to
get through to at least all of the higher mammals.

As a boy, he had imagined himself actually discovering a way to speak to
wolf, tiger, and bear. Growing up, he had put the fantasies aside-but in
spite of that, they had almost led him into the fields of psychology and
communication instead of into his first love, naturalism.

Now, in contact with Kator and the life of the Ruml, the old dream had
come back. Only he was a man now, and it was an obsession, not a dream.

He spent what time he could spare from recording and sketching in the
Foundation library. The uncertain, foggy figure of a great discovery
seemed to be fleeing just before him out of reach, like some veiled
promise out of a story as wild as the Arabian Nights. He roamed the
stacks where the old elevators had risen and descended, his nose and
attention together buried in W. Kohler's The Mentality of Apes, C. Loyd
Morgan's Animal Behaviour, Warden, Jenkins, and Warner's Comparative
Psychology-until Mele had to come and find him to bring him back to
matters of food, drink, sleep, and the very alien experiment itself in
which they were engaged.

One day, nearly two earth weeks after Brodth had begun his tutelage of
Kator,- Mele came looking for Jase and found him seated on the floor on
the sixth svel of the stacks. A sixty-watt light bulb under its
soup-plate reflector shone down on the -shelves of books and Jase
himself. He was seated cross-legged, absorbed in his reading. On the
floor, open beside him, was Theodore H. Hittell's The Adventures of
James Capen Adams, Mountaineer and Grizzly Bear Hunter of California.
But the book he was reading, balanced on his knees, was Chalmers' The
Childhood of Animals.

"Here you are," said Mele. "It's past lunch time- and did you forget?
There's a board meeting after lunch."

"Oh!" Jase looked up and climbed to his feet. "Sorry." He picked up his
books. "Haven't you eaten, either? Lead the way."

She stared at him, made a half-unconscious gesture toward him with one
hand, then checked herself.

"You might brush some of that dust off!" she said angrily. "There'll be
other people in the bar and the dining room."

"Oh-?" He flicked at his trousers with the one hand not holding the two
books. Mele turned sharply and led the way through the narrow aisle
between the bookshelves, where only one could pass at a time. Jase
followed her to the stack stairs, down the stairs, and through her
office into the main part of the Foundation building.

The bar and dining room of the building-for the Foundation was more than
half club to its scientific members scattered all over the
world-occupied the first-floor space that had been a cafeteria back when
the structure had been an office building. But the business tenants of
the original building would have been startled by the difference. The
dining room that now was, was a place of heavy tables, carved chairs,
fine carpeting, and panelled walls.

The bar, a short, heavy curve of oak, occupied one corner of the room to
the left of the entrance. And when the big double doors of the entrance
were pulled back, there was a little area containing three tables almost
partitioned off, with the bar on one side, the wall on the other and the
inward-opened, heavy door providing a screen on a third.

Jase and Mele, since Jase had moved into the basement of the building
with the start of the experiment, normally sat at one of these three
tables-the one in the corner by the end of the bar. And the waiter on
those tables normally held it for them.

He had held it today as usual, and it had evidently been no great task
this time. The dining room had only three other tables occupied-none of
them among the three in the corner. Jase and Mele sat down and ordered.
Jase put down his books on the table and immediately opened Chalmers'
The Childhood of Animals.

"No you don't," said Mele. "-Hell have a drink," she told the departing
waiter. "An old fashioned. So will I."

Jase opened his mouth to argue, shrugged, and closed Chalmers. He put
both books on the floor.

"There," he told her. "Out of sight, out of mind. Better?"

"Yes," she said. But she did not smile. Her eyes searched his face. "Are
you losing weight?"

"I don't know. Why?" he asked. "You could ask Heller. He's been keeping
the physical charts on me."

"I think you ought to have a drink before every meal," she said. "And no
books."

"How about a night off?" He grinned-but then he sobered. "I don't think
you understand about this reading I'm doing," he said. Tm an observer in
this business-and I have to have some knowledge of what to look for."

"You act as if you've got to do it all yourself," Mele countered.
"There'll be lots of people going into the subject deeply later on. Why
can't you just stick to doing what you were originally supposed to
do-just observe and report, and let it go at that?"

The argument they got into then was old territory. It was interrupted by
the coming of the drinks. But they went back to it again.

"You keep saying I don't understand," challenged Mele. "Well, if I don't
understand, tell me. Explain what I don't understand." The plates
holding their lunches were placed before them, but they both ignored the
food, leaning toward each other across the table.

"I've been trying to," said Jase. "You don't seem to listen. There're
more critical elements to this situation than anybody but me seems to
believe. You see, we really didn't know what we were getting into. It's
a matter of instincts, both on our side and on the Rumls. And
instinctive-or, actually, early imprinted-patterns of behavior are more
powerful than the Board members, and particularly you, seem to realize-"

"That again!" said Mele. Her eyes flashed. "Now you're going to suggest
again that I'm something less than a woman as far as instincts go, is
that it? Well-"

"No," said Jase, grimly, but keeping his voice down. "No! You're
deliberately misunderstanding me. I'm just saying that you're typical of
our present times. And our present times-from early twentieth century
on-have been loaded over with the notion of how-to blueprints for
living. It started with popular psychology and spilled over to infect
the whole pattern of man and civilization. I don't say you-or anyone
else-is lacking in natural instincts. I say you and everybody else seems
to have forgotten how much more of a determining factor they are when
the chips are down than intellectual pattern, from Dr. Spock to
automation--"

"Hi, there!" broke in the voice of Thornybright. "Can you stand being
interrupted and intruded on at the same time? I've got someone here I
want you to meet, and he can't wait around until after the meeting this
afternoon."

Jase and Mele straightened up almost guiltily. They had been talking in
fiercely low voices, with their heads almost touching. Now, as they sat
back, Jase saw that standing beside the thin psychologist across the
round table from them was a tall, extremely erect, athletically slim man
with hair so neatly and closely cut it was impossible to tell whether it
was gray or simply blond. This companion of Thornybright's was wearing a
lightweight, gray summer suit, but he wore it on his active figure with
a difference on which Jase could not at the moment put his finger. The
man's face was tanned, sharp-jawed, and he smiled pleasantly.

"Certainly," said Jase. "Sit down. Both of you." He indicated the other
side of the round table and the two chairs there that were normally
never used. "We'll get the waiter over with the menu for you."

"Thanks, we've eaten," said Thornybright, as they pulled out the chairs
and sat down. The waiter, seeing them, came over anyway. "Nothing for
me. How about you, Bill?"

"Nothing, thanks." The other shook his head, smiled at the waiter,
smiled at Mele and Jase, and looked back at Thornybright.

"Oh, yes--," said the psychologist. "Jase, Mele, Td like to have you
meet Bill Coth. He's one of our Air Force generals-a three-star man,
currently tied up with the White House, on special matters. He and I
have been working together on this nationwide mental health program."

"You're a psychologist?" Mele asked him. Coth laughed.

"Sort of left-handedly a psychologist," he said. "Right-handedly I'm a
dedicated military sort."

Jase, who had been about to make a light remark about young Air Force
generals, changed his mind about the color of that short-barbered hair.
The pleasantness and self-possession of the man was a social tool honed
smooth by years of practice. Now that he looked closely, there were
faint lines in the bronzed skin at the outer corners of Goth's eyes,
radiating in a quarter-circle. They deepened and showed when the general
smiled.

"I was telling Bill," said Thornybright, "-go ahead and eat, you two;,
don't mind us-I was telling Bill about your paper on the seasonal
combativeness of the brown bear."

"Left-handedly a zoologist, too?" asked Jase, hastily swallowing a
gravied piece of beef stew that-he now discovered-was growing cold.

"I don't have an extra left hand for it," laughed Coth. "No, I'm just
interested. I was always interested in animals when I was a boy. I
thought of zoology just as I thought about psychology. But an
appointment to the Academy at Denver came through--" He shrugged
cheerfully. "Also, anything concerned with fighting falls into my
right-hand department. I thought I'd like to read a copy of your paper,
but I haven't been able to get hold of a copy."

"It was read, not published," said Jase. "I don't have an extra copy
myself, but I think the Foundation has a copy to lend out. I had the
typescript of it photocopied at the time." He looked at Mele. "Does the
Foundation have a copy?"

"I can find out." She smiled back at Coth, and Jase felt a slight touch
of anger. He knew her well enough to know that she was smiling for his
annoyance.

"I'd appreciate that," said Coth. He launched into a wryly humorous
account of the misadventures that apparently befell him when he tried to
find materials in the Library of Congress from time to time. Jase
returned to his beef stew. By the time he was done, Thornybright was
looking at his wristwatch.

"Well," said the psychologist, "Bill, I guess the three of us are going
to have to take off and leave you. The other people will be waiting for
us to start the meeting back in the library room, now." They all rose,
and Coth shook Jase's hand warmly in parting.

"Don't think I'm trying to butter you up," said the slim general. "But
I've read some of your articles in Natural Science magazine-and I was
fascinated by them." His smile was genuine, and his handclasp was warm.
Jase felt momentarily ashamed of the resentment that had burgeoned in
him following Mele's smile.

Thornybright was right. The rest of the Board was already in the Library
Room waiting for them when they got there. Waiting and seated around the
table.

"I declare this meeting open," said Thornybright, sitting down, starting
the recorder beneath the table, and taking some typewritten notes from
his pocket. "Present are . . ." he read and went on to read other
current information about the date and number of the meeting into the
minutes. "... Shall the minutes of the last meeting be read at this
time? Do I hear a motion?"

"Move no," grunted Dystra. He was looking more like a bull than ever, a
monolith of solid flesh seated between the two arms of his chair.

"Second," said Heller. "Vote," said Thornybright. AH voted aye.

"Reading of minutes of previous meeting are therefore dispensed with,"
said Thornybright. "The Volunteer in this experiment, will now bring
this meeting up to date on his experiences while in contact with the
Ruml Kator Secondcousin Brutogasi."

He sat back in his chair. Jason leaned forward and began talking,
beginning with the interview between Kator and the Examiner at the
Examination Center, through the business -with the Broker, and so on
through the Ruml Homeworld "days" of practice in Brodth's salle d'armes
since.

When he was done, Thornybright declared the question period open.

"This business the Examiner mentioned-about sending an expedition,"
asked Heller. "What's meant by 'expedition,' Jase? And did your contact,
Kator, know about an expedition being sent in advance, or suspect it?"

"He seems to have taken it for granted," said Jase, frowning. "As far as
what it means-he thought about it for just a second there, but the
impression I carried away was that it was a sort of
single-ship-go-and-look thing, rather than an attacking or occupying
force of any kind."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," said Thornybright. "But wasn't the word
'expedition' mentioned before? Wasn't this what the original Brutogas
went on and from which he returned only with the twelve companions he
later killed? I got the impression that 'expedition' was definitely an
occupying or conquering force."

Jase frowned again and searched his memory. It was a curious process, to
have a question draw a complete blank from his human store of memories
and then be able to dredge up an answer out of his remembered alien
experiences as Kator.

"-I'm sorry," he said after a minute. "That's my fault. It wasn't the
same word. I simply used the term 'expedition' to translate both of them
into English. The words are almost the same, and they both mean
essentially 'expedition,' but there's that difference between them. The
Brutogas's expedition was an expedition to take possession. What the
Examiner spoke of was an expedition to explore and report back. The
confusion comes--" Jase searched his mind for a minute. The confusion
comes because both expeditions would be the first sent out to that
particular destination."

"What's the difference?" demanded Dystra. "Why an occupying expedition
to the Brutogas's world and an exploring one to earth?"

"There was no native intelligent life on the Brutogas's world!" said
Jase, disgusted with himself. "Of course! Why didn't I think of it?"

"Then," said Thornybright, interestedly, "perhaps this expedition to
earth is merely preliminary to establishing something like diplomatic
relations with us?"

"No--" the word was hardly past Jase's lips than he realized he had been
tricked by the thin, sharp-minded psychologist.

"Why do you say no?" Thornybright pounded. "What else could it be for? "

"To spy us out," said Jase, grimly.

"With a view to conquering us?"

"-Yes," said Jase.

"You sort of hesitated over answering that," said Thornybright. "Why spy
if they aren't considering conquest-or isn't 'conquest' the right word?"

"I don't know if I can answer that," said Jase, carefully.

"Maybe you better try," said Dystra. They were all looking at him. Jase
felt bitter inside. There was no use trying to avoid the answer with men
like this interested in getting it out of him. And Thornybright- as well
as Dystra, now-would keep after him until they got it.

"Whenever they've come across intelligent or semi-intelligent other
races in the past," said Jase, harshly, "they've either eliminated them
in taking over their worlds or reduced them to a more or less domestic
animal status. But-"

"Why didn't you tell us this before?" demanded Thornybright.

"But-," Jase went on, "as I was going to say, they've only encountered
worlds so occupied twice before. And in neither case were the
intelligence of these races, or their civilization, anywhere near level
with our own. The higher of the two was perhaps on a level with
Pithecanthropus of over two hundred thousand years ago on earth, with a
brain two-thirds the size of present-day man. There's nothing in the
Ruml gestalt so far that leads me to believe that they're incapable of
nonviolent contact and association with their mental and cultural
equals, such as us. The business of sending an expedition is merely
normal procedure with them--"

"Jase," interrupted Dystra, quietly. Jase fell silent. "I think," said
the physicist, "we've cleared up the meaning of the word 'conquest' in
this context. Anyone anything more to say about that?" He looked around
the table. "All right, suppose we get to a question that I think is
considerably more to the point. Jase--" His eyes under their tangled and
bushy brows swung back to center on the face of Jase. "You seem to be
assuming that your contact, Kator, is going to win this duel."

"I think he will," said Jase.

"You think" said Dystra. "This fencing master- Brodth-doesn't seem to
share your confidence, and he's supposed to be their expert." He turned
to face down toward the blond-headed, brilliant young man who was the
only physician on the Board. "Alan, what about it? If Jase's in contact
with this Kator, and Kator's killed in the duel, what happens?"

Alan Creel pursed his lips.

"I can only guess," he said. "We weren't exactly in a position to kill
off one of our human volunteers when we were testing this linkage
equipment to find out what would happen to the other. If the Ruml's
killed ... well-" He hesitated.

"I'll put it bluntly," said Dystra. "Would Jase die, too?"

"Well . . ." said Creel, "there's no definite reason why he should....
On the other hand, the psychic shock would have to be extremely severe.
Someone with a weak heart, say, would be inviting a fatal result. Jase,
of course, is in top physical condition or we wouldn't have picked him
for this work. But, even at that, he's going to share Kator's reactions.
He'll die, psychically, at the same time Kator does. Of course, maybe
the linkage between their minds will fail just before the actual moment
of death, in which case there'd be no psychic shock at all. Jase would
just find himself out of contact."

"But on the whole," Dystra pounded softly on the table with one heavy
fist, you wouldn't advise staying in contact with a mind as it dies?"

"Advise it? Certainly not!" said Creel. "I'd advise against it. In
fact--" He turned to look at Jase. "That's what I do right now. Advise
against it."

"I don't think," said Jase, deliberately, "Kator's going to lose that
duel."

"But if he does?" Dystra demanded.

"If he does-" Jase broke off and then started again. "Well, if he does,
we still can't risk losing what we might learn from my contact with him
between now and then. Once broken, chances are the contact can't be
renewed-you remember we established that on our tests with humans. And
if two humans can't get back into contact again after breaking it,
what's the chances of a human and alien managing it-when the alien
doesn't know he's contacted and they're two hundred light years apart?"

"I don't think," put in Thornybright, "that we've got the right to
decide to risk Jase's We, or whatever damage might come to him."

"You don't have to--," began Jase. But Thorny-bright broke in on him.

"I'm not through, Jase. What I started to say-" The psychologist tapped
deliberately on the polished surface of the table with a spatulate
forefinger. The ticking of his fingernail against the table was emphatic
in the quiet room. "-And I don't mean to insult or blame Jase in any way
when I say this-the situation in this experiment is getting completely
out of hand."

"Completely?" asked Heller, raising his eyebrows.

"I chose the. word deliberately," Thornybright glanced at the biologist
who had been Jase's teacher before turning back to address the gathering
as a whole. "All of us here-r-except Mele-sit in a position of
responsibility toward an experiment that involves not only a human
guinea pig but possibly the future of the whole human race. As it stands
right now, there's a chance our world may be attacked by an alien race
many times our number and with a longer history of space travel and
experience. Our single human contact with this race-our peephole on
their Homeworld-is showing signs-forgive me, Jase, but it's how I
feel-of being at least partisan, if not actually subconsciously
influenced by the alien mind with which he is in contact--"

"Just a minute!" broke in Jase. "I can't let that go into the record
without saying something. I deny any influence, subconscious or
otherwise. As for any desire to be partisan--"

"You wouldn't have to be consciously partisan," said Thornybright.
"Merely sharing Kator's emotional drive toward his own goals could cause
you to identify with those goals to the point where your human judgment
might be biased. Can you look at me right now and guarantee me that
nothing like that can have happened to you since you first made
contact?"

Jase opened his lips and closed them again. Then he spoke.

"I'm positive," he said, "nothing like that has happened."

"You don't guarantee it, however," said Thorny-bright. "I'll go on. In
addition to what I've already mentioned, we've got a situation coming up
in which our human guinea pig may be risking his own life, if not lesser
damage. Now," Thornybright looked deliberately around at all the faces
at the table, "I don't say we ought to vote to make Jase break contact
before the danger of the duel threatens him. I do say, as I've said
before in this room, that it's time to turn this experiment over to the
proper authorities. It's not for us to decide-either on matters of
Jason's life or on matters of possible attack on our world by an alien
civilization."

"As far as my own life's concerned," said Jase, "I claim the right to
make the decision about that."

"The other half of the decision remains, in any case," said
Thornybright. "Now--" He leaned forward. "I brought in a man for lunch
today at the Foundation building here. An Air Force three star General,
William Coth. I introduced him to Jase and Mele just now. He's a good
man, he does special jobs for the Administration, and he has a strong
background in the sciences combined with a proper respect for the
research process. If we move now-instead of waiting until the last
minute-to turn this project over to the government, I'm sure our wishes
as to the man to take authority over it will be respected. Coth is ideal
for the job, from our point of view."

He swung about to face both Jase and Mele.

"You two met him," he said. "I leave it up to you. How did Bill Coth
impress you?"

"I--," began Mele hesitantly, but Jase cut her off.

"He impressed me a good deal," said Jase. "I believe he's everything Tim
here says he is. But the question before us here isn't yet who to turn
the project over to. It's whether to turn it over. Probably-and I trust
Tim in this-we couldn't find a better man than Coth. But I still say we
ought to stay independent on this experiment until the very last minute.
I repeat- there're elements and qualities to the Rural culture which I
haven't been able to render to you. There's just no way of getting
across what I've felt in the process of being Kator. Maybe, once I
completely understand these things I can explain them to you. At least
I'll be able to let you know that I can't do anything with them. Now,
this upcoming duel with Kator is crucial. I want to go through with it.
With no one but the Board behind me."

"Move we put the matter to a vote," said Dystra.

"Second!" said Heller, quickly.

"Object," said Thornybright. "I move for further discussion of this
point."

"Vote on the prior movement," said Dystra. "All in favor . . . r

The vote was straight down the middle. Everybody looked at Jase.

"I vote," said Jase, slowly, "to keep control of this experiment in the
hands of this board and to go through the duel with Kator, whether he is
killed or not. -I vote aye."

He looked at Thornybright. The eyes of the psychologist were unreadable
in a poker face. Turning away from them, he came face to face with the
staring eyes of Mele.

Those eyes were harder to turn away from. He remembered what Creel had
said about the possibilities for him if Kator should die while Jase was
in linkage. And he remembered what at times he came close to
forgetting-that Mele loved him.

CHAPTER NINE

The day the Examination of the Artifact was completed, Jase was standing
in his room, adding the ceremonial kilt for official functions to his
weapons' harness, when the door spoke to him.

"Bela Firstcousin wishes to enter," it said.

Jase turned toward the door.

"Enter," he said.

The door opened, and Bela Firstcousin came in. He looked at Jase with a
strange new combination of liking and respect.

"I'm sent to you with a message," he said. "The Brutogas wants to see
you in his office, before you leave the Castle."

"The Brutogas?"

Jase's hands hesitated on his kilt. He understood now the reason for the
sudden, almost shy, respect in his older cousin and occasional companion
outside the Family walls. A sudden bitter sadness of superstition
assailed him. He had liked Aton Maternaluncle, his scout partner-and he
had been forced to kill Aton. Bela, here, had been his one close
acquaintance within the family, and now he was leaving Bela behind.
Solitary are the great men, said the proverb; and it was true. He became
aware that Bela was watching him in surprise.

"Why do you mourn?" Bela asked. "It is a great Honor as Family Honors
go."

"I know. It's just- I feel the passage of time, suddenly," said Jase.
His hands finished adjusting the kilt. "You talk," said Bela, watching
him, "like a man who has already achieved an honorable age."

"That, too?" said Jase, a little bitterly. "I'm ready. Are you
conducting me?"

"I'll take you to the top level of the Castle and point the way for
you," said Bela. "I can't go any farther with you, and none of the
immediate family can honorably be the guide of a Secondcousin. Come on."

He led Jase out of the room, along corridors, and up two sweeps of
curving ramps to a heavy, tall, white door with a golden handle. Bela
took hold of the handle, turned it, and with effort pushed open the door
enough to admit the body of Kator.

"The Brutogas has four attendants to open such doors," said Bela with a
grimace. "Hurry through."

But Jase hesitated for a moment. Through the partial opening of the door
he looked down a long, lofty corridor of white marble pierced with tall
windows along its right wall. The morning sunlight through those windows
lost its white harshness upon the marble and became soft and glowing.

"Hurry!" repeated Bela, straining against the weight of the door.
"Water, shade, and peace go with you."

"Thank you, cousin," said Jase, gratefully-and walked through into the
sunlit corridor. Behind him he heard the door close with a solemn boom,
but now he did not look back. Bela had told him the route to the office
of the Brutogas. Jase followed it.

Early in the morning as it was, he passed over the whole route without
encountering any of the immediate family/When he came at last to the
smaller, white door with a gold handle that was his destination, memory
awoke in him. He did not remember how he had got here, but he remembered
being here on the single previous occasion of his life-and the single
only occasion normally allowed to those not of the immediate family. It
had been on his naming day, the traditional third hour after he had left
his mother's pouch. Of course, he had seen the Brutogas on a number of
Family ceremonies and occasions since then-though never close up. But
now, raising his hand to the golden handle of the office door, it all
came back; and he remembered the Head of his family not as the grayed
and stooping man of honorable age he had seen at ceremonies, but as a
mysterious towering figure who put a hand on his head and rumbled some
deep, incomprehensible sounds that he was later to learn were "Kator
Secondcousin Brutogas."

Jase's neck trembled under its black fur with the memory. He put his
hand to the handle, opened the door without speaking-for here on the top
level there were no Keysmen, locks, or door speakers-and entered the
office.

It was a smaller room than Jase's memories pictured it. Before the tall
window and behind a desk on a low pedestal, squatted rather than curled
the Brutogas. He was now in person as Jase remembered him from the
Family occasions and ceremonies-a gray, stooped Ruml of honorable age.
Kator approached the desk and inclined his head.

"I am Kator Secondcousin, sir," he said.

The Brutogas considered him, almost ponderingly.

"Yes," said the Family Head, at last, "you were an active youngster.
They could hardly keep you still in here on your Naming Day. Well," he
pushed the papers on the desk aside. "We understand you have ambitions
to lead the expedition shortly to be sent to the Homework! of the
Muffled People."

"Sir?" said Jase, blankly.

"You don't know? That's the name they've pinned on those aliens who
originated that artifact you found and brought back because they
evidently wrap themselves in cloths. But you haven't answered my
question about wanting to lead the expedition?"

"Sir," said Jase, carefully, "I've no idea what the Examination Center
has discovered and deduced about the artifact-"

"Quite right," the Family Head nodded approvingly. "Don't go off
half-cocked until you know what you're getting into. As it happens, I've
got a copy of the report here. Would you like to know what the Center
found?"

"Yes sir," said Jase, standing as stiffly straight as the hinging of his
spine with his pelvis allowed. 1 would."

"Well," said the Brutogas, flicking back the top sheet of a sheaf of
papers lying before him on the desk, "the conclusions are that the
aliens are about our size, biped, of a comparable level of
civilization-"

A small sound of excitement escaped Jase in spite of himself.

"That's right," said the Brutogas, looking up, and repeating himself,
slowly. "A comparable level of civilization. The challenge of a race
like that will be greater than anything in the history of man. But to go
on. . . ." He resumed reading, "A comparable level of civilization but
probably loaded with taboos from an earlier, more primitive stage which
would take the place of a system of Honor. They-you have a question?"

"Sir?" asked Jase. "Can any intelligent beings grow to a level of
civilization without developing a concept and system of Honor?"

The Brutogas nodded approvingly.

"The report considers that question," he said. "The conclusion is: No,
of course they can't avoid the concept of Honor. Development of a
civilization requires a racial self-awareness, self-awareness means that
they must become conscious of the duty of racial survival as an
intellectual matter, and the evolution of a concept of Honor to insure
that survival would be inescapable."

He looked thoughtfully at Jase.

"On the other hand," he said, "it is almost as much a foregone
conclusion that our own system of Honor would be utterly
incomprehensible to them. The chances of it occurring spontaneously in
an alien race are too small to be reckoned in any sensible numbers. What
the Examination Center considers most likely-as I repeated to you-is
that this race will have a system of primitive taboos elaborated to fit
the complexities of a technological civilization. So that while they
will, in effect, operate within a sort of system of Honor for the sake
of survival, they will not understand it."

"But, sir," said Jase, "that means that any expedition sent against them
stands a very good chance of success!"

"Secondcousin, Secondcousin," said the Brutogas, shaking his head. "Do
you think one advantage insures success? They may have either personal
or technological advantages of their own over us."

"But, surely," said Jase, "no material or characteral advantage could
compare with an advantage a system of Honor has over any system?"

"Abstractly speaking, of course not," said the Brutogas. "But
practically speaking, there may be serious stumbling blocks in the
matter of mere alien numbers or ability of alien weapons. It is an
honorable endeavor to die to a good purpose, but it is not honorable to
risk bleeding the race dry. If all the fathers are killed, who will
engender the sons?"

Jase stood silent, feeling rebuked.

"There remains as well," said the Brutogas, after a pause, "the
possibility that they do have-not the same system of Honor as
ourselves-but a comparable one we cannot yet identify. Possibly even a
superior one."

"Superior?" Jase stared at tie Head of his Family.

"Theoretically, it's possible," said the Brutogas. "Remember how it's
said, 'Honor is without limit, effort is without limit. Only Man has a
limit.'"

Jase inclined his head.

"Now," said the Brutogas, "will you answer me about your desire to lead
the expedition to this Home-world of Muffled People?"

"Sir," replied Jase, T desire it very much."

"Yes. I was sure you did." The Brutogas breathed out softly through his
nose and stroked the stiff, gray whiskers around his mouth and nose,
which were twice as long as those of Kator Secondcousin. "And, of
course, it would do our Family reputation no harm to have a member of
our name Keysman on such an expedition."

"Thank you, sir."

"No, that's all right. However," said the Brutogas, slowly, "there's
something you have to understand. It's the reason I called you here
today. The political climate at the moment is such that I cannot in
Honor risk the prestige of the Family in attempting to help you capture
the Keysman post in this expedition-or even the post of Captain-"

"Sir--," began Jase.

"I know, I know." The Brutogas waved his incipient protest to silence.
"Being a Secondcousin, you didn't expect Family assistance in this
endeavor. Nevertheless, I want you to know that I would be disposed to
give it to you, for the sake of the vital spark of ambition I see in
you, if it were not for the political situation. Something perhaps you
don't know is that the selection board will be a seven-man panel, and it
is a practical certainty that the Rods will have four men on it, to only
three of our Hooks."

Jase felt his stomach contract. But he kept his neck stiff and his
posture erect.

"That will make my possible selection a far chance, sir," he said.

"Yes," said the Brutogas. "I'd say so. Wouldn't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"But you're determined to try, anyhow?"

"I see," said Jase, making formality a stiff armor to hold him erect in
the face of this disastrous news, "no reason to change my present view
about the situation, sir."

"I guessed as much." The Brutogas squatted back on his platform, gazing
at him. "Every generation or so one like you crops up in a Family.
Ninety-nine per cent of them end up as disasters. Only," he added
softly, "one in a million is ... remembered, as a success."

"Sir," said Jase, his head spinning. He had never dreamed that his
ambition would become known to the Head of his Family.

"The Brutogasi," said the older man, "can have no official concern in
this ambition of yours, and no interest in officially backing you for
Keysman of this proposed expedition. But, if by some miracle you should
succeed, I imagine I can trust to your Honor to give credit to the
Family for counsel and guidance, and other assistance."

"Sir-how could you think otherwise?" Jase almost cried out.

"I didn't, really. It's my duty to mention it, only." The Brutogas
breathed out through his nose, sighingly. "It's also my duty to mention
now that if your attempt should somehow end up with you in a scandalous
or other than honorable position, you must expect that mortgage you
pawned on your Family coffer-rights will be immediately called in for
payment."

The contraction of Jase's stomach increased.

"I understand, sir," he said.

"Well," said the Brutogas, "that's all. But my personal wishes go with
you. Shade be yours, water be yours, peace be yours."

"I honor the Head of my Family, now and ever," said Jase.

Slowly he backed to the door and went out. The last sight he had of the
office showed the gray head of the Brutogas bending once more above the
papers on his desk.

He hardly knew how he found his way back through the sunlit marble
corridors. But once away from them and once outside the palace, he took
the shuttle toward the Examination Center and made a definite effort to
shake off the emotion of his interview with the Head of his Family. Such
emotion was an honorable thing, but he needed all his faculties for what
was coming.

Twelve invitations for the post of Keysman had been sent out in response
to the, naturally, hundreds of applications for interview. Only those
with some claim to consideration would be allowed before the Selection
Board. Jase's claim was that it was he who had found the Artifact, and
that he could therefore claim that the Random Factor favored him over
all other candidates. To anyone not acquainted with politics and
selection boards, this claim undoubtedly would have seemed so paramount
as to make the act of selection a formality.

Actually, Jase had received only the eleventh of the twelve invitations
distributed by the Board. It could, Jase told himself on the shuttle
bus, be worse. He could have been the twelfth invited.

When he was finally at the Examination Center's Headquarters Building,
and had finally been summoned in to face the six-man board-in the room
from which he had watched the ten previous candidates depart-he
discovered the faces behind the table to be exactly as cold-eyed and
gray-whiskered as he had feared.

Only one member looked at him with anything resembling approval. And
that was because this member happened to be himself a Brutogasi-Ardolf
Half-Brother. The other five board members were-in order from Ardolf at
the extreme right behind the table- a Cheles, a Woma (both Hooks
politically and therefore possibly votes for Jase), four Rods, a
Gulbano, a Perth, an Achobka, and the Nelkosan himself. This last could
hardly be worse. Not only did the Nelkosan, as a Family Head, outrank
everyone else on the board, but it was to his family that Aton
Maternal-uncle, Kator's dead scout partner, had belonged. The board of
inquiry on Jase's return had found him not chargeable with Aton's death.
But the Head of Aton's Family could hardly in honor accept this verdict
with grace. As an honorable man, it would be his duty to damage Jase if
he possibly could.

Jase took a deep breath through his nose as he halted before the table
behind which the six were ranked and saluted with his claws extended
from his right fingers over his heart region.

"I am Kator Secondcousin Brutogas, sirs," he said, "responding to your
kind invitation to be here at this time. I trust I am among friends."

"Here, Secondcousin," said the Nelkosan, responding as Senior board
member with the traditional guarantee, "you are among friends." s

Jase breathed more easily. The guarantee was honorable, but not
required. Evidently the Nelkosan was a man of strict customs. However,
if strict in fairness, he was strict in duty as well. Without pausing
for breath he plunged into the procedure of the board.

"The candidate," he said, "may just as well start out by trying to tell
us of what reasons he may have, in addition to the one stated in his
application, to justify us in awarding the post of Keysman on this
important expedition to one so young."

"Honorable board members," answered Jase, clearly and distinctly. "My
record is before you, attached to my application. May I point out,
however, that training as a scout, involving as it does work on both a
scientific and ship-handling level, as well as association at close
quarters with a scout partner . . ."

He talked on. Jase had, like all the candidates, carefully prepared and
rehearsed beforehand the speech he would present to the board. The board
itself listened now with the mild boredom of a body that has heard ten
such speeches already. The single exception to this air of boredom was
the Nelkosan, who sat forbiddingly alert.

When Jase finally concluded, the board members turned and looked at each
other.

"Well," said the Nelkosan, briefly, "shall we vote on the candidate?"

Heads nodded along the table. Hands reached for ballot chips-black for
acceptance, red for rejection-the four Rod members automatically picking
up red, the Hooks reaching for black. Jase licked his whiskers furtively
with a dry tongue and opened his mouth before the chips were gathered
in.

"I appeal!" he said.

Hands checked in midair. The board woke up suddenly, as one man. Seven
pairs of black eyes centered suddenly upon Jase. Any candidate might
appeal-but to do so was to call the board wrong or unfair upon one of
its actions, and that meant somebody's Honor was to be called in
question.

For a candidate without Family backing to question a board of elders
such as sat on a board of selection like this was to lay his whole
future life upon the outcome of the appeal. The board sat back on their
platforms and considered Jase.

"On what basis, if the candidate pleases?" asked the Nelkosan in far too
pleased a tone of voice.

"Sir, on the basis that I have another reason to urge for my selection
than that of past experience," said Jase.

"Interesting," rumbled the Nelkosan. He glanced down the table at the
other board members. "Don't you think so, sirs?"

"Sir, I do find it interesting," said Ardolf Half-brother, the Brutogas,
in such an even tone that it was impossible to tell whether he was
echoing the Nelko-san's hidden sneer or taking issue with it.

"In that case, candidate," the Nelkosan turned back to Jase, "by all
means go ahead. What other reason do you have to urge? I must say-" He
glanced down the table again meaningfully. "I hope it justifies your
appeal."

"Sir, I think it will." Jase thrust a hand into his harness pouch,
withdrew something small, and, stepping forward, put it down on the
table before them all. He took his hand away, revealing a cube of clear
plastic in which a small figure could be seen as if floating there.

"A dirtworm?" The Nelkosan raised his whiskers.

"No, sir," said Jase. "The body of a primitive life -form from the
planet of the Muffled People."

"What?" Suddenly the room was in an uproar, and there was no board
member not on his feet. For a moment everyone seemed to be talking at
once, and then all the voices died away as all eyes fastened on Jase,
who was standing at attention before them.

"Where did you get this?"

It was the Nelkosan speaking. And, for all the fact that the question
could not be other than rhetorical, his voice was like frozen rock.

"Sirs," said Jase-and inside him he glowed with the knowledge that under
his neck fur he was not even sweating. Now that the final moment had
come, he felt elated, lifted up and carried forward by the great
endeavor to which he had committed himself. His voice was calm. "Sirs,
from the artifact I brought back to Homeworld."

"And you've never turned it in to the proper authorities here at
Examination Center? Or reported the fact you possessed it?"

"No, sir."

There was a moment's dead silence in the room.

"You know what this means?" The words came spaced and distinct from the
Nelkosan. The face of the Family Head was as stiff as a mask. While he
had been honorably committed to frustrating or discrediting Kator
Secondcousin, this development went beyond honorable reprisal. It was a
matter of the most delicate Honor, and the Nelkosan was now as
impersonal as a judge.

"I realize," answered Jase, "what it would mean ordinarily-"

"Ordinarily!"

"Yes, sir. Ordinarily. However, my case," ,said Jase, "is not ordinary.
I did not take this organism from the artifact for the mere desire of
possessing it."

The Nelkosan squatted back down on his platform, and the other board
members, as if this had been a signal, followed his example.

"You did not?" asked the Nelkosan.

"No, sir."

"Why did you take it then-if we may ask?"

"Sir," said Jase, "I took it after deep consideration for the specific
purpose of exhibiting it to this board of selection for the post of
Keysman on the Expedition to the planet of the Muffled People."

His words went out and seemed to fall dead in the face of the silence of
the watching members of the board. A lengthening pause rang on and on in
his ears as he waited.

"Why did you decide this?" asked the voice of the Nelkosan.

"Sir," said Jase, "and members of the board, you whose responsibility in
Honor it is to select the Keysman, the man of final authority on ship
and off of this expedition, know better than anyone else how important
the expedition is. It is an honorable and common trait to feel sure of
ourselves in the face of a great endeavor. But confidence is only part
of what is needed for command of this expedition. The Keysman in charge
must not only be confident-but certain of his ability to succeed in this
first contact with a race which may turn out to be nearly the equal of
our own."

He stopped and looked at them for some sign of reaction. But they were
all men of honorable age. Their expressions were unreadable.

"I searched my mind," Jase went on, "for some proof of the certainty I
felt inside me that I was the man to succeed in this important work. I
felt it was necessary to perform some act symbolic of that certainty, so
that when the present moment of selection came, you-sirs of the
board-could feel justified in choosing me to be Keysman."

He paused again.

"Go on," said the Nelkosan, in a perfectly level tone of voice, watching
him through slitted eyes.

Therefore I took and kept the dead alien organism," said Jase. "And I
now offer it to you in evidence of my own commitment to the task of the
expedition. So highly do I regard that commitment that I've put my
financial worth, my Family ties, and, finally, my personal Honor at
stake in order to make one gesture that will convince you that in me you
would have a Keysman who will place a successful return from this
expedition above all else. I'm in your hands, sirs of the board. If you
reject me for the post to be selected here, you should be sure that
whoever you pick has a dedication to the purpose of the expedition
superior to my own."

He stopped talking. They looked back at him from behind the table
without commenting. Then the Nelkosan spoke.

"You take property that should belong to the Examination Center here,"
he said, "and, not content with that, you presume to instruct this board
whom to choose for Keysman of a vital and unique expedition. The
question is-" He leaned forward toward Jase. "Is this all mere
effrontery and bluff? Or are you actually putting everything in the
balance for this appointment."

The tone of voice in which he spoke was serious and honestly inquiring.
Jase's stomach lifted. He had, at least, succeeded in carrying the
Nelkosan beyond the area of small reprisal into the open questions of
honor. Now was the moment. The die was cast.

"So strongly," Jase said, "do I regard my actions in taking the alien
organism as correct and honorable evidence of my right not only to the
post of Keysman by virtue of the Random Factor that brought the artifact
within my ken in the first place, that-" He had to pause to draw a
breath in spite of his self-possession. "-I challenge your right to take
the organism from me now!"

And, suddenly, to Jase's eyes, the scene before him whirled, blurred,
and disappeared ....

CHAPTER TEN

He woke, struggling and crying out. Hairless faces were all around him.
Hairless hands were getting him to his feet and guiding him down
fantastic corridors and into a cage that rose upward.

". . . No!" he said, struggling. "My Honor. The duel..."

"Jase! Jase!" One hairless face was shoved close to his. 'It's all
right! This is Alan Creel-don't you remember? I gave you a posthypnotic
suggestion to wake up when the time for the duel came. Now, we're just
taking you upstairs where I have my equipment handy in case of trouble."

Jase's mind whirled. What he heard made sense- and it did not make
sense. Everything was mixed up.

"You can go back to sleep just as soon as we get you to the other room .
. ." said the voice of the face called Alan Creel.

Jase stopped struggling and let them lead him along, out of the cage and
along another corridor, this time darkly walled with some strange
substance. The part that sounded all right was all right, and for the
other, he was going to get back in time for the duel, so that would be
all right too.

They were taking him through a door into a brightly lit room. The room
was full of mechanical equipment that was familiar. There was a long,
narrow, white-surfaced table with a headrest. They were helping him up
on it.

He lay on his back. The light was in his eyes blindingly for a moment;
then someone said something and tilted it away. Shadow shielded his
eyes. He felt a prick just below the inner elbow of his right arm.

"You'll be all right. You can go back now. Go back. ..." It was the
voice of the man-man?-called Alan Jase felt his senses swirling. This
scene, this nightmare dissolved. . . .

He was back again in familiar surroundings. It was a gymnasium of the
Examination Center. At the other end of the gym were the six members of
the selection board. One of them-the Nelkosan-was talking to a tall and
powerfully built man whose black coat of fur was shiny with health. In a
sling over his shoulder the tall man, who could be no other than the
Nelkosan's Family champion, wore a long, twin-bladed dueling sword.

"Here he comes now," said a familiar voice.

Jase turned and saw Brodth the Swordsmaster. Abruptly, all confusion
cleared from his mind. He remembered Brodth offering to meet him here
and act as his weaponsbearer. Looking back across the room, Jase saw the
Nelkosan champion approaching him. He was a pleasant, calm, capable
fellow, if large; and he saluted both Jase and Brodth as he stopped
before them.

"I am Horaag Adoptedson," he said to Jase. "Champion for the Nelkosan.
You are Kator Secondcousin Brutogas?"

"Sir," said Jase. "I am."

Then, sir," said Horaag, "I find that as deputy for the Nelkosan, Honor
requires me to charge you with arrogance and defiance directed toward my
principal."

"Sir," said Jase, "you must either withdraw that charge or fight me with
the weapons of my choice." .

"In Honor I will fight you," said Horaag. "What weapons did you have in
mind?"

Jase licked his whiskers.

"Double-sword," he said. Horaag started to nod. "And shields," said
Jase.

Horaag stopped in mid-nod. He stared at Jase, and there was a slight
stiffening to the skin around his nose.

"Are you serious?" he asked, still even-voiced.

"My principal," put in Brodth, "is entirely serious."

Horaag's eyes swung to Brodth and apparently recognized him as another
Swordsmaster. He stared for a moment.

"Sir," he said. "May I ask-are you Brodth Younger-brother?"

"I am," said Brodth. Horaag saluted him.

"It's an honor to meet you, sir." He turned and called past Jase and
Brodth. to a different comer of the room. "Match Umpire?"

A lean man, only just beginning to gray about the ears, came over to
them.

"Sirs?" he asked courteously.

"May I introduce," said Horaag, "the match umpire of this gymnasium,
Bolf Paternalnephew Cheles. Bolf, these are my opponents."

"I've already met them." Bolf saluted Jase and Brodth. "What's the
question?"

"My principal opponent," said Horaag, "wishes to fight with
double-blade-and shield. Is this within the honorable canons of combat?"

"I'll check the records." Bolf went off. Horaag made polite conversation
with Jase and Brodth. He was evidently interested mainly in talking to
Brodth, but to devote a majority of his attention to the weapons bearer
of his principal opponent would have been discourteous, when Jase was
directly in front of him. Horaag made, therefore, general conversation,
complimenting Jase on having encountered the artifact and discussing the
size of the expedition that would be sent out.

Bolf Paternalnephew came back across the gym floor to them.

"Shields," he announced, "are archaic and generally out of use, but
still permissible. However, if the Nelkosan Champion wishes to enter a
demur on the grounds that he is unfamiliar with shields. ..."

"Not at all," said Horaag. As Champion he could not honorably demur,
although it was his legal right. As Family representative, it was his
responsibility not to be unfamiliar with any sort of weapons. "If you
can find me a shield, Bolf-I'll use my own sword, since I'm familiar
with it. ... "

"Certainly," said the match umpire.

"I'll get my principal's weapons," said Brodth. All three went off.
Brodth had been required naturally to check the weapons with the
entrance gatekeeper of the Examination Center, while Horaag had a permit
to carry his. While Jase waited, he saw Horaag experimenting with the
round, target-shaped shield Bolf had found for him. It was a blank
circle of metal designed to be held with the left arm through two
handles on the inner surface, while the right hand used the sword.
Horaag was trying fencing lunges with his long, twin-bladed sword and
trying to decide what to do with the shield Honor required him to carry.
At arm's length behind him in normal fencing position, the shield threw
him off balance. Held before him, it restricted his movements.

Jase's weapons came-the same with which he had practiced so assiduously
during the clays past. He took them from Brodth. The shield was like the
one found for his opponent, but the sword he now grasped was as archaic
as the shield. Guardless, wide-bladed, and short, it was one of those
Brorlth had kept hanging on the wall of the room to which he had taken
Jase that first day.

Jase slid his left hand and arm through the handles on the inside of the
shield and grasped the forward handle in his fist. He took hold of the
hilt of his sword with almost an underhand grip and, instead of adopting
the fencing position, took up a position like a boxer-left shoulder and
shield forward, instead of right shoulder forward and sword extended.

The members of the board and a dozen or so other spectators who had
gathered murmured at the sight of this. A voice commented on the
similarity between Jase's fighting position and that of figures in old
carvings depicting ancestral warriors who had used such ancient weapons.
Horaag, with the remarkable adaptability of the trained athlete, fell
into a duplication of Kator's stance, but with some clumsiness evident.
Bolf Paternalnephew signalled to them both and they approached each
other in the center of the gym.

"You are met here," Bolf Paternalnephew began as they stood facing each
other, weaponed and ready, "in the interests of Honor and according to
the code of honorable combat to resolve a situation for which other
solution cannot be found. . . ." Jase listened with only half an ear.
His eyes were wide, and it seemed to him that he could smell every
person in the room, and every scent of the room itself. And every sound
in it, no matter how tiny, came clearly to his sense of hearing even
through the drone of Bolf s voice.

He thought that in a little while, a very short space of time, perhaps a
long enough time -to listen to the song of the first Brutogas, he would
be successful or he would be dead. He repeated again to himself that he
would be dead-but he could not seem to believe it. Never had he felt so
alive. His heart beat steadily and strongly, but not rapidly. The breath
moved smoothly in and out of his nostrils. He was sweating lightly under
the fur at his throat, but it v/as not so much the sweat of fear as of
exultation.

He looked at the tall, massive figure of Horaag Adoptedson, and the
long, twin-bladed sword the other held. He saw them with such clarity
that he could pick out little nicks and scars near the cross-piece of
the hilt guard and count the scars marking the smooth pelt of Horaag's
fur-like little lines, where the hairs lay all one direction on one side
of the line and all the other direction on the other. He could even see
the dark lines of the veins just inside the openings of Horaag's
nostrils.

". . . and this case is a case of the thirty-ninth case," Bolf was
saying, "in that it is provided that if a man have a thing and it be
denied him that he keep it, he may honorably challenge the right of the
one who withholds it from him-the right to claim Champion by either
party notwithstanding as in the withholding party in this case.
Therefore, as match umpire, I declare this combat to be authorized, to
be taking place before witnesses, and to be honorable-go!"

The starting word shocked Jase from his thoughts. Had it not been for
the days of training, he might have hesitated-but reflexes responded for
him.

He and Horaag moved together, and Jase got his shield up just in time to
deflect a thrust from Horaag's long sword. As the impact jarred him
backward, a thrill ran through Jase. Suddenly, it seemed that he and
Horaag were alone in some far place where not merely the sight but the
sound of all that was around them had faded away. They were caught up
together in a moment that excluded all else, partners in a dance which
only one of them would finish. Over the edge of his shield he could see
Horaag's eyes narrowing as if thoughtfully as their swords clanged on
each other and on the opposing shields.

A distant shout penetrated the isolation that surrounded them. For a
second Jase almost closed his ears in annoyance. Then he recognized the
voice. It was Brodth, shouting at him in warning. Jase had been giving
ground. The gray-furred swordsmaster had warned him of this, repeatedly
during the days of practice that had led up to this. The advantages of
the ancient shield and short, archaic sword lay in the field of
attack-going in under the long blade of the opponent. Jase crouched,
struck upward with his shield at Horaag's blade as it came in again, and
stepped forward, bringing his sword up from under.

Horaag gave ground. Jase felt sudden exaltation. Then, without warning,
the taller man circled to his left. For a moment Jase's own shield held
his vision- and Horaag drove in an attack. Jase, turning hurriedly,
tripped and almost went down. Horaag was instantly on top of him. Jase
thrust the taller man back with his shield. Horaag, quick to learn,
struck back with his own shield, using it as a weapon.

Jase slipped under the blow, took the full force of a second blow from
the much stronger man, and was driven to one knee.

Horaag struck down with his sword. Jase caught it with his shield,
struck with his own sword upward from the kneeling position, and missed.
Horaag shortened his sword for a death thrust downward-and Jase, moving
his shorter double blade in a more restricted circle, came up inside the
shield and sword-guard of the bigger man and thrust Horaag through the
shoulder. Horaag dropped the sword from his nerveless fingers and threw
his good arm around his smaller opponent to break his back. Jase,
letting go his sword hilt now that there was no longer room to use the
weapon, reached up and clawed the throat of his opponent.

They fell together.

When a bloody and breathless Jase was pulled from under the body of
Horaag, he saw only an arms length away, the Nelkosan standing, holding
in one fist the ring of keys to a ship of the line. The keys to every
room and instrument of the ship which would carry the expedition to the
planet of the Muffled People.

He handed them to Jase.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Jase slept without dreams.

It was not the sleep in which he was in the body of Kator. It was the
dreamless sleep brought on by heavy sedation, which had followed on his
waking from the successful conclusion of the duelling incident, and
recognizing, this time, that he was back on earth among friends of his
own kind. It was also the sleep of exhaustion. But, drugged as it was,
and deep as it was, a feeling of confusion seemed to exist through it,
stirring and troubling him so that he seemed to feel dark shapes
approaching and threatening him in strange fashion.

At moments he felt that these shapes were the shapes of Ruml. At other
moments he was equally sure they were human. --Finally they left him and
he slept without dreaming and without stirring. . . .

When he woke, his basement room had no seated in its armchair keeping
him under observation. He rose on one elbow and looked at the clock on
the bedstand beside his bed. Its yellow, luminescent hands stood at a
little after three o'clock. He sat up, shaking the sleep from his head,
and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

He thought of coffee. Heavy with the lethargy that follows such deep
slumber, he fumbled into his clothes and headed for the door. But the
knob jarred against his hand when he tried to turn it, and the door
itself stayed closed.

Frowning, he twisted hard on the knob and shoved the door. It quivered
but did not open. He began to come awake. He jerked and rattled at the
door-and woke at last to the fact that it was not meant for him to open
it.

"Locked!" he said out loud, looking over at the empty chair where an
observer should have been sitting. So, since there was no one handy to
watch him, they had locked him up like a criminal or a maniac?

Rage suddenly boiled up in him. He took hold of the knob, threw his
shoulder against the door above it, and-much more easily than he had
expected, for he had never broken open a door before-the latch socket
tore out of the door frame, and the door swung open. He stumbled into
the basement corridor.

His rage had mounted rather than diminished with the breaking of the
door. He headed at a fast walk for the basement stairs to the floors
above, ignoring the slow and creaky elevator. Turning the corner at the
far end of the corridor to reach the foot of the stairs, he ran head on
into a young man in army suntans and wearing a gunbelt with a pistol
bolstered to it.

"Just a minute," said the young man, catching his arm. "You can't go up
there. You have to go back to your room-"

Jase, redly angry, tore his arm from the other's grasp.

"What're you going to do, shoot me?" he said-and, shouldering roughly
past the young man, went up the stairs two at a time.

When he emerged on to the dark green carpet of the ground floor
carpeting, he found the hall there full of men and officers in uniform.
They stared at him, and some of them moved toward him or tried to speak
as if they would stop him, but he charged past them all, down the
corridor around toward the back of the building and the library room.
The door to the library room was open. A man in plain clothes was
standing in the entrance. Jase thrust past him into the room.

Inside, the room was half full. Present were Mele, all the members of
the Board, and Bill Goth, the general Tim had introduced to Jase and
Mele just a week previously. Today he was wearing his uniform, and with
him were a short, bullet-headed middle-aged man in a gray suit of
European cut and a bookkeeperish looking man, sum, about fifty, and
wearing old-fashioned glasses rather than contact lenses over pale blue
eyes, under blond hair and faded eyebrows.

The sound of Jase's entrance, to say nothing of the shout immediately
given by the man he had passed in the doorway, brought all their eyes
around.

"What're you doing up here, Jase?" asked Coth. "-- No, let him go,
Hobart." The man in the doorway, who had grabbed Jase from behind, let
go just in time to avoid having his instep smashed by Jase's right shoe
heel. Jase stared savagely at Coth.

"Was it your idea to lock me in?" Jase said fiercely. "What're you doing
here with all this gang?"

"I brought him, Jase."

It was Thornybright, standing a little removed from Coth and the other
strangers. The psychologist stood slim and erect in a blue business
suit, and his manner was as sharply self-possessed as ever.

"You?" Jase stared at him. "Why?"

"That's just what Bill and I have been in the process of explaining,"
said Thornybright. "Things with this project had reached the point where
I felt we couldn't go any longer without informing the proper
authorities and turning control over to them. We held a meeting, and I
gave the rest a last chance to vote that the project be turned over.
When we split down the middle again, I called Bill in." He glanced over
at the slim, tanned military man. "He'd been waiting outside."

"Oh?" said Jase. He stalked over to stand looking down at the
psychologist. "And what were you doing, calling a meeting when I wasn't
there?"

Thornybright stared back up at him, a thin whip of a man four inches
shorter and only two-thirds the weight of Jase. His gaze was as cold and
unintimidated as ever.

"Maybe I ought to remind you, Jase," he said, "you aren't actually a
member of this Board."

"And maybe I ought to remind you-" said Jase. "If we're going to start
acting on our own, maybe I ought to remind you that I'm the project.
Me!" Jase drove his own forefinger against his chest. He felt as though
there was fire in his skull. "I'm the one who's necessary to what we're
doing here-not the rest of you. And I'm an American citizen--" he broke
off, looking around at the rest of the board members, seated in their
chairs. Dystra sat solidly, looking back at him with no apparent
emotion. "That reminds me," Jase said grimly. "We seem to have been
illegally invaded. Why isn't anyone calling the police-or a lawyer?"

"That's not necessary--," Thornybright was beginning, when Coth
interrupted him.

"I think Jase will see that, all right," he said, smiling at Jase. "It's
just that no one's explained the situation to him, yet. Jase, I'd like
you to meet a couple of people." He turned to the bulletheaded man.
"This is-" The name he spoke baffled Jase's ear with its foreign
pronunciation. "He's here to more or less represent the foreign members
of this Foundation of yours, and their governments. You might think of
him as the man from the United Nations."

"How do you do," said the man from the United Nations, without a trace
of accent but with an intonation that rang strangely on Jase's ear. Jase
nodded shortly.

"And," said Coth, looking over at the tall, spectacled man, "this is
Artoy Swanson, from the White House. If you need a lawyer, he can get
you the Inspector General." Coth smiled.

"I'll take him up on that," said Jase.

Coth's smile did not so much fade as become slightly grim.

"You aren't being particularly reasonable," he said slowly.

"No," said Jase. "Why don't you and the others just get die hell out?"

"No," said Coth, meeting his eye but still speaking pleasantly.

"Then I will," said Jase. He turned and headed for the door.

"Hobart," said the thin, bespectacled Swanson. The man in civilian
clothes moved to block the exit. Jase stopped and turned. He looked
sardonically at Thorny-bright.

"Now, wait a minute, Bill," said Thornybright. "There's other ways--"

"I'm afraid not," said Swanson. The spectacled man, for all his air of
mildness, was definite. His interruption of Thornybright was a little
like stopping a tiger with a feather, but the psychologist stayed
stopped. Swanson took off his glasses and began to clean them with a
paper tissue he took from a side pocket of his suitcoat. "We're all
volunteers here, Mr. Thornybright. The situation was all talked over
this morning-in quarters elsewhere. It was clearly accepted that any
legal way of controlling you people would be too slow. We'd have to
start out by finding cause for an injunction ... all sorts of red tape.
And meanwhile, things would be happening to and with Jase here."

"To and with," echoed Jase. "I thought that would be the first thing
that would come to the top of your minds when you heard about the
project-the notion that I'm being controlled by aliens." He looked
grimly across at Thornybright, who looked back with no change of
expression. "So you're just skipping our legal rights, is that it?"

"Now look here!" said Swanson, with a touch of exasperation. "Be
reasonable. You people have gone ahead on your own without any authority
from this government, or any government on earth, for that matter, and
made contact with an alien race, an alien civilization bigger, better,
stronger than ours and evidently containing individuals intent on wiping
us out. Did you expect us to subpoena you to a congressional
investigation?"

"There wasn't any particular secrecy about the project!" said
Thornybright sharply. "It, and the equipment we were using, has been
written up in a dozen technical journals. And from there it got into the
newspapers via the science writers."

"Who reads technical journals, with a million articles a year being
published in nearly a thousand different languages?" said Swanson. "And
who believes science writers-or if they believe, remember for ten
minutes afterward what they've read?" He looked at Jase. "No one who
knew of what you were doing seriously thought anything would come of
it."

"No," said Jase, bitterly, "they never do."

"But you did," said Swanson. "And for my money you ought to have had
more of a sense of responsibility. To your-to the world, and the rest of
the people on it. At any rate, as I say, all of us here are volunteers.
You can sue us afterward, if you want-and if there's any courts to sue
in. For me, that won't make much difference. For General Coth it's a
pretty bad finish to twenty-eight years of military service. But none of
us are worrying about it. The thing is, we're in charge here now-and
from here on out."

He looked around at the board members. "We're going to have to hold you
all-at least for the present. We'll move you all now to an Air Force
installation, a small one, not too far from Washington here. When we get
this project of yours under control, we'll turn you loose, and--" He
grimaced. "You can try, suing us or getting us sent to jail or whatever
you like. But for now--"

"No," said Jase.

Swanson looked at him.

"No, I don't think so," said Jase. He backed up and sat down on the edge
of the table, around which the board normally sat and where, with the
exception of Mele and himself, they were sitting now. "You're not going
to move them, me, or anything else out of this building."

Swanson took off his spectacles.

"Oh?"

That's right," said Jase. "You must have missed hearing me when I was
talking to Tim Thornybright, just now. I reminded him that I was the
project. And I am-and you can't force me to move from here, or do
anything I don't want to do. And I don't want to be separated from the
library in this building."

Swanson put his spectacles back on.

"I think you'll do what we want. And, after all," he said, "we only want
you to go on doing what you have been doing, contacting this Kator and
reporting what you experience."

"What if I don't?" said Jase. "Don't report, I mean?"

"We can make it uncomfortable for you," said Goth, seriously. Jase
looked over at the general.

"What if I lie about what I experience?" he asked.

"Oh," Coth laughed, answering immediately, "we could tell, of course."

Jase stared at him for a moment. Then he too laughed-but not lightly,
grimly.

"You're good," said Jase. "For a second you sounded so certain of
yourself to me, I was almost ready to believe you. No, you couldn't
tell. And you know you couldn't tell." He looked from Coth to Swanson
and the other man. "I'm the only link you have with the Ruml, and you
need my willing cooperation-you need it more than anything else, because
without me, you've got nothing left but your nightmares about invading
aliens."

He paused.

"So," he said, slowly, "I'll tell you how you'll get that cooperation.
You can stay with the project now you've joined it, but if you think
you're going to run it, you're wrong. The board will go on acting like
it always has. You three can sit on it, that's all. And I'll go on as
I've been doing-without any interference from you, or the Board either."

There was dead silence in the library room. He and Swanson stood
watching each other. After a moment Swanson took off his spectacles.

"Temporarily," he said, calmly, "all right."

Jase nodded slowly and turned around to Mele. He was about to say that
now that the excitement was over, he wanted something to eat. He was
about to ask her to join him in the dining room while the board sat down
with its three new members to heal the smart of Jason's declared
independence with talk. But he did not ask her.

Her eyes were gazing at him with as much shock as if he had made a
Jekyll and Hyde switch before her eyes into the alien form of Kator. As
if she did not know him.

He went out of the library room toward the dining room, alone.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Kator moved aboard the Expedition Ship immediately. The outfitting of
such a ship could draw on past experience of the Examination Center, and
the aim was to have the ship ready to leave the moment investigation of
the artifact was completed. The selection of Kator as Keysman had taken
place the morning of completion of the artifact Examination. And the
Captain and crew of the ship were completed in the next few days.

Jase, in Kator's body, sat in on these later selections. In theory, he
could veto any candidate. In practice, the selection boards knew their
business, and it would have been impolitic for him to have interfered.
So he sat silent on the board and watched his crew chosen. It did not,
Jase learned from Kator's thoughts, matter very much who were chosen to
go on the ship as far as Kator's private intentions were concerned. And
Kator had his own plans to consider.

So had Jase. In the Ruml's body, he was swept along by Kator's feelings
and imagination. In his own body, surrounded now by the eyes of not only
the board but Swanson, Coth, the man from the United Nations and their
assistants, he tried to wall out everything else but his recording of
what he experienced as Kator and his personal search for the meanings
behind it.

Secretly, he had lost part of his earlier confidence. It was one of the
reasons he had blown up when he found the door of his room locked, and
later when he found Swanson and the others attempting to take over
upstairs. Swanson and the rest wore like open badges on their coat
fronts the belief that Jase was falling-if he had not already
fallen-under the domination of Kator's alien personality. The unspoken
implication roused Jase to fury. Such domination would e as fantastic as
superstition.

But, he was no longer sure it was impossible.

This he kept to himself. From the beginning there had been a side of
Kator he could not translate to the board members or any other earthly
observer. This was the whole area of Kator's feelings as a Ruml. It
began with, Kator's pride in himself as a member of the Ruml race-a
pride that was comparable to the unconscious and unstated feeling of
superiority in a human when he thought of himself in comparison to an
animal. But it went on-far on-from there. Into an area of the Ruml
racial personality for which there were no human equivalents. And it was
all completely unconscious. The Rumls did not put it into words even
among themselves. Why should they? It was a part of the unconscious
knowledge of all of them.

As a race, they assumed certain things. They took for granted certain
things-things no human would imagine, let alone take for granted.

Where the human mind and personality was duplicated by the Ruml, there
was no danger that Jase might be disturbed by the contact. But in this
other, this truly alien area. . . . Jase had begun to feel the first
stirrings of fear. For the first time he admitted to himself that Kator,
without knowing even that Jase was there, might by simply existing be
able to attack and destroy certain human elements in Jase. It might be
that Kator's personality could infect and conquer Jase's personality
unconsciously.

It was the duel that had brought Jase finally to this conclusion. Up
until then, he had been approaching the truth without seeing it, as a
man might be going up a mountain without realizing he was already on its
lower slopes. The essential difference between the human and the Ruml
was something that Jase had appreciated from the beginning in a way no
one else could do. But even he, he thought now, might have been led
astray. He had realized how different were the Rumls-but even he had
thought of that difference as the sort of difference that there is
between- say-a man and an intelligent black bear.

He had forgotten that where there was intelligence, there had to be a
history-and a culture-even a soul.

Both man and Ruml were such that they would fight and die for certain
concepts. What if those concepts were not understandable by each other?

What if they were diametrically opposed?

Men and Ruml could rush at each other in mutual self-destruction. Both
utterly convinced of their right-ness, both committed to fighting to the
death with no compromise-over a difference of unconscious opinion they
could not verbalize to themselves, let alone to each other.

And there was only one person on either side who could do anything to
avert this Armageddon of two races. Jase. If only, somewhere in the
books and technical and professional journals through which he searched,
he could uncover some mutually understandable concept in this
unconscious area. Something non-human, non-Ruml, but recognizable by
both. Something in biology or zoology that both races could understand.

Meanwhile, since the duel, the sneaking fear of infection in him by
Kator's personality stayed always in the back of his mind. There was no
way of resolving it into concrete terms, any more than there seemed to
be of getting rid of it. Once he could have used Mele for a touchstone.
But now there was a wall between them. Since that day in the library
room with Swan-son and the others, she had carried what was almost a
fear of him, a conviction of his unreasonableness. She seemed, thought
Jase bitterly, to feel that he was being arbitrary out of sheer love of
power.

She did not, thank heaven, share the feeling that Kator might be
infecting him. But the fear rode Jase in spite of this. It was his fear
and his secret. In the duel, for the first time, he had found himself
sharing Kator's point of view when that point of view was exactly
opposite to his own.

Kator had not disliked Horaag Adoptedson. But he had joyfully, pride
fully, almost gleefully killed him when Horaag could have been defeated
short of death. Doing so had made Kator feel noble in his own eyes,
successful, and admirable. And for a moment there, Jason had felt so
too.

And that trace of an alien attitude had been part of what had been
behind him in the library room where he had faced down Swanson and the
rest, after breaking the door and bulling his way upstairs. That had not
been the way Jase Barchar would normally act-he did not think so now,
afterward.

But it had been very like the way Kator Second-cousin would have acted,
if he had woken to find himself locked against his will in a room. Was
Jase becoming alien in the way he thought?

Searching the stacks of the Foundation building late in the night, under
the swinging, bare sixty-watt bulbs below their halo-like reflectors,
Jase asked that question of himself as he caught sight of his face
reflected in the night-black windows between the shelves.

And his image had no answer to give him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The ship of the Expedition carried fifty-eight Expedition members,
including Captain and Keysman. Shortly after they lifted from the Ruml
Homeworld, Jase addressed all Expedition members over the intercom
system of the ship. He stood in the controls room up in front of the
ship, with the quarters of Captain and Keysman opening off from it The
Captain stood beside him.

"Expedition members," he said, speaking into the intercom pickup screen.
"You all know that we are engaged in an effort together to bring this
Expedition successfully to the world of the Muffled People and Home
again with information that will allow us to successfully settle that
world. For all of us it is a great opportunity. As members of the
expedition, once the world is open for settlement, all of us will be
able to colonize there and Found Families of our own. Just so was each
of our six worlds, other than Homeworld, colonized and its leading
Families Founded."

He paused. He could imagine them, all about the ship, standing honorably
erect and listening.

"The success," he went on, "of this expedition therefore must in Honor
be more important to us than anything in our lives. I, your Keysman,
dedicate myself to this importance. I promise you all the order of
impartiality from me which you might expect from the Heads of your own
Families. And I commit myself to return to Homeworld with the scouting
report on the planet of the Muffled People that will justify this
expedition. I pledge myself, in fact, to the accomplishment of a perfect
operation-"

He paused again. He was conscious of a singing in his veins, an
upsurging of that power and confidence which had first come to him with
the Random Factor in the discovery of the artifact and which had carried
him successfully through the duel with Horaag.

"--I direct you," he said, more loudly, "to remember that word I've just
used-the word perfect. I have dedicated myself to a perfect expedition.
I refer you to the later writings of the Morahnpa, leader of the first
Expedition ever sent out from our Home-world. The statement written by
the Morahnpa was: If all things are accomplished to perfection, how can
failure find lodging place in that operation in which they are so
accomplished? I will expect a like dedication from you all."

He turned away from the screen to see the ship's Captain, standing,
leaning a little more forward from the hips than was perhaps normal, his
arms folded before him, his feet spread a little apart. The Captain's
eyes were on him.

"Keysman," said the Captain. "You haven't ever been Keysman on a voyage
before?"

"As you know," said Jase.

"I have been Captain on thirteen voyages," said the Captain, "and I have
learned a few things about men in ships, whether that ship is on
Expedition or not. You can command men and expect them to follow, in two
different ways. You can command as a man, and they will obey you as a
man-that is, not perfectly, but reliably. Or you can command as a
Founder, and they will follow you blindly and to the death without
question. But as a man, you can make mistakes. As a Founder, you can't."

"I follow," said Jase, "where the Random Factor leads me."

"If you lay claim to the Random Factor in your commands and actions,"
said the Captain, "there is no alternative to failure. You know that
yourself, Keysman. One who lays claim to the Random Factor in his
actions and later fails must be destroyed so that what is apparently the
Random Factor may only be experience, trying again and winning the
second time. There can't be a second time if the race is to evolve from
the best of its stock."

'"I know that," said Jase. "I've known it since I sighted the alien
artifact."

The Captain inclined his head.

"Then," he said, "is it a man or a Founder we have for Keysman? I have a
right to know-the crew will learn for itself in due time."

Jase looked the grizzled features of the older man squarely in the eye.

"A Founder," he said.

The Captain's face showed no expression. He inclined his head again.

"Sir," he said, "may I attend to my duties now?"

"Yes," said Jase.

The Captain turned away toward the instruments of the control panels
covering the walls of the room.

Jase himself turned away and left the Controls Room. He went back
through the corridors of the ship, inspecting everywhere. As Keysman it
was part of his job to make sure that no locks at any time had been
tampered with. There must be no acts not honorable aboard, no fights or
crimes that remained mysteries because of clever tampering with the
security of any man aboard. Those on this ship, of course, were men
handpicked and of great previous honor, so crimes were all but
unthinkable. As for acts not honorable, their possibility was also
remote, though it was hard to believe anyone on such a crew would be
interested in such petty things as personal advantage and gain. But as
for fights-there could be no Honor in a Ruml man if he had no sense of
himself. And where many men were cooped up together, such individual
self-recognitions must conflict.

The few crew members he encountered saluted him and kept on with their
duties. The ship was fully manned with three men for each position, and
only a third of them were therefore on duty now. Jase examined the gym,
the cargo space in the bottom of the ship, the Construction Section,
whose machine tools took up most of the middle section of the ship
outside of the crew's quarters. Finally, he went down the two corridors
flanked by the crew's staterooms and tested the lock on the door of each
member.

Every four or five doors, he unlocked one at random, to check the
workings of his keys. It was not a violation of privacy and protection
when the Keys-man did this. The first half-dozen doors he opened had no
one in the staterooms. Most of the crew were up in the gym, recreating
themselves. But within the seventh door he opened he caught sight of a
crew member curled up and reading on his sleeping pad.

The crew member was on his feet and saluting instantly. Jase stared at
him.

"Bela!" he said. It was his Secondcousin among the Brutogasi.

"I was an alternate," said Bela. They looked at each other, and Jase
felt a fierce surge of affection for this familiar member of his own
Family sweep through him. But with the rank and regulations of shipboard
between them, he could not express it.

"Good to have you with us," said Jase and went out, carefully locking
and testing the doorlock behind him. Of all those aboard, Bela should
not be attacked in his sleep as poor Aton Maternaluncle had been by his
scoutpartner.

Jase returned to his own quarters. There, on a small table, he had laid
out the dirt worm in its plastic cube, and a model of the artifact. He
added the ship's keys to the two other objects and sank on his haunches
before them. He felt the Random Factor illuminating him like a great
light within him. In the blaze of it, his dedication reached out and
touched Bela, Aton that had been, this crew, his Family, and all the
Ruml. Swept up and carried away in the ecstasy of his dream, Jase
crouched on the floor and gave himself up to it.

In the few days that followed, the ship leaped in one jump to the three
light-year-wide area in which the planet of the Muffled People had been
calculated to be. There- were only two possible star systems in this
area-both remarkably alike in that their suns were small, yellow stars,
and they both had over half a dozen planetary bodies circling them-to
judge by magnetic readings of their space area.

Only one planet of the nearer system could possibly support the
evolution of a race in any way similar to that of the Ruml, and at the
orders of the Keysman, this was examined and found uninhabited and all
but uninhabitable-being essentially waterless. It was sampled and
recorded in case future scientific developments should discover a way to
make it habitable for Ruml colonists, and the ship jumped to the near
vicinity of the other sun with its possible system of habitable worlds.

It was at the conclusion of this jump that the Captain's signal rang.
Jase, in his quarters at the time, answered the screen.

"There's been a fight between two of the men," said the Captain's face
from the screen.

"I'll come at once," said Jase, jumping to his feet. "Assemble the
Expedition's members in the gym."

When he got to the gym, the men aboard were drawn up, standing, in two
units, with a little space between them. Before these two units stood
the two brawlers, and facing them was the Captain, with a portable table
set up before him, holding those papers which would be records of the
speedy investigation already held.

Jase came up beside the Captain and glanced over the desk at the two men
who had fought. His stomach tightened up inside him. One of the two was
Bela.

"The papers?" he asked, turning to the Captain.

"Here, sir." The Captain passed him the sheets of paper which had been
obviously all this time before Jase on the desk. Jase took them and ran
his eye over them. The two involved, he read, were Bela and one of the
Antoniti. Neither had claimed any need to be reticent. Both had freely
told their stories, and the stories agreed. The Antoniti had considered
that Bela wished to discount the Antoniti's work aboard the ship.
Therefore, the Antoniti had attacked Bela without waiting to challenge
the other. Bela had fought back.

Jase's stomach relaxed. Bela had clearly had no alternative. Once
attacked he could not in Honor do otherwise than fight, even if as a
normal man he could have restrained himself. It was simply a matter of
condemning the Antoniti and excusing Bela from guilt.

But-on the verge of opening his mouth to do just that-an idea occurred
to Jase. An idea so sudden and so convenient that it could only have
sprung from the Random Factor which had caused the fight to involve Bela
in the first place. That some fights should take place on a voyage of
this length with fifty-eight men within the walls of a single ship, was
inevitable. But it was far from inevitable that the Random Factor should
cause the first fight to involve Jase's Secondcousin. Jase looked up
from the desk at the assembled members of the Expedition.

"The Antoniti," he announced, "is self-admittedly the instigator.
Ordinarily, he alone would be condemned. However, I find it necessary to
remind you now that I announced at the inception of this voyage that I
expected all of you to work for perfection on this Expedition. To
execute only the Antoniti would be to leave one of those that had marred
this expedition by fighting still among us. Accordingly, while I hereby
absolve Bela Secondcousin Brutogas of any guilt in the incident, and
enter into the ship's records my judgment that he acted honorably in all
respects, in the interests of undeviating and unyielding perfection of
action^-to which I committed myself at the voyage's beginning-I hereby
condemn him also."

He looked at Bela and the Antoniti. Bela's eyes met his squarely.

"My judgment as Keysman is given," he said.

He stepped back and turned away from the table, hearing behind him the
roaring of the crew as they swarmed over the two condemned men and tore
their throats out. He walked slowly back through the corridors alone to
his own quarters, and only when he was once more behind the locked door
of his own room did he give way to the feelings of grief that threatened
to overwhelm him.

He sank into a crouching position before the table on which the dirtworm
in its transparent cube sat silent and still. The violence of his
mourning shook his whole body and made his jaws gasp for air. First it
had been Aton Maternaluncle. And now Bela. Who else would the Random
Factor require from him-his Family Head, the Brutogas himself?

The door spoke behind him, announcing that the Captain was outside
wishing to see him. Jase pulled himself together and got to his feet.

He admitted the Captain, locking the door behind the older man. The
Captain saluted.

"Yes?" said Jase.

"Sir," said the Captain, and there was a profound respect in his voice.
"I wish to offer you my condolences on the necessary death of your
kinsman."

"Thank you," said Jase, woodenly.

"And sir--" the Captain hesitated. "I am charged by the members of the
Expedition to convey their condolences as well."

"Thank you."

The Captain still hesitated.

"Something more?" asked Jase.

"Yes, sir." The Captain's face was stiff with emotion. "Something I
wished to say, Keysman. I believe this crew aboard this ship will follow
you anywhere now, Keysman. I said when you first lifted ship that there
were two sorts of leaders whom men would follow. One was a man, and the
other was a Founder. Sir," said the Captain, "it is a great Honor to me
and to all of us aboard to have a Founder for our Keysman on this
Expedition."

He saluted and went.

Jase locked the door behind him and fell once more into a crouch before
the table with the cube and the model of the artifact. Two great,
conflicting emotions-sorrow and triumph-fought within him. It was, he
thought, a wonderful but lonely thing to move with the Random Factor. He
hid his eyes in his hands and let the emotions toss him as they would.

Mourning and exulting, safe behind his locked door in the exalted
loneliness of a Keysman, he fell, at last, asleep.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"... I tell you," Swanson was saying, "we know they've landed. On the
far side of the moon. Why didn't you tell us?"

Jase swayed a little with weariness and decided to sit down. He dropped
into one of the heavy, carved-wood armchairs that belonged around the
meeting table in the library room, but which was now scattered , back
away from it. In the library room now, Coth was ' seated at that table,
as was the man from the United | Nations. Swanson was standing in front
of the table, talking to Jase. Neither Mele nor any of the members 5 of
the original Board were present. Somehow they had ceased to be part of
the discussions-arguments ' rather-between Jase and Swanson's
associates. Their J place had been taken by several unidentified
individuals-men in business suits of various ages-who sat j around,
listening intently but not intruding on the verbal duel between Swanson
and Coth on one side and Jase on the other.

"--Didn't I tell you?" Jase passed a hand over his jaw. He needed a
shave. Even Alan Creel had disappeared, to be replaced by some physician
with what sounded like a trace of French accent and a neck thick with
the fat of middle age. "I've been so busy in the stacks...." He searched
his memory, sorting it out from the Kator-memories that competed for
attention in his head. "I must have forgotten."

"Don't forget," said Coth from the table. 'That's what makes you
valuable, your not forgetting to tell us everything."

Jase looked exhaustedly at him.

''Don't threaten me," Jase said. "I'm too worn out to be threatened. Let
me keep my strength for necessary things."

"Yes," said Swanson, without turning around. "Perhaps we'd better be
gentle, Bill. Jase does look shaky. But Jase-that's because you're
wearing yourself out in those library stacks. Why don't you give that up
for a while?"

"It's our only chance," said Jase, leaning his head back against the top
of the backrest of his chair and closing his eyes for a second. What
Swanson was saying became a meaningless jumble of words as sleep plucked
at him, trying to drag him down into unconsciousness. He opened his eyes
and Swanson's voice came clear again. "-What have you learned, anyway?"

"A lot," said Jase. "A lot."

"Such as?"

"I'm on the track," said Jase, "of what it is-that wellspring that their
instinctive reactions come from. It's that we've got to understand. Not
what they do, but why they do it."

"Be reasonable!" broke in Coth, suddenly-almost angrily. "They've landed
on the other side of the moon and dug in there somewhere. We'll have
them on top of us any day now. Is there time for that sort of scientific
poking around and nonsense?"

"Nonsense!" Jase straightened up in the chair, taking his head away from
the backrest. "It's because the world didn't have any time for what you
call nonsense-yes, the same sort of nonsense, and the same sort of
people like yourself having no use for it-that we're in this spot. Our
neck stuck out into space ready to be chopped off, while the body of our
race's still back down on plain earth, living and thinking in terms of
it's a long way from here to Tokyo. And the world lying naked to a globe
of space six hundred light years at least in radius around us--"

He broke off suddenly. He had lost his temper like this before with
these people. It did no good; it did not even begin to open up their
closed minds that thought of the Ruml as something between a horde of
black-furred foreigners and a composite of all the science-fiction movie
monsters they had ever seen on their home screens.

"... What do you want from me now?" Jase asked, wearily.

"We know they landed on the other side of the moon," said Swanson. "We
don't know where. You can tell us where."

"Why?" said Jase. "So you can send one of our space-going vessels over
the spot to drop a nuclear bomb on it?"

"Of course not!" said Swanson. "We'd try to take them alive if at all
possible."

"It wouldn't be possible," said Jase. "In any case, you're to leave them
alone." He closed his eyes again, tempting himself with the thought of
unlimited slumber. "I won't tell you."

"Won't tell us!" the voice of Coth jerked Jase's eyes open. "Won't tell
us?"

"No," said Jase. "As long as you ignore them, they've got no reason to
think you know they exist. They'll go on trying to scout us, instead of
messaging back for an invasion team from their seven worlds. Once they
do that, there's no hope for any of us. As long as they hold off, I've
got time to go on searching for what moves someone like Kator. What
makes what he does noble--"

"Noble?" said Goth. "This mindpartaer-this Kator Secondcousin of
yours-killed his scout partner in his sleep, lied about that, stole part
of the artifact-bait from his own authorities, took an unfair advantage
to kill another of his own kind in a duel-and he's just finished
executing the one close relative he liked in order to make his crew on
the ship admire him." Goth breathed sharply for a second. There were two
points of color in his face, high on his narrow cheekbones. "--And
that's, according to what you've seen fit to tell us about him and his
race, noble!"

"Noble by his standards, not ours," answered Jase. He looked around the
room at all of them. "Isn't there one of you who's willing to be
openminded about the difference between Ruml and humans?"

"Of course," said Swanson. "Just tell us what those differences are. And
what they mean."

"But that's what I'm breaking my neck to find out!" said Jase,
furiously. "I'm not asking you to listen to a set of differences and
then conclude the Ruml aren't like us! I'm asking you to believe they're
not like us to start off with and use the fact of their not being like
us as a starting point to understanding their differences of beliefs and
thoughts and actions!"

"And after we've understood them, what then?" asked Goth. "Will
understanding them stop Kator and his expedition? Or the Ruml that come
after them?"

"No," said Jase. "But if we understand, we can maybe explain to them why
they needn't or shouldn't try to kill us and take over our world the way
they want to. Don't you understand?" he glared at Swan-son. "They don't
know any better. Neither do we- yet. But we've got a chance in me, and
my contact with Kator's mind, to find out better. So it's our
responsibility to find the answers, not theirs."

One of the men present, who never spoke, grunted.

"Cut it out," said Jase looking over at him in disgust. "I'm as human as
you are. No alien's speaking through me." The man who had grunted got
out a cigarette, studied it, and lighted it-not looking at Jase or
showing he had heard.

"Go on," said Swanson patiently. "Go on. Explain it to us."

"Look--," said Jase, leaning forward in his chair. "J. P. Scott, in the
early nineteen-sixties, did some research on the critical periods in
behavioral development that was printed in Science magazine. I've just
been reading over that article he wrote, again. It points out that
there's an amazing amount of flexibility in behavioral development. In
humans and dogs, for example, the periods can actually occur in reverse
order--"

"What periods?" asked Swanson.

"Well, they vary from species to species. The song sparrow, Scott points
out, for example, has six developmental periods. The dogs-puppies-have
four. There's neonatal, the nursing period, first. Then the transition
period, in which the puppy makes the transition to adult methods of
feeding and moving about. Third, there's the socialization period, in
which the puppy first begins to socialize with his equals, playing and
forming primary social bonds. The fourth and final stage, juvenile, is
characterized by the beginning of final weaning-independence."

Jase paused and swallowed. His throat was dry with the effort of
explaining.

"What about it?" demanded Coth.

"Don't you see?" asked Jase. "Think how different a dog is from a human.
And yet those four periods correspond-though not in that order-to
similar periods in human development. But of those four periods, only
one is comparable to a period of Ruml development. The others are either
unconscious, or not there at all in the development of a young
individual as Kator was to begin with."

"What do you mean?" asked Swanson, taking off his spectacles and
beginning to clean them with a tissue.

"Didn't you read my earlier reports?" demanded Jase. "Kator wasn't even
conscious until, by human standards, he was about ten years old. He was
born after being carried for three years inside his mother, then
transferred to a pouch where he spent the next six years, developing
physically but hardly growing and as unconscious as a human in a deep
sleep, nursing and breathing and all else by instinctive reflex. Then,
suddenly, in his tenth year, he started to grow. Within a week he was
too large for the pouch that had been his home for six years. He awoke
to consciousness, struggled out of the pouch, and left his mother.
Within an hour or two after leaving her, he was walking erect,
physically able to care for himself-in fact, a young adult in miniature,
already weaned. Left alone, he would have wandered away from his mother.
Under civilized Ruml conditions, he was first taken to the Head of the
Family, named, and given a room of his own. In the next two years he
grew to nine-tenths of his adult size and took his place in Ruml
society."

Jase stopped at last, worked his dry throat, and looked around him. None
of the faces looking at him showed any sign of understanding the
implications of what he had said. The silent men, in fact, were actually
showing signs of restlessness and boredom.

"Don't you-can't you understand?" Jase appealed to Swanson. "All the
things a human child learns from ten years of conscious association and
growing up with its parents or other adults are completely unknown to a
Ruml. Mother love is unknown; juvenile play and socialization is
unknown. In place of those things are reflexes, or instinctive
conditioning we can only guess at. Kator's reasons for what he does
literally don't make sense in our terms-but they make sense to him. And
we've got to understand why they make sense if we want to stop the Ruml
attack!"

Jase ran down finally. Swanson stood looking at him.

Tin sorry," said Swanson, at last. "You made any sense to me, or
convinced me that all studying and searching of yours is leading to
vital. Let alone that it's more important than realistic action to
surround that Ruml up there on the other side of the moon. Now, will you
tell us where they are?"

"No," said Jase. He stood tip, swaying a little, and reached back to
catch hold of the top of the chair to steady himself. "And you won't go
ahead without my telling you because what I will tell you is that you
can't get close to search the other side of the moon without them
spotting you. And if they spot you, word will go back immediately, by
collapsed universe field relay, to the Ruml Homeworld, and the invasion
by the Ruml will be started. So-- I won't tell you, and you'll leave
them alone."

He turned and started toward the closed door of the library room.
Halfway there, he stopped and faced about.

"I'll tell you," he said, "what comes now that they're dug in on the
moon. They'll be sending down little relay devices on to the earth's
surface to relay back pictures of what it's like and we're like. I'll
keep you informed of where each one of these devices is sent-and if
there's something there you don't want them to see, you can arrange to
have some accident ruin the device." He paused, swaying a little. "And
meanwhile," he said, "I'll keep on with the important work, and you'll
let me. Because I'm the only pipeline you've got into the enemy camp,
and you can't force me."

He laughed-or, rather, he had intended to laugh. It came out as the
harsh barking of an exhausted man.

"Because," he said, sharing the joke with them, Tin just as ready to die
to save the world in my way as the rest of you are in yours...."

He turned around, fumbled the library door open, and went through it,
closing it behind him. Outside he staggered and caught himself with a
hand against the wall.

From within the room he had just left a voice penetrated the relative
thinness of the door panels. It was voice, and he assumed it belonged to
one of the men who were always present but never spoke.

"That ivory tower bastard!" it said. "He probably never had to work for
a living!"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The ship of the Expedition was down and safe under forty feet of lunar
rock. Jase., considering the situation, felt satisfied. The rest had
worked like dedicated men, and if the Muffled People were anything
comparable to the Ruml, their instruments-even if their suspicions had
been aroused-would have a difficult time finding the Expedition.

Jase walked through the Construction Section. In the rooms of this
section the other fifty-six members of the Expedition-excluding only
himself and the Captain-were working around the clock to construct the
simulated shapes of alien objects and creatures that would house the
tiny but powerful relay transmitters. "Information collectors" these
were officially called- "collectors" plain and simple in the speech of
the Expedition members themselves.

These were of three types, two of which had already been sent out. The
initial type were simply lumps of nickel-iron with a monomolecular
surface layer sensitized to collect up to three days' worth of images of
the surrounding environment. In addition, these collectors had been
furnished with tiny internal drive units to get them down to the surface
of the planet of the Muffled People and back to the ship- and to explode
either on order from the ship or if the collector should be trapped or
investigated in any way.

Several thousand of these, looking like meteorite fragments, had been
sent down on to the planet and recovered with less than a twenty per
cent loss through accident and necessary self-destruction. To the
knowledge of the Ruml aboard the ship, not one of the primary devices
had been even recognized as anything but a chunk of rock-let alone
handled by one of the alien natives. Five weeks had been consumed in
this, and now the Expedition had a complete and detailed map of the
world of the Muffled People, including the streets of its cities and the
contours of its deepest ocean bottoms.

That had been phase one of the scoutwork to be done by the Expedition.
Marking it up in his Keys-man's private log, Jase had written against
its final entry, Completed to perfection.

The next stage had been the sending down of the secondary type of
collectors. These were almost identical lumps of nickel iron, but
somewhat larger, and with cargo-carrying space inside them. After four
more weeks spent in this and careful study by the xenobiologists among
the Expedition's members, the xenobiologists had recommended three types
of small native, alien life be used as tertiary collectors. And, after
consultation with the Captain, Jase had agreed to go ahead using them.

Against the phase two section of his private log, Jase wrote, Completed
to perfection.

The three types of native life chosen were a small, flying,
blood-sucking insect known to the natives as the mosquito; a crawling,
six-legged pseudo-insect, one of the arthopoda in the Muffled People's
classification, an arachnid or "spider"; and a small, sharp-nosed,
long-tailed gnawing and scavenging animal which evidently lived largely
off the discarded foods and what it could steal in the warehouses and
pipings of the Muffled People's cities. It was the duplication of these
living creatures that the Expedition was busy on at the moment.

The duplications the crew were making now were far from ideal
imitations-they could hardly be so when constructed under such cramped
and hurried conditions as those aboard the ship. But, like the earlier
collectors, they could be destroyed before they were investigated or
captured by the natives, and so it was not necessary that they stand up
to close examination.

These duplications were already beginning to be sent down into the
cities of Earth. Jase stopped by the monitoring screen of one of the
crewmen to examine a filmed report sent back by a collector already in
one of the native hospitals. Jase stared at the interior of a room with
two sleeping platforms, each set up on four high legs, in fascination.

The natives were most amazing, most incomprehensible. They certainly
possessed locks and keys. But those among them most resembling Keysmen
operated only at night and usually in areas where other natives were
absent. It was almost as if the Muffled People regarded property rather
than life as something to be guarded. It suggested that the concept of
Honor here on this planet was markedly different from that of the worlds
of men. The women did not carry their children in pouches in normal
fashion-but the young were born very tiny and crippled, and a good
section of the mother's lifetime seemed devoted to nursing them into
health and size to face their responsibilities as individuals.

It was all a little disgusting. But, Jase reminded himself, to the
Muffled People it was perfectly normal. The Expedition members had all
been briefed before leaving Homeworld, and the xenobiologists there had
been emphatic about cautioning them not to adopt a provincial attitude
toward the native life. Such things confused and biased the reporting
and observing faculties.

"--You can expect them to be different," in sum, was how the
xenobiologists had advised the Expedition, pointing out that the Ruml
had encountered alien creatures before this on the six earlier conquered
worlds they had now colonized.

Of course, this was only right. Still, thought Jase, it was one thing to
view an alien animal without emotional reaction. Another to view an
alien who was an intelligent being like yourself. You tended to expect
him-or it-to measure up to proper and intellectual standards of
cleanliness, morals, ethics, and so on.

It was fortunate, he went on thinking as he turned away from the screen,
that the Ruml had not encountered this planet of the Muffled People
first before landing on the other planets with alien, semi-intelligent
creatures on them. The first, unsophisticated reaction of a race of men
unused to the sight of alien Me would have stimulated them to
exterminate the Muffled People out of sheer revulsion. And that would
have been other than honorable action.

Looking ahead now to the time when he would be the supreme authority on
the planet below, after its conquest, Jase made a strong mental note to
the effect that he would allow no killing of the natives except to
reduce their numbers to regular conservation levels. It was criminal, if
not outright dishonorable, the way whole, remarkable, alien species had
been wiped out on the first few planets colonized by the Ruml.

In fact-Jase's 'thoughts ranged ahead-the matter might go merely beyond
the conservation of the species. The Muffled People were truly
intelligent, with an amazing technology. Moreover, they were-judging by
their indifference to proper privacy and individual security-evidently a
generally gentle, friendly species. The collectors had sent back out of
there millions of filmed scenes and actions, but almost no instances of
fighting at all. And the only possible approach to a duel had been a
glimpse, by one collector, of two of the natives fighting without
weapons. For surely handmufflings could not be considered weapons-in
fact, undoubtedly just the opposite. They were probably designed to keep
the duelists from, hurting each other. And judging by the number of
spectators, this had been an unusual occurrence.

It might even be possible that the natives-provided they could be
trained to do so and did not smell too badly, or anything like
that-could be eventually used as assistants and workers in the Ruml
culture. Perhaps--

"Sir!" The voice of the Captain interrupted Jase's thoughts.

"Yes, Captain?" he said, turning about.

"I wanted to speak to you, Keysman." The Captain drew him aside where
none of the others could hear, into the corridor without. "It's amazing,
and I can hardly bring myself to believe it, Keysman. But outside of
what seemed to be a few ornamental surface and atmosphere devices, the
collectors haven't turned up any weapons at all. Oh, they have hand
weapons, which they used for hunting the local game--*

"It is amazing," said Jase. "But perhaps we shouldn't be too upset by
it. We knew they were bound to be different."

"But it's unbelievable. An intelligent race. A technology like this- -"

"Oh, I don't doubt you'll turn up their war-making potential
eventually," said Jase. "Have you tried underground?"

"Not intensively, sir."

"Try it intensively. Divert-say-fifteen per cent of the imitation live
collectors to search for underground installations. As I say, there's no
doubt we'll find war potential eventually. They could hardly exist
without some concept of Honor."

"Yes sir," said the Captain, inclining his head. "I'll go see about
diverting those collectors right now."

Jase watched him go. It was true, in spite of what he had said. The lack
of fighting instinct apparent in the aliens of the world below him gave
him a creepy, uncanny feeling.

It was not natural. How could the Muffled People have emerged as
dominant over the other native species of their world without an
honorable instinct to begin with? And how could they have survived after
that to build this civilization of theirs without building a system of
Honor upon that instinct?

Perhaps, thought Jase, pacing in the direction of his own quarters,
there was something here that neither the xenobiologists back on
Homeworld nor he himself had suspected. Best, undoubtedly, if he kept
the sudden suspicion that had flashed into his mind just now-the
suspicion of a completely honorless society, unimaginable as that
was-entirely to himself.

If that was the case with the Muffled People-that they were a species
without Honor, like the beasts that were born and lived out their lives
and died un-purposefully-then there could be no conserving their
species. In that case they would be worse than the beasts-for the beasts
knew no better. But a people who had intelligence and yet had no Honor
would be an abomination. In Honor the Ruml themselves could not endure
that such should exist. It would be a duty, all other considerations
aside, to cleanse the universe of such.

The skin of Jase's face stiffened.

This was something he had better quietly look into on his own at the
first opportunity.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

In one corner of the library stacks, in one of a dusty pile of
cardboard-bound old magazines, Jase found at last what he had been
looking for all this time. His legs gave way with relief and exhaustion,
and he sank down crosslegged on the dusty floor of the stacks.

He had been living with the shelves of publications containing abstracts
of scientific articles in the zoological and biological fields. Just a
few days before he had given up on these and begun searching through the
periodical indexes, such as the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature,
for the past fifty years. What Kator had thought less than a week before
about the possibility that the human 'race did not possess the concept
of Honor, had finally sparked in Jase's mind. It illuminated for the
first time the answer toward which he had been groping ever since he had
felt the first shock of being in contact with Kator's alien mind.

It was a half-forgotten memory of something he had read years ago. An
article by someone authoritative in the zoological or biological fields.
What the name of its author was, he could not remember. He could not
even remember the shape and message of the article itself-but the
intricate, innate computer of his mind had made the connection between
the Ruml and this piece of writing from a time long before contact with
anything like the Ruml had ever been imagined by man.

The thinking process of his brain insisted that in the article lay the
key to the mutual understanding between human and Ruml that he was
after. It was like a voice continually nagging at him. Like most men who
have lived long years with books, and the process of research, he
trusted such a voice. If he felt it, it was there, just as the memory of
a tune that will not return to the tongue to be sung still clings to and
haunts the back of the mind, which knows that the tune is there-if only
it could be pinned down.

The day before yesterday, on sudden impulse, he had given up the
abstracts of past published scientific articles and turned to the
periodical indexes. For two days he had drawn blanks. Then, just an hour
or so since, a sudden hunch had sent him to checking titles rather than
subject indexes. He had been thinking of what he sought as the key to
his solution, and the word key had stuck in the forefront of his brain.
For a long time he had paid no attention to it. He had thought that
Kator's concern with Keys and the position of Keysman was making the
word intrude on his search.

Then, yielding a little before the pounding of his search, the mists of
his memory seemed to thin for a moment, and he was ready to swear the
article he had been after had the word key either as part or whole of
its title.

He turned to title, searching through the back indexes, hunting through
the one he had in his hand at the moment, which was dated away back in
the mid-nineteen-sixties. Fuzzily, he ran his fingers down a list of
titles beginning with the letter K.

A title jumped at him.

He turned, scrambled through the stacks to this area of storage of
ancient magazines-and found the issue he sought. The minute he saw the
cover the mists of his memory rolled back and he remembered where he had
read the magazine. It had been in college, before he went that summer to
the Rockies to observe the spring gatherings of the black bear. He
opened the cover and turned to the-page indicated for the article he
sought. It was there before him.

"A Key to Ferocity in Bears," by Peter Krott. And it was in Natural
History Magazine, the January, 1962, issue. Now that it was before him,
he remembered clearly and without any difficulty that the January 15th
issue of Newsweek magazine for that year had also dealt with the Krott
notion.

Hands shaking a little under the glaring, reflectored, overhead bulb,
Jase skimmed through the article. It all came back to him as if he had
read it only a day or so before. Krott, with his wife and two children,
had spent a couple of years in the Italian Alps. While they were there
he had raised two young bears and observed them. What he had observed
was that the young bears were gentle, even shy or timid in their play
with his own children, but that they did not play a good deal simply
because they were too busy searching for food-an activity that took up
most of their time, since the Krotts left them to forage for themselves.

The only interruption to this perfectly amicable partnership was one day
when Mrs. Krott was carrying some test tubes of alcohol in the pocket of
a leather jacket. One of the bears attacked her, clawed the jacket off,
tore open the pocket, pulled the corks from the test tubes, and
swallowed the alcohol in them.

This first set Peter Krott, a Finnish zoologist of repute, to thinking.
And his conclusions, after a good deal more observation of the same two
bears and relating this to past accounts of people who had associated
with bears under wilderness conditions without trouble, was given toward
the end of the article. Jase flipped over to it.

... To summarize: he read, a herbivore can be fed because its body is
not in any way adapted to the movements necessary for seizing prey. Many
carnivores, in turn, acquire the ability to be fed as a result of
parental attention. . . . Jase paused, checking through his memory for
something else that intruded. What was the book-oh, yes. Born Free,
about a lion named Elsa, raised by a woman and her husband under similar
conditions in the African bush. . . . What was the authoress' name?
Jase's foggy mind retreated from the effort of producing it. Anyway, it
only corroborated what was here-he turned back to Krott's summary.

... The bear lacks this ability and evidently cannot acquire it. That, I
believe, is the deciding factor in the danger of bears living in contact
with men. The way to the bear's heart is not through its stomach; that
is what is hard for us to understand, since we ourselves are capable of
being fed as are others among the true predators....

Clutching the magazine, Jase clambered groggily to-his feet and set off
through the stacks down to the door that entered one side of Mele's
small office between the stacks and the library room. He and Mele had
not been close since the day that Swanson, Goth, and the rest had taken
over the project, but now success, compounded by his state of
exhaustion, burned that fact from his mind and sent him to her. He
blundered down the stairs and burst in through the small door.

She was seated at her desk, transcribing on her typewriter from a tape
recording. The sound of her fingers on the keys broke off as she
stopped, staring up at his sudden appearance. In the little silence, he
could hear from beyond the farther door the voices of Swanson and the
rest in conversation that could not be resolved into words through the
door's thickness.

"Mele!" he shouted. "I've found it."

He discovered his knees suddenly ready to give way beneath him. There
was no place in the little office to sit down. He pulled the door to the
stacks closed behind him, recklessly seized the wastebasket in the
corner behind Mele, dumped its contents on the floor, and turned it
upside down. He sat on that, dropping the opened magazine on the
typewriter before her.

"Look--," he said, eagerly.

"Jase ..." She put her hand up to move the magazine away. "I've got a
lot to do."

"Listen!" he said fiercely, catching her hand. "You've got to listen!"

She looked at him then, and her face changed. She shook her head a
little, and her eyes grew dark with unhappiness.

"You're covered with dust," she said. "And you're ready to drop. Jase,
why don't you go and lie down? Then later, after you've had some rest,
we can talk about whatever it is ..."

"Mele!" he leaned forward toward her, tapping the surface of the open
page before her with a grimy forefinger, "This is it! Can't you
understand? Now we can do something!"

She stared at him, her eyes very wide and brown.

"About what?" she asked.

"About the Ruml-the Ruml and us!" He stared at her. "What I've been
driving at from the beginning. A bridge between their basic character
and ours. It's here-in this article."

"This article?" She stared at it. "But that was written ..." She turned
back the cover to look at the date of issue of the magazine. "Years
ago."

"Doesn't matter," said Jase. He grinned a little lightheadedly with his
fatigue and having a chance to explain to her, finally. "It's a bit of
honest basic research-the kind those people in there--" He nodded at the
library room door, from beyond which the voices muttered. "Never saw the
use for. Who cares what the reason is for ferocity in bears?"' he
mimicked savagely. "Can't you hear them saying it? Who wants to go to
the moon?' `What difference does it make whether there's anything
smaller than the atom-the atom's so small now we can't see it anyway?'
You've heard them talk like that all their lives. So've I. Well, for
once a piece of basic research is going to save their lives-all their
lives!"

"Jase . . ." she said, pityingly.

"No, listen," he said. "Let me tell you what Krott found out. There's
always been a problem with bears-wild ones-sometimes attacking humans,
at other times just ignoring them. Take Yellowstone Park. Every year
tourists feeding the bears would get clawed, and other tourists would
get away with it Well, Krott found an explanation."

"Jase ..."

"No, listen." He went on in a rush. "You see, just a matter of a handful
of years before this article, they were beginning to get interested in
what they called feeding patterns. A barracuda, for example, will strike
at a flashing, shiny object, whether he's hungry or not. A shark in a
feeding frenzy will slash at anything and try to feed-even on his own
entrails if he's been slashed by the blind frenzy of the other sharks
around him. He'll try to feed even when he's dying."

Jase paused to take a breath. The words had been tumbling out of him.

"Krott uncovered part of a feeding pattern in some bears he raised.
Bears are omnivores. Midway between herbivores and carnivores.
Herbivores aren't fed by their parents when they're young. Carnivores
are. But herbivores don't attack to get their food. Bears do. The bear
has a herbivore's feeding reflex and the offensive equipment of a
carnivore-so he attacks any moving food he encounters. And it's not a
conscious thing. It's a reflex, one that will operate even against a
human he likes if the human waves, say, a chunk of bacon before him. If
he does, the bear will attack-the bacon and coincidentally the human
holding it. And the fact of the-attack will have nothing to do about the
bear's higher feelings or thoughts about the human."

"Well, what if that's true?" said Mele. "You're talking about bears, not
Ruml-or human beings."

"But human beings have reflexes, too!" said Jase, desperately. "Not
feeding reflexes comparable to the bears-but a young human child, able
to walk but not yet able to defend itself, will run to and try to climb
up on the nearest adult in case of out and out danger. In large groups
or crowds, the herd instinct to escape-such as from a burning
building-or to attack-as in the case of mob riots-will override the
intellectual processes that otherwise would check such behavior."

"Oh, Jase ..." Mele opened a drawer of her desk and exposed a box of
paper tissues. She took several from the box and gently began to wipe
Jase's forehead, where the sweat of exhaustion was mingling with the
dust of the stacks. "Jase, you're exhausted. Why can't you leave such
things to those men in there-" She nodded at the next room. "They're
experts. Let them handle it--"

"But they're handling it all wrong!" said Jase. "Our confrontation with
the Ruml isn't a situation that's political-or even sociological. We're
right back for practical purposes a hundred million years ago, meeting
like two primitive, different animals on a hillside! -I tell you in a
case like this, the intellectual process of civilization gets swept
aside. It's the root character of one race-the animal character of one
race-face to face with the animal character of the other. And these
animal characters override the decisions of our upper brains. We don't
act like thinking individuals. We act like primitive representatives of
our own particular kind of being. These basic reflexes are tied in
directly to the survival instinct-the racial survival instinct-and they
override, I tell you, the intellectual, individual decision--"

"Well, they don't override mine," said Mele, firmly, throwing the
dampened, soiled tissues into the pile of waste paper Jase had dumped
from the wastebasket "Now, Jase, you're going to get some sleep- "

"They will," he interrupted her grimly. "You'll see. Someday--"

"No, I won't," said Mele with decision. "I'm not some silly ground-down
woman out of the nineteen centuries, thank you. I'm in control of myself
like any modern woman, and I'll continue to be so--"

"It's got nothing to do with being modern--

Jase's desperate voice was cut off sharply, as the door from the library
room banged open and Swanson stood filling the entrance, his spectacles
dangling from one hand.

"Mele!" he said. "Have you seen Jase anywhere-- Oh, there you are, Jase.
Come in here. Both of you come in!"

Jase pulled himself up, his legs trembling with tiredness, by gripping a
corner of Mele's desk. He went into the library, blundering against the
frame of the door. Mele's arm caught his elbow and steadied him from
behind.

"Sit down," she said to Jase. Over his shoulder, as she steered him into
a chair, she spoke angrily to Swanson. "He needs to sleep. Can't you see
that? Can't you talk to him later?"

"No," said Swanson, briefly without exaggeration. From the chair, Jase
looked up at him, seeing behind him the face of Bill Coth, today not
wearing his Air Force uniform, and the faces of the other men who never
spoke when Jase was in the room.

"What is it?" asked Jase.

Swanson looked at him for a second as though debating what-or how
much-to say.

"They've found something," he said, finally. "Kator's bunch. With their
collectors. They've penetrated into an area we didn't want them to get
into."

"When?" asked Jase.

"Twenty minutes-half an hour ago," said Swanson. "One of their
rat-shaped collectors got right onto the threshold of a secret
installation. They blew it up before we could capture it."

"What installation?" demanded Jase. "What's at it that's so secret?"

Swanson hesitated.

"I'm not authorized to tell you," he said. "I'm sorry."

Jase stared at him for a second, speechless.

"Why, you--incredible people!" he burst out, when he found his voice.
"Are you going to play coy with me? I'm the one person who can save your
necks. In fact, I've just found something-- "

'Tm sorry," said Swanson, doggedly. 'Tm simply not authorized to tell
you."

Jase felt the fury in him burn his foggy brain clear for an instant and
give him strength, for which he was grateful.

"Not authorized!" he said. "I can probably guess- what else could it be
but something you could use against the Ruml. What is it-ground to air
missiles? Something to do with telescopic observation of the Ruml area
of space? Space warships of some-"

Swanson's eyelids nickered uncontrollably. His face, like Jase's, was
haggard with tiredness.

"Space warships!" repeated Jase, staring at the man now fumbling his
spectacles back on to his nose. "You do have such things! I was just
striking out at random."

"It's an underground installation. Under what looks like an abandoned
factory," said Swanson, harshly. '1 don't understand how they found it."

"They knew what to search for," said Jase, "-probably. How much did the
collector's filming device see?"

"It didn't get into the underground ship parking area-just into the
elevator shaft leading down there. Then it blew up before any of our
people could get to it to stop it. That's what makes us think the Ruml
knew what they'd found. There was no reason to destroy the collector,
otherwise. They just didn't want to take chances on our finding out they
knew about it."

"Yes . . ." said Jase. He pushed himself up out of the chair on to his
feet. Thoughts were racing through his brain. "That's what he'd do."

"He?"

"Kator." Jase thought hard. His mind was working furiously and
brilliantly, like the mind of a man in a high fever just before the
collapse into delirium. Jase was conscious of the abnormal clarity, like
the final upflare of illumination before a light bulb burns itself out.
But grateful for it. "This couldn't come at a better time."

"Better time?" said Goth. Jase saw the faces of the men staring at him.
Mele, behind his back, was no doubt staring also.

"I told you-I just found what I've been hunting for from the beginning
of my contact with Kator-" Jase looked down at his hands for the copy of
the magazine containing Krott's article, and then remembered he had left
it on Mele's typewriter. "I've got the key to the basic Ruml character.
Now I've got to meet one of them."

"Never mind that," interrupted Swanson. "Let's get back to the important
problem. How do we keep further collectors from getting down into the
warship parking area itself? There must be some detection device the
Ruml themselves know about that will warn us when one of those damn
gadgets gets close--"

"Why don't you want their collector to see that the human race has
space-going armament, too?" asked Jase. "They already know from the
artifact what the stage of our spaceship development is--I see," Jase
broke off, the final, brilliant clarity of his mind giving the answer.
"You've taken the ships out of there- that's what you don't want them to
see, isn't it? You think if they see what's obviously a place where
space warships could be, and there's only a few broken down ones still
there, that they'll realize we're aware of them."

He felt the wideness of his eyes, blazing on Swan-son and the others.

"You shortsighted--" He broke off. "Where are the ships, then?"

"I'm sorry," said Swanson. "I'm not in any position to discuss any of
this--"

"You want me to guess?" snarled Jase. "You've sent them out where
they'll be in space, within striking distance of the Ruml Homeworld.
It's the sort of thing you'd do. That's where they are, aren't they?
Aren't they?"

"I can't--," began Swanson.

"Never mind," said Jase." "You don't have to admit it. It's exactly what
the human basic pattern would drive you to do, just like their pattern--
Never mind." Jase's mind was racing too fast for his tongue to keep up.
"It doesn't matter. He'll come himself. Yes, that's what he'll have to
do."

"What're you talking about?" demanded Coth, behind Swanson.

"Kator. Hell come himself," muttered Jase. "Yes, it all makes sense
now.--It's all right. I can handle it now. Only, I've got to meet him."

"Meet who?" demanded Swanson.

"Kator. He'll be coming down to look inside your underground spaceport
himself. I want to meet him when he comes. You've got to arrange it so
I'll be there." He looked at Swanson. "You can do that, can't you? I
tell you, I've got the solution now. I just found it in the stacks. We
can handle both."

"Both what?" said Coth.

"Both the human and Ruml pattern. They'd clash head on otherwise. Well-"
He stared at Swanson. "You didn't answer me. I said, Can you arrange to
have me there?"

Swanson looked back and shook his head, slowly.

"No," he said, calmly. "You must know by this time that very few
people-if any-think you're free from infection by the alien mind you've
been dealing with. I'm afraid we don't trust you. I'm afraid you won't
be allowed near the place-and particularly if your friend Kator is due."

Jase stared at him. The room seemed to rock suddenly, but he fought it
back to steadiness. Got to hold on a minute longer, he thought.

"Ill make a deal with you," Jase said. "You'd like to do without me,
wouldn't you? You'd all like to be able to keep track of Kator and the
rest without using me?".

Swanson met his gaze unapologetically.

"Yes," said Swanson, briefly.

"See I'm there when Kator comes," said Jase. "See I have a chance to
meet him face to face and speak to him, on his way in. On his way out,
I'll help you to capture him. I'll guarantee you'll be able to capture
him alive and fit him with instruments without his knowing it. You can
put your own transmitter on him and bypass me. You can even fit him with
a device to blow him up if you want to stop him later."

Swanson stood for a second without answering.

"I haven't got the authority to make that kind of agreement with you,"
he said at last. "I'm not empowered--"

"You'll agree," said Jase. "You'll all agree because it's part of your
pattern, and, like the Rural, humans react according to their basic
pattern when the chips are-"

The room rocked once more around him. Only this time it kept going. It
went all the way over. He was conscious of the faces of Swanson and the
rest whirling, the room whirling circularly before him. And then
nothing....

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Jase allowed the Expedition a shift in which to celebrate. He did not
join in the celebration himself or swallow one of the short-lived
bacterial cultures that manufactured ethyl alcohol in the Ruml stomachs
from carbohydrates the Expedition members had feasted on earlier. Jase
wanted neither the momentary exhilaration nor the quick oblivion of
unconsciousness that followed intoxication by such cultures. The
intoxication that he desired most was a subtler thing that had sung in
his mind and body since he had first made the great decision to try and
Found his Kingdom. He called the Captain into conference in the
Keysman's private quarters aboard the ship.

"The next stage," Jase told the Captain, "is, of course, to send a man
down to examine this underground, and obviously secret, area."

"Of course, sir," said the Captain. The Captain, the rest of the
Expedition, had swallowed one of the bacterial cultures already but,
because of his responsibility aboard, would not eat until the rest had
recovered from their drunkenness. He thought of the rest of the
Expedition gorging themselves now in the gym, and his own hunger came
sharply on him to reinforce the anticipation of intoxication.

"So far," said Jase, "the Expedition has operated without mistakes.
Perfection of operation must go on. The man who goes down to the planet
of the Muffled People in person must be the one man on whom I can
absolutely depend to carry the job through to success. There's no
question who that man must be."

"Sir?" said the Captain, forgetting his hunger suddenly and becoming
alert. His stomach contracted. "Are you thinking of me, Keysman? If
there's someone who can take over my job, here-"

"I'm not thinking of you."

"Oh," said the Captain. The excitement left him, and his stomach
expanded in disappointment. "Well, it was just a stray hope, sir.
Naturally, I know you'd want a younger, more physically apt man--"

"Exactly," said Jase. "Myself."

"Keysman!"

It was almost an explosion from the Captain's lips. His whiskers
flattened back against his cheeks.

"I ... I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "Of course, it's your
responsibility and your authority. You can select whoever you want.
But... do you want me to be acting Keysman while you're down there?"

Jase looked squarely at him.

"No," he said.

The Captain's face stiffened slightly. But his voice remained impassive.

"Then ... who, sir?"

"No one."

This time the Captain did not explode. He merely stared blankly, almost
blindly, at Jase.

"No one," repeated Jase, slowly. "You understand me, I hope, Captain.
I'll be taking the Keys of the ship with me."

"But sir-" The Captain's voice broke off. He took a breath deeper than
usual. "For the record, sir, I must point out that it would be extremely
difficult to get home safely with the ship's Keys in the hands of an
acting Keysman who has already formed likes and dislikes among the other
members of the Expedition Crew."

"It would probably be impossible," said Jase. "For that reason, I intend
to lock ship before leaving and take the keys with me. That way, there
will be no danger of mutiny or riot destroying all hands on the return
voyage. And the valuable information about the Muffled People we have
already gathered will not risk being lost forever, on a dead ship
drifting through space. In case I and the keys are lost, a later ship
will find this one of our Expedition safely buried here, with the
information on it intact and available."

"Yes, sir," said the Captain. He saluted with respect.

"You'd better inform your officers about this decision of mine after
I've left. Then you can inform the Expedition as a group."

"Yes, sir."

"I'll let you get back to the celebration then," said Jase. The Captain
turned toward the door. "And, Captain--"

The Captain halted with the door half open and looked back. Jase nodded
approvingly and with commendation.

"Tell them," said Jase, "to enjoy themselves-this shift."

"Yes, sir."

The Captain went out, closing and locking the door behind him. Jase
turned and walked over to the table holding his Keys, his model of the
artifact, and the cube containing the dirtworm. He picked up the cube
and gazed at it for a moment, holding it tenderly.

"First of my Kingdom," he said to it, "you'll go back now to the soil
from which you came."

Gently he returned it to the table. Sinking on his haunches, he sat
gazing at it. And through his mind moved the pictures of his sons, his
grandsons-all the members of his Founded Family, playing and growing
under the alien sun. And from among them, perhaps, one day would come
not one other, but several who in their time would Found Kingdoms
too....

The shift after the celebration, Jase set most of the Expedition Members
to work constructing collectors who could burrow, examine, and report on
the surroundings of the secret underground area of the Muffled People.
But these, when they were sent down, were strictly programmed to avoid
any movement critically close to the critical area. That would remain
for him, to penetrate, alone.

Meanwhile, he himself, with the help of the Captain and two specialists
in such things, attacked the problem of making him bear at least a
passable resemblance to one of the Muffled People-not only in
appearance, but in speech and action.

It was an ambitious task.

The first and most obvious change was the clipping off of Jase's long,
stiff mouth whiskers. There was no pain or discomfort associated with
this, but the emotional shock was considerable, since criminals, those
suffering birth defects, and hospital patients requiring surgery in the
facial area were the only male Rumls ever seen without whiskers. Oddly,
Jase found that the fact he knew they would grow out again within a few
months-if not a matter of weeks-did not help. Without his whiskers he
felt emasculated.

The fact that the whiskers had been clipped by his own hand somehow made
it worse.

The clipping and shaving of the fur on his face and head was otherwise a
minor operation. After the shock of losing the whiskers, Jase had been
tempted to simply dye brown the close, inhumanly glossy black fur
covering the skull between his ears like a mat. But that would have been
too weak a solution to the fur problem. Even dyed, his natural head
covering bore no relationship in appearance to human hair.

Still, dewhiskered and shaved, Jase's reflection in a mirror presented
him with an ugly sight. Luckily, he did, now, look like one of the
Muffled People after a fashion-from the neck up. The effect was rather
like that of a pink-skinned oriental with puffy eyelids over unnaturally
wide and narrow eyes, and with a flat and unusually narrow jaw. But he
was undeniably native-like.

The rest of his disguise would have to be taken care of by the mufflings
he would be wearing, after the native fashion. These complicated body
coverings therefore turned out to be a blessing instead of the
unmitigated, hampering curse he had expected them to be. Without them it
would have been almost impossible to conceal the Ruml body differences
from the shape of one of the Muffled People.

As it was, foot coverings with built-up undersurfaces helped to disguise
the relative shortness of the Ruml legs, as the loose-hanging skirt of
the sleeved, outside upper garment hid the unnatural-by native standards
of physique-narrowness of his hips. Not a great deal could be done about
the fact that the Ruml spine was so connected to the Ruml pelvis that he
appeared to walk with his upper body at an angle leaning forward. But
heavy padding widened the narrow Ruml shoulders, and the wide sleeves
hid the fact that the Ruml arms, like the Ruml legs, were normally
designed to be kept bent at knee and elbow joint.

When it was done, he was a passable imitation of a Muffled Person. But
these changes were only the beginning. It was now necessary for him to
learn to move about in these hampering garments with some appearance of
native naturalness.

The mufflings were hideously uncomfortable-like the clinging but
lifeless skin of some loathsome creature. But Jase was as unyielding
with himself as he was with the other Expedition Members. Shift after
shift, as the rest of the Expedition made their burrowing scanners, sent
them down, and collected the film strips from them back on the moon,
Jase tramped up and down his own quarters, muffled and
whisker-less-while the Captain and the two specialists compared his
actions with tapes of the natives in comparable movement and action. And
criticized.

Intelligent life, they all knew, is inconceivably adaptable, and Jase
was working for great stakes. There came a shift, finally, when the
three watchers could offer no more criticism, and Jase himself no longer
felt the touch of the mufflings about his body for the unnatural thing
it was.

He announced himself satisfied with himself. He went to the recordings
room for a final briefing on the information the burrowing mechanisms
had gathered about the Muffled People's underground and secret place. He
stood-a weird-looking Ruml in his wrappings-while the Recorder informed
him that the mechanism had charted the underground area completely and
found it to be immense. A tenth of a native mile in depth, nearly five
miles in extent, and half a mile wide. And the whole underground area
was walled in by an extremely thick casing of native concrete stiffened
by steel rods.

The mechanisms had been unable to record through the thickness of that
casing and since they had been programmed strictly to make no attempt to
burrow through it for fear of alarming the natives, nothing was known
about the area's interior.

What lay inside the concrete shell, therefore, was still a complete
mystery. If Jase was to invade the secret place, therefore, he would
have to do so blind-not knowing what in the way of internal defenses he
might encounter. The only open way in the mechanisms had discovered was
down an elevator shaft through which supplies were sent down into the
area.

Jase stood a moment in thought, while the Captain and the officers of
the Expedition waited.

"Very well," he said at last. "I consider it most likely that this place
has been set up to protect against invasion by others of the natives
themselves-rather than by someone like myself. At any rate, I'm going to
go ahead with it, on that assumption."

And he turned to the Captain and the officers to give them his final
orders to cover the period while he would be gone. He did not bother to
tell them what to do in case he did not come back. Such commands would
be unnecessary to the point of dishonorable insult.

The face of the planet, hidden on beyond the body of the moon, was still
in night when Jase breached the moon surface just over the site of the
buried ship. Behind him, the hole in the dust-covered rock filled itself
in again as if with a smooth magic.

His small ship lifted from the surface around the horizon of the moon
and dropped toward the night darkness of the planet below him.

He came to the planet's surface just as the sun was beginning to break
over the eastern horizon and the fresh chill of the post-dawn drop in
native temperature was in the air. He camouflaged his ship, giving it
the appearance of some native sumac bushes, and stepped from it for the
first time on to the alien soil.

The strange, tasteless atmosphere of the planet filled his nostrils. He
looked toward the rising sun and saw a line of trees and a ramshackle
building blackly outlined against the redness of its half-disk. He
turned a quarter-circle and began to walk toward the deserted native
factory, which covered and hid the underground area.

Not far from his ship, he hit the dirt road running past the scattered
farms leading to the isolated, abandoned factory complex that loomed
ahead of him on the horizon like some monstrous jumble of enormous
boxes. The Muffled People's habit of building to dizzying heights (even
small dwelling places often reached to the full three stories above
ground of a Family Palace, back home) made his destination visible from
the time he left his ship. He continued along it with the sun rising
strongly on his left, large and reddish-yellow; and after a while he
came to a wooden bridge over a small creek. The creek was tangled with
wild vegetation. No attempt had been made to border or beautify it in
Honor to the life-giving fluid it carried. The bridge itself was a crude
affair on which, as he crossed it, his foot covering fell with a hollow
sound. In the stillness of the native dawn these sounds seemed to echo
through the whole sleeping world around him. He hurried .to get off the
planks back on to dirt road again. And it was with an internal relaxing
of tension that he stepped finally off the far end of the bridge.

"Up early, aren't you?" said a native voice, from only a few feet away
alongside below the bridge.

Jase whirled like a swordsman. And saw--himself.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Kator stood facing the native who had spoken. He stared at a figure
seated on the sloping bank of the creek just a few feet below the end of
the bridge.

Jase stared at himself.

Himself stared at himself. A container of burning vegetation was in his
mouth, and .smoke trickled from his small mouth. He was muffled in blue
leg coverings, and his upper body was encased in a worn, sleeved
muffling of native leather. His furless hands held a long stick of
native vegetation out over the waters of the creek, with the line at the
end of it dropping down below the water's surface. His lips in a furless
face twisted upward in a native fashion that meant not excitement or
rage, but friendliness.

But himself stood above at the end of the bridge. There was something
both brave and pitiful about the small figure he looked at from his
seated position. No human being could have been deluded for a second by
the appearance of him at the end of the bridge. The clothes he wore were
clumsy and fastened wrong. And the figure in them crouched like Groucho
Marx in the old film comedies of the early nineteen thirties. The shaved
face looked childlike without its fur and whiskers, and it was barely
five feet tall.

It was fantastic for Jase to be at once five feet tall and a head
taller. To crouch and sit erect at the same time. To be alarmed at the
sight of himself and moved to pity at the sight of himself.... The point
of view in Jase's mind jumped from his human body to his Kator body,
from his Kator body to his Jase body-to his Kator body and mind-to his
Jase body and mind-to his Kator mind-to his Jase mind-He was Jase. He
was Kator. He was Jase-Kator-or Kator-Jase-Kase-Jator-Jaskatore....

He was both. The personalities blurred. Blended. Matched. He swayed.

"Are you ill?" he asked himself. Perhaps it was a native infected with a
disease to which his race was prone.

"No," he said, catching himself. "What're you doing here? Out for a
hike?"

"Yes," he said, wondering if the native noticed any accent to his words.
"You are fishing?"

"Bass," he answered, waggling his pole. A small, colored object bobbed
on the water where the line entered the liquid.

"I see," he said, not knowing what bass were. "There are some in this
water?"

"Well," he answered, "never know what you'll catch. Might as well fish
for bass as anything else. You from around here?"

"No," he said.

"City?" he asked.

"Yes," he said. He thought of the planet-wide city of the Homeworld.
Yes, he was from a city.

"Where you headed?".

"Oh," he answered-he had rehearsed this speech-"I thought I would go
around the buildings here and search for a large road and transportation
to the nearest city."

"Keep going then," he told his small, crouching self. I'd show you the
way, but I've got fish to catch. You can't miss it anyway. Ahead or back
from here both brings you out on the same road."

"Thank you," he said.

"Don't mention it."

"Good luck then with your hunting in the water, here."

"Thank you, friend." The impulse came from deep inside him. He had been
right-he had been right. But he had to come face to face with Kator as
himself to put the two personalities one on top of the other, like
cardboard cutouts. Now he had done it, and the overlappings on each part
were finally plain and distinct. He spoke to the small, crouching,
shaved-face figure. "We're a good deal alike-more than you'd think."

He stared at himself, unable to make sense of the words. They seemed to
make sense, but they did not. It seemed that the native was referring to
something taken for granted, something that he had not mentioned earlier
in their conversation.

"Yes," he said, deciding to simply ignore the incomprehensible
statement. "I must say so long, now." About to turn away, a strange
feeling moved him. Perhaps it was an impulse of the Random Factor. The
native had baffled him-it would not hurt to baffle the native a little.
If the other became alarmed, he was carrying handweapons that could kill
him silently and quickly. "Perhaps," he said, on the wings of this
strange impulse, "you can tell me--I am among friends, here?"

"Yes," said the native, "here you are among friends."

His stomach contracted. Surely it was the Random Factor that had caused
him to speak-and the native to answer in polite, Honorable Ruml fashion.
Possibly it was the Random Factor showing him that these natives of his
Kingdom-to-be were not without Honor, as he had earlier feared when the
reports from the collectors began to show their lack of weapons and
duelings. Gratefulness rose inside him. He raised his hand in farewell,
native fashion, as he turned away- but silently, inside him, he spoke
the Blessing to this strange, native figure who could never have
understood it, even if it had been spoken aloud-so many thousand years
of Ruml history were behind it.

"Water be with you, shade be with you, peace be with you ..."

His attention back now on the creek waters, the native raised his own
hand unseeingly-almost as if he had somehow heard.

Turning, in the clumsy mufflings of his disguise, Jase in the Ruml body
of Kator went on toward the factory.

Only a little way down the dirt road, around a bend and through some
trees, he came to the wide wire gate where the road disappeared into the
grounds about the factory buildings. The gate was closed and locked.
Jase in Kator's body glanced around him, saw no one, and took a small
silver cone from his pocket. He touched the point of the -cone to the
lock. There was a small, upward puff of smoke, and the gate sagged open.
He pushed through, closed the gate behind him, and headed for the
building with the elevator shaft to the hidden area underground.

The door to that building also was locked. Once more Jase felt himself
glance around, but the watchmen of the deserted factory gave no sign or
sound of their presence. Jase used the cone-shaped object on the lock of
a small door set in the larger door that was wide enough for trucks to
enter the building. He slipped inside.

Beyond the open space where trucks evidently parked when unloading
supplies and material to be sent underground was the end of a conveyor
belt wide enough to take large crates. It stretched off through a jungle
of dark and idle machinery under the dim light of windows set several
stories high in the corrugated iron walls of the building's skin.

Jase listened, standing in the shadow of the door. He heard nothing. He
put away the cone and drew his handgun. Lightly, he crouched and then
leaped up in one bound onto the belt of the conveyor, five feet above
the floor. Handgun ready, he began to follow along the belt back into
the maze of machinery.

It was a strange, mechanical wilderness through which he found himself
stealing. The conveyor belt was not a short one. After he had gone some
distance on it, his listening ears caught a sound from up ahead. He
stopped and listened.

The sound was the sound of native voices talking.

He went on cautiously. Gradually he approached the voices, which did not
seem to be on the belt, but off it to the right a little distance.
Finally, he drew level with them. Kneeling down and peering through the
shapes of the machinery, he made out a clear area in the building about
thirty feet off the belt where he stood. Behind the cleared area was a
glassed-in cage in which five humans wearing blue mufflings and weapons
harnesses supporting handguns could be seen, sitting at desks or
standing about, talking.

Jase lowered his head and crept past like a shadow on the belt. The
voices faded behind him, and in a little distance he came to the
elevator shaft and the platform within it onto which the conveyor belt
was designed to discharge its cargo.

Jase examined the platform with an eye already briefed on its probable
construction. It was evidently controlled from below, but there should
be some kind of controls on the platform itself-if only for emergency
use.

Jase searched around the edge of the shaft and discovered some switches
set in a line on a plate at the far end of the platform. Using a small
magnetic power tool, he removed the plate and spent a moment or two
studying the wiring going to the switches. Again, it was what he had
been briefed to expect by experts among the Expedition crew.
Amazingly-by sensible, normal Ruml standards-there was no lock on the
controls at all.

He replaced the plate, reached out, and took hold of the switch that
according to his briefing, should send the platform downward. For a
second he hesitated. From this point on, it was a matter of calculated
risk. There was no way of telling what in the shape of guards or
protective devices waited for him at the bottom of the shaft. He had had
his choice of trying to send the collectors in to get that information
earlier, at the risk of alerting the natives, or of taking his chances
now. And he had chosen to take his chances now.

He pressed the switch. The platform dropped beneath him, and the
darkness of the upper shaft closed above his head.

The platform fell with a rapidity that made the claws extend
instinctively from the ends of his fingers to keep a grasp on it. He had
a momentarily alarming image of a device designed only for nonliving
cargo beneath him. Then the thought of the damageable fruits and
vegetables that would be transported down on this platform at times came
to reassure him. Sure enough-after what seemed like a much longer drop
than the burrowing scanners had reported likely-the platform slowed
quickly but evenly to a gentle halt and emerged into light from an
opening on one side of the shaft.

Jase was off the platform the second it stopped, and racing for the
nearest cover-behind the door of the small room where the shaft had
ended. And no sooner than necessary. A lacework of blue beams lanced
across the space where he had been standing on the platform a moment
before.

The beams winked out. The smell of ozone filled the room. For a moment
Jase stood frozen and poised, handgun in fist. But no Living creature
showed itself. The beams had evidently been fired automatically as a
defense against animal intruders. It would be part of the normal
self-protecting machinery of the elevator shaft. However, he noted with
a contracting of his stomach, the spot he had chosen to duck into was
about the only place in the room the beams had not covered.

He came out from behind the door, slipped through the entrance to which
it belonged-and checked suddenly. He had found it.

He stood in an underground area of enormous dimensions, his own figure
shrunk by contrast to that of one of the small collectors. Here he was a
pygmy. No, less than a pygmy. An ant among giants, dimly lit from an
almost invisible ceiling, five hundred feet overhead.

He was at one end of what was no less than an underground spacefield.
Towering close to him, too huge to take in without moving his eyes, were
the Brobdingnagian shapes of great space warships. He had found it-the
secret gathering place of the battle strength of the Muffled People; and
inside himself some hidden corner of his spirit poured forth
thanksgiving that they were now proved beyond any doubt to be not
without Honor after all.

From between the titanic shapes up ahead came the sound of metal ringing
against other metal and concrete. And the sound of feet and voices. Like
a hunting animal of the Ruml Homeworld, Jase slipped from shadow to
shadow between the great ships until he came to a spot from which he
could see what was going on without exposing himself.

He peered out from behind the roundness of a great, barrel-thick
supporting jack and saw that he was unexpectedly at the edge of the
parked ships. The discovery came as an abrupt shock. --Was that all
there were of them?

There could be no more than a dozen at most in this space, which could
have parked many more.

He looked ahead. Beyond stretched immense emptiness of floor, and only
some fifty feet from where he stood hidden a crew of five natives in
green one-piece mufflings were dismounting the governor of a
collapsed-universe drive unit from one of the ships closest to them. A
single native in blue with a weapons harness and handgun stood by them,
watching- no doubt on guard.

As Jase watched, another native hi blue with weapons harness appeared
from between the ships closest to the working natives. Jase shrank back
behind the supporting jack that shielded him. The second guard came up
to the first who had been standing observing.

"-Nothing," Jase heard him say. "May have been a short in the
powerhouse. Anyway, nothing came down the shaft just now. I've looked."

"A rat, maybe?" asked the first guard.

"No, I checked out the whole room. It was empty. Anything on the
platform would have got caught by the beams. They're checking upstairs,
though."

Jase slipped back among the ships.

The natives were alerted now, even if they did not seriously suspect an
intruder like himself. Nonetheless, a great exultation was welling up
inside him. He had been prepared to break into one the ships to discover
the nature of its internal machinery. Now- thanks to the dismantled unit
he had seen being worked on-that was no longer necessary. His high
hopes, his long gamble were about to pay off. His kingdom was before
him.

Only two things were still to be done. The first was to make a visual
record of the place to take Home, and the other was to get himself
safely out of here and back to his small ship.

He reached up and touched the top button of the sleeved, outer muffling
which covered the upper part of his body in the native fashion. The
button concealed the recording device, which had been running steadily,
storing up picture and sound of all he had encountered. But adjustments
were necessary to allow it to record the vast shapes and spaces about
him now. Jase made the necessary adjustments with a touch or two on the
apparently featureless outside of the button and for about half an hour
after that flitted about like an entertainment-recorder, taking pictures
not only of the huge ships but of everything else about this secret
underground field.

It was a pity, he thought, that he could not get up to record a picture
of the ceiling far overhead, lost behind the light sources beaming down
on the ships and him. Such a picture would show the mechanism that would
be necessary to shift aside the ceiling to let these ships out of here.
However, that was a minor piece of information. The important
information was what he was filming down here.

Finished at last, he worked his way back to the room containing the
elevator shaft. Almost, in the vast maze of ships and jacks, he had
forgotten where it was. But the sense of direction which his scout
training in his first season as an adult had trained to a fine peak in
him paid off. He oriented himself and worked his way at last back to the
entrance of the room.

He halted there, just outside it, peering in at the platform sitting
innocuously waiting at the bottom of the shaft. Crossing the room to it
would undoubtedly trigger the automatic mechanism that fired the guns.
He spent a few moments hunting around for controls, which the natives
undoubtedly had for turning off the mechanism when they themselves
wished to approach the platform. But he found nothing, and every minute
he delayed here increased the chance of his being discovered. And to be
discovered now would destroy all the advantage of the information he had
gained- and warn the natives that his people had discovered their world.
Whereas if he could get away without alarming anyone now, the invasion
to come would have all the advantage of information and complete
surprise. His Kingdom would fall into the hands of the Ruml and his own
with hardly an effort.

He returned to the open doorway and gazed through it. For a long second
he stood, thinking with a rapidity and force he had hardly matched
before in his life-even during the duel with Horaag Adopted-son. There
had to be a way to the platform that avoided the beams.

Suddenly a farfetched but daring scheme occurred to him. He knew that
the area behind the door was safe. The beams had not touched him there
last time. From there two long leaps would carry him to the platform.
Unlike the natives, his body was built for springing. If he, with that
body the Muffled People could not have anticipated when they designed
the automatic-beam circuit and this room, could avoid that single
touching of the floor between behind the door and the platform ... He
thought. It might be possible then that he could reach the platform
without triggering the defensive mechanism.

There was a way, he considered. But it was a stake-every thing
proposition. If he missed, there would be no hope of avoiding the beams.

The door opened inward, and it was about six feet in height, three and a
half feet in width. From its most inward point of swing it was about
twenty-two feet distant from the platform. Reaching in through the
entrance, he swung the door so that it was at right angles to the
entrance, projecting the distance of its width into the room. Then he
backed up and took off his clumsy foot coverings, tucking them into
pouches in his body mufflings.

He got down on hands and feet and arched his back. His claws extended
themselves from his fingers and toes, clicking on the concrete floor.
For a moment he felt a wave of despair that the clumsy mufflings
hampering him would make the feat impossible. But he had no time to take
them off, now. He resolutely shoved all doubt from his mind and backed
up further until he was a good thirty feet from the door.

He thought of his Kingdom and launched himself forward.

He was only two seasons adult, his reflexes were superb, and the
exercise under Brodth Swordsmaster had trained him into top shape. By
the time he had covered the thirty feet he was moving at close to twenty
miles an hour. He flung himself from the threshold of the entrance and
flew to the inmost top edge of the door.

He seemed, even to himself, barely to touch the door in passing. But
four sets of his claws clamped on the wood, making the all-important,
slight change in direction and thrusting him forward with additional
impetus. For a moment he flew above the deadly floor' of the room. Then
the platform and the shaft seemed to leap to meet him, and he slammed
down on the flat surf ace of the platform with an impact that drove the
breath out of him.

The beams did not appear. The room was silent- and safe.

Half-dazed, but mindful of the noise he had made in landing, which might
attract the attention of any native nearby, he fumbled hastily around
the edge of the platform, found the switches, and snapped over and down
the one he had earlier marked in his mind as being the one to send the
platform upward.

He shot up into the darkness of the shaft. On the way up, he recovered
his breath. He made no attempt to replace the clumsy foot coverings but
drew his handgun and held it ready in his hand. The second the platform
stopped at the top of the shaft, he was off it and running noiselessly
back along the > conveyor belt at a speed which no native should have
been able to maintain in the crouched position in which he could
contract his running, Ruml body.

There were sounds of natives moving about beyond the enclosing machinery
through which the conveyor belt ran. But he closed his ears to them and
ran on. Surely, after bringing him this far, the Random Factor would not
desert him now. He clung to the feeling of confidence that his escape
was almost already made-when a shout sounded from within the maze of
machinery to his left.

"Stop, there! You!"

Without hesitation, he fired in the direction of the voice and dived off
the conveyor belt into the tangle of gears and driving shafts to his
right. Behind him came a grunt and the sound of a falling body. A blue
beam lanced through the spot on the conveyor belt where he had stood a
second before.

A dozen feet off the conveyor belt into the maze of machinery, he clung
to a piece of ductwork and listened. His first impression had been that
there was only one native in the area from which the shout had come. But
now he heard three voices converging on the spot at which he had fired.

"What happened?"

"I thought I saw something--" The voice that had hailed him groaned
suddenly. "I tried to get a clear shot, and I slipped down in between
the drums here."

"You jammed in there?"

"I think my legs got broken."

"You say you saw something? Just a minute, well get you out."

"I thought I saw something. I don't know. I guess that alarm had me
seeing things-there's nothing on the belt now. Help me out, will you?"

"Bill, give me a hand."

"Easy! Take it-easy!"

"All right ... all right now. We'll get you in to the doctor."

He clung, listening, as the two who had come up later lifted their hurt
companion out of wherever he had fallen and carried him out of the
building. Then there was only silence around him, and in that silence he
drew a deep breath. It was hardly believable, but once more the Random
Factor had stood beside him.

Quietly, he began to come back toward the conveyor belt. Now that he
could move with less urgency, he saw a clearer route to it. He clambered
along and spotted a straight climb along a sideways-sloping,
three-foot-wide strip of metal filling the gap between what seemed to be
the high side of something like a turbine motor and a narrow strip of
darkness about two feet wide alongside more ductwork. The strip led
straight as a road, bypassing the conveyor belt, to the open area where
the conveyor belt began.

Looking along it now,, he could see the door of the building ajar and a
little strip of sunlight outside showing.

Perfection, he told himself, attracts the Random Factor. ... He began
slipping along the strip of sideways-tilted metal, and his claws
scratched and skidded. It was slicker than he had thought it would be.
He felt himself sliding off sideways as he went forward. He increased
his speed. Grimly, in silence, he tried to hold himself from slipping
off into the strip of darkness alongside.

His claws blunted on the polished surface. From somewhere there was a
single, odd, putting, sound. Scrambling at the metal, he felt a twinge
as from a pulled muscle in his neck. He scrambled harder . . . and,
unexpectedly, his senses started to swim.

A wave of dizziness swept over him. He felt his limbs relaxing, his body
sliding, off into the strip of darkness.

He fell, and the darkness closed about him as his senses fled.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Jase unscrewed the two halves of a small blowpipe and put the weapon
back into an inside pocket of his leather jacket. As the two men in
guards' blue uniforms came carrying the limp body of Kator out of the
narrow space in which it had fallen, he moved after them. When they laid
Kator down in a little open space, Jase reached down and removed a tiny,
feathered dart stuck in the Ruml's neck, just behind and below the flat,
pointed ear.

As he bent over the unconscious Ruml, his body shielding his left arm
for a moment, his left hand closed over unhooked, and carried away the
topmost of the large buttons on Kator's imitation jacket. Straightening
up and turning away, he came face to face with Swanson.

"You can tell us now, can't you?" said the spectacled man. "What was the
anesthetic?"

Jase smiled, wearily and a little ironically.

"Ethyl alcohol," he said.

"Alcohol!" Swanson stared at him, then exploded. "You mean their systems
are that much like ours? We could have used alcohol ourselves!"

"They aren't that alike-not as much as you think," said Jase. "It just
happens alcohol intoxicates them, like it intoxicates us. But just not
the same way. Most of our drugs-chloroform, to take an example-would
have killed him. Even alcohol doesn't affect them just the way it does
us-" He gestured at Kator. "Did you see how fast he went out, when only
a few drops were introduced into his veins? The same amount wouldn't
have been enough for you or I to feel, probably."

"Yes . . ." said Swanson, without relaxing. He turned to look down at
Kator himself. "Well, we'll start bugging him now. When he comes to and
starts back to his ship, he'll be as full of miniaturized recording
devices as a political convention. How long's he going to be out?"

"They swallow short-lived alcohol-producing bacterial cultures, the way
we drink whisky, for relaxation," said Jase. "They get high in a few
moments, go out almost immediately, and stay unconscious for about two
hours, coming out of it gradually into a deep sleep that lasts about
four of our hours."

"Six hours then?"

"No, not if you want to cut it short," said Jase. "You can wake him up
as soon as the actual unconscious period is over. With the sense of
urgency I-he--" Jase saw Swanson's eyes flicker at him momentarily as he
made the verbal slip, "was feeling, he may wake himself up as soon as he
comes to. But, just to be sure, you can jar him or make a noise."

"You're sure, are you?" Swanson stared at him in the relatively dim
interior of the building, "about all this information^'

"Yes," said Jase. "But why don't you get that doctor of yours in here if
you want to check?"

"Good idea." Swanson turned away to speak to the guards. Jase slipped
back into the shadows. From one pocket he took a small, brown cube the
size of a jeweler's box for holding and displaying a single ring.
Operating almost by feel in the darkness, he made some adjustments on
the surface of the button he had taken from Kator's jacket and held it
against a tiny aperture in the ringbox-sized cube. He pressed the cube.

There was a faint, almost inaudible whirring that sounded for a second
just loud enough for Jase's ears alone to hear it. Then the whirring
stopped.

Jase replaced the cube in his pocket and wandered back to the still
figure of Kator, pushing between two of the three guards now standing
above it.

"I'd better look at that spot where the dart stuck in, again," said
Jase. Uncertainly, they let him through to the still body of the Ruml.
Jase squatted down, rolled Kator's lax head to one side to expose the
neck area where the anesthetic dart had stuck, and bent down to look
closely at the area. He placed his left palm as if to steady himself on
Kator's coat and palmed the button back onto the Ruml-designed hooks
that held it.

None of the guards seemed to notice. The button fastenings were
typically Ruml, and only someone who, like Jase, had been in a Ruml mind
would think to look for them, or for the microscopic pack of sensitized
surfaces just below the camouflaged exterior of the button that was the
Ruml version of a miniaturized spy camera.

"What's this? Don't get in our way here!" he heard the voice of Swanson
say behind him as he got to his feet. "Clear out of here, Jase. This is
our business from now on."

The tone of the spectacled man's voice was brisk and impersonal. It was
clear that what he said mirrored his thoughts-with the miniaturized
recorders and tell-tales to be now implanted under the skin of Kator,
the Ruml could be followed by mechanical snoopers, sending back pictures
and sound through a collapsed universe field even from the Ruml
Homeworld, if Kator should return to it. Jase was no longer important in
the eyes of Swanson, Goth, and the men who did not speak.

Jase faded back into the shadows of the machinery. He had told Swanson
when the capture of Kator was being planned that it was necessary for
him to know the layout, not only of the underground spaceship parking
area, but of the abandoned factory that served as ground-level cover for
it. Now he picked his way smoothly through the factory-but not toward
the side yard where the transportation back to Washington was waiting.

He threaded his way through empty rooms and between silent machinery to
another end of the factory, and out a rusting, small door into a field
of weeds some forty yards wide to a barbed wire fence and a little woods
of maple and oak trees.

Casually, he strolled across the field. Once out of sight among the
trees, he went at a fast walking pace. A little less than an hour and
three miles later, he was boarding a bus at a small-town bus stop.

There was some delay about the bus starting. But some eighteen minutes
later air finally sighed through its compressors, and it slid out of the
bus terminal building. Jase leaned back his head against the pillowed
backrest of his seat and closed eyes that were sandy with fatigue. He
had done his part.

From now on it was up to Kator and the Heads of Families back on
Homeworld.

CHAPTER TWENTY

... When he woke, he had to think for a moment to remember that he was
not on Homework!, to remember that he had been fleeing through a factory
building on the world of the Muffled People-one jump away from
capture-when something had happened.

Slowly it all came back to him; and slowly he began to take stock of his
surroundings.

He was wedged someplace between narrow walls. Above him there was only
silence and a dimness. It seemed to him he had been unconscious for some
time, but far above him to his Ruml eyes the light still streaming
through the high windows of the factory building seemed to come at
almost the same angle. He lay staring at the light for a moment.

... No, he was wrong. Perhaps an eighth or sixth of the local sunlight
period" of the planet here had gone by while he had lain dead to the
world.

His neck ached slightly behind his ear, and there were other sore spots
about him. He must, he thought, have knocked himself out when he fell.
But the guards chasing him evidently had not found him-

His thoughts broke off suddenly. Voices struck on his ears. The voices
of two natives standing some little distance off. He raised his head
slightly and saw he was lying in a narrow gap between the two walls of
metal. The gap, like a roofless tunnel, ran toward the open space
between the conveyor belt end and the door to outside.

"... not possible," one of the speaking Muffled People was saying.
"We've looked everywhere."

"But you left the place to carry Rogers to the ambulance?"

"Yes, sir. But Corry stood guard outside the door there while we did
that. Then, when we came back, we all searched the whole place. There's
no one here."

"Sort of a funny day," said the second voice. "First that short or
whatever it was, downstairs, and then Rogers thinking he saw something
or someone, and breaking his leg." The voice moved off, from the open
area, back at an angle toward a further part of the factory building.
"Well, forget it, then. I'll write it up in my report, and we'll lock
the building behind us until an inspector can look it over."

There was the sound of the small door opening.

"What's anybody going to steal anyway?" demanded the first voice, now
also moving away. "Put a half million tons of space warship under one
arm and carry it out?"

"Regulations-" The closing of the door cut off the words. There was
silence in the dimness, which stretched on and on.

Jase stirred in the darkness.

For a moment he was afraid he had broken a limb in his fall into this
narrow space. But all his arms and legs responded. It was as he had
thought-he was only bruised. Gratitude welled in him for the fact that
he was only two seasons adult. An older man, with brittle bones ... it
did not bear thinking about.

He was not wedged in here so tightly as to be trapped, he found. He
wriggled his way forward between the two surfaces until some other
object blocked his way. He climbed up over this-another section of
ductwork, it seemed-and emerged a second later into the open area.

It was empty, clear of natives as if it was actually the deserted
building it pretended to be.

The local sun was well up in the center of the sky as he slipped out of
the building. No one was in sight At a half-speed, limping run, he
dodged along in the shade of a flanking building. Two minutes later he
was safely through the gate and into the shelter of the trees
paralleling the dirt road on each side- headed back toward his. small,
one-man ship.

The native fisherman was no longer beside the creek. No one at all
seemed to be in sight in the warming day, with the sun now approaching
the zenith overhead. He made it back to his ship, and only when he was
safely inside its camouflaged entrance did he allow himself the luxury
of a feeling of safety.

For-at that, he thought-he was not yet completely safe. He simply had a
ship in which to make a run for it now, in case he was discovered. He
throttled the feeling of safety down. It might lead to carelessness, and
it would be nightfall before he could risk taking off. And that meant it
must be nightfall before he took the final step in the securing of his
Kingdom.

He got rid of the loathsome mufflings he had had to wear and tended the
sore parts of his body. They were annoying, but a week or so would see
them healed and forgotten. The button containing the recorder was intact
on his jacket. The record of everything he had done would be available
within it. No more would be needed back on the Homeworld, except Kator's
own unique and valuable knowledge of how the Muffled People reacted.
Now-if night would quickly fall...

He waited, schooling himself to patience and dreaming of the faces of
the sons he would have. He would name the first one Aton, after Aton
Maternaluncle, the second Horaag, and the third Bela. As soon as they
were out of the pouch long enough to comprehend the concept of Honor, he
would tell each of them, personally, of the man from whom the name they
bore was derived. And of the part those three honorable men had played
in the Founding of their father's Kingdom on the planet of the Muffled
People.

He himself, the Kator, would live out his days and die here. But perhaps
the second or third generation of his descendants would return, as was
their right under his first son or grandson, to found a palace of the
Katori on Homeworld. And, in time, from that palace of the Katori, would
come one-perhaps several-more, to Found new Kingdoms of their own.

He would not know this. Long dust, his bones buried on this world of the
Muffled People would never know. But his genes in the bodies of his
descendants would know and Honor their name and call themselves truly of
the Ruml. The Ruml, honorable as a race, ever growing, ever evolving
toward that far and unimaginable future when man had burnt away all
dross from his character and no longer knew anything but Honor. -

... At last, the yellow sun, reddening and darkening, began to touch the
horizon in the screen attached to the light collector outside the ship.
Shadows flooded across fences and growing grain and under the clumps of
trees. He sat down at the communications board of his small ship and
keyed in voice communication,, through an untappable channel via the
collapsed universe, with the Expedition ship on the moon.

The speaker crackled at him.

"Keysman?"

He said nothing.

"Keysman? This is the Captain. Your channel is sending. Can you hear
us?"

He held his silence, the skin of his face stiffened slightly with
emotion.

"Keysman!"

He leaned forward at last to the voice collector of the transmitter
before him. He whispered into it.

"No use ..." His whisper broke and became a voice, strangled and husky.
"Natives ... surrounding me, here. Captain ..."

He paused. There was a waiting silence from the other end, then the
Captain's voice spoke again.

"Keysman! Hold on! We'll get a ship down to take you out-"

"No time ..." he husked. "No way out. Destroying self and ship. May you
have water, have shade, have ..."

He reached out to his controls and sent the little ship leaping skyward
into the deepening dark. As it rose, he fired a cylindrical object back
into the ground where it had lain.

Seconds later, the tiny, brief, but incredibly violent glare of rainbow
colors that was the explosion of a collapsed-universe drive field lit up
the peace of the county evening.

But Jase at the controls of the small ship was drilling upwards through
the darkness. He headed back toward the moon, but he did not hurry. He
went on conventional drive until he reached the practical limits of the
atmosphere; and only then did he use the unharmed collapsed field drive
aboard the ship to return to the far side of the moon, in three timeless
jumps.

He had taken four hours, local time, by the hour he returned to the
buried ship of the Expedition, There was no response as he approached
the surface above the hidden ship and its connected network of rooms
excavated out of the rock beneath the dust. He opened the passage by
which he had left the ship in his smaller vessel, and re-entered. The
ship had been emptied of atmosphere, and he was forced to refill it
before he went on.

There was no one in the corridors or in the outer rooms of the ship. But
when he got to the gym, they were all there, as he had expected, lying
still in their ranks, with the officers and the Captain a little apart.
With no hope of returning to Homeworld, with the ship locked and the
Keysman lacking, they had ended their lives in honorable fashion and
lain down to secure the ship for those who would come after.

He looked at them with affection flooding through him and went to
examine the ship's recorder log. He set it back to the moment of his
call from the planet below and then played it forward. The Captain had
recorded a full account of the conversation with him and the situation
underlying the decision that was to follow. He had closed with the final
word that completed Jase's unfinished blessing the moment before the
small ship had apparently been destroyed on the planet below.

Jase read into the recorder a brief account of his escape and return,
after all, from the forces of the Muffled People that had apparently had
him trapped and then returned to the gym.

The ship of the Expedition had ample storage space in the cargo area. He
carried the dead bodies down there, one by one, arranged them, and set
the space on airlessness and subfreezing temperatures. The bodies would
be returned to their Families on Homeworld. It was not a necessary but
an honorable thing to do on his part. Then he returned to the Controls
room, unlocked the Controls, and set to work.

There was no great difference between any of the ships utilizing the
collapsed universe field as a drive. He could handle this larger vessel
alone as well as the small ship he had taken down to the planet of the
Muffled People. He set a course for the Homeworld. It was a simple
matter, now that the position of the star of this world of the Muffled
People was identified, and the distance and direction from it to
Homeworld possible for the ship's computers to calculate. In contrast to
the time they had taken coming, he should be able to return to Homeworld
in three jumps through timelessness. No .more than two days of Homeworld
time-or a day and a half, measured by the turning of the Muffled
People's world on its axis.

He broke the ship free of its hiding place under the moon's surface and
took it well out from any solid solar bodies, before turning the
programming of the first jump over to the computers. Then he went back
to his own quarters.

There things were as they had been before he had gone down to the planet
of the Muffled People. He opened a service compartment to take out food,
and he lifted out also one of the alcohol-producing bacterial cultures.
But when he had taken this last item back with the food to the table
that held his papers, he found that he did not want to swallow the
culture.

This was a moment that had its own intoxication- an intoxication that
made small and petty the chemical drunkenness to be obtained from the
culture. He threw the culture into a disposal slot in the desk. Doing
so, he suddenly remembered something.

From a pouch in his harness that he had worn under the now discarded
mufflings he took tine cube containing the dirtworm. He had not
remembered to return it to the soil of its birth, after all. Well, there
would be another time ...

He held it in its transparent cube up to the light above the table with
the papers. In that light the worm seemed almost alive. It seemed to
turn and bow to him, acknowledging his Kingship over it and the world
from which it came.

He laid the cube down on the table and walked across to put the button
containing his recording device in a resolving machine that would
project its stored information of sound and pictures in life-size
dimensions on a cube of the atmosphere of the room. He touched the
resolving machine's controls. The lights of the room dimmed, and the
morning he had seen as he emerged from his one-man ship came to life in
the empty space in the room's middle. He retraced his steps to the
platform before his table and settled down on it, curling up with a sigh
of satisfaction.

He watched the story of the day's events, through the conversation with
the native by the stream, the trip along the conveyor belt, the descent
and return from the underground area. At the moment when he slipped and
fell among the machinery, the picture suddenly blanked out and the sound
ceased.

Evidently, he thought, the fall had broken the recording device, at that
point. It would be blank from then on. It was too bad that had happened,
but, after all, the important information had been safely recorded.

He was about to rise and turn off the recorder- when the cube of room
atmosphere lighted up again. Facing him was the figure of the native he
had seen by the stream, but with the walls of a room behind him instead
of the outdoor scene.

The native took the container of burning vegetation from his mouth.

"Greetings. I trust I am among friends," he said in Ruml as perfect as
the native mouth and lips could pronounce. "Greetings to Kator
Secondcousin Brutogas and to all those honorable Heads of Families who
will be viewing this back on Homeworld-"

Kator sprang from his platform.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Jase staggered a little, blundering against a high fence of black
wrought-iron rods. The sudden pain in his bruised shoulder revived him a
little. He made another automatic attempt to adjust his already
turned-up raincoat collar against the steady draining of rain from the
dreary skies above the capital city. He had been back in Washington,
keeping steadily on the move, for over twenty hours now. As long as he
kept moving and stayed away from his apartment or any place where he
could be recognized, he thought he had a good chance of going uncaptured
until the critical moment. He had made it this far-he calculated he had
perhaps six more hours to kill.

Yielding for a moment to the seductive weariness of his legs, he paused
now for a second, leaning against the hard vertical rods of wrought
iron, and took the folded sheet of newspaper from his raincoat pocket.
It was folded to show three columns of the front page, his own picture,
and a portion of the headline SOUGHT BY F.B.I.

Below this a picture of him in shirt and slacks taken, luckily, a good
three years before, looked out at him. With the automatic reflex of
dull-mindedness, he found himself reading for the last of an unknown
number of times, the opening words of the article.

By Will Uhlmann: Still being sought today was

Dr. Jason Barchar, wanted for questioning by the

F.B.I. in connection with the alleged betrayal of

government secrets to an unidentified foreign

power.

Jase wrenched his eyes away from the damp lines of type. What was
written was not important. His picture was. Luckily, he had lost weight
in the last few weeks, and over thirty-six hours of beard stubble hid
his jaws. Now, if he could just remember not to stand, move, or act in
his accustomed manner. It was by habit, carriage, and actions that most
people betrayed their disguises-he had read once, somewhere so long ago
that he could no longer remember where it was. At some time in that
remote past before he had ever heard of a race of beings called the
Rural.

"That's not you," he told himself, staring at the newspaper picture.
"You don't look like that, you don't smile like that, you don't feel
like that. You're twenty years older than that, stoopshouldered, a bum
... somebody unimportant...."

He shoved the newspaper back into his pocket. Time to get moving again
before he went to sleep leaning up against this iron fence. Wearily he
pushed himself away from its. support, grimly he started his enormously
heavy and aching legs to moving again. "It's not true," he thought,
"that people can't go to sleep on their feet." He had done it himself in
army training school, when they sprang a night hike of thirty miles on
top of a day hike of thirty-two. Stumping along in the moonlight, he had
watched the white pack of the man ahead of him, bobbing, bobbing,
bobbing. . . . Suddenly he would find himself stumbling, almost falling
into the moonlit ditch beside the road and realize he had wandered out
of line. He would pull himself back into line, look at other things for
a while, and then the pack would start to catch his eyes again, bobbing
and bobbing. . . . And the whole process would start over again.

"So I mustn't fall asleep walking here," he thought. "If I fall asleep
walking here, I may walk into the path of a truck. Or get into trouble
some other way and attract attention." His hand went to the pocket that
contained the dexedrine, along with the other capsules with which he had
filled the bottle when he had been planning for this time. But the
dexedrine seemed to have had no effect on him the last two times he had
taken it. Its only effect seemed to be to nauseate him, weakly.

The rain fell steadily from skies so dark that the streetlights had been
turned on at midday. Thunder muttered in the distance from time to time.
The lights in the office buildings of the city were on. The traffic
signal lights glared through the mist of the rain when he came to
corners.

His throat felt like dry sandpaper, his eyes were heavy and dry, and his
face burned under the hat brim and inside the turned-up raincoat collar.
This final exertion on top of the exhaustion of the past weeks had
pushed him over the edge. He was sick, with something involving a high
fever. At first he had been grateful for the fever, feeling that it woke
him up and gave him additional alertness. But now he had swung full
circle and hated it-it was draining his strength.

His feet tripped against each other, and he almost went down. A woman
passing in the opposite direction looked at him with a passing glance
that gave him a moment's glimpse of tight lips and narrowed eyes, as she
circled out a little bit to pass him at more than arm's length.

'It's no good," he thought suddenly. "I'm not going to be able to make
it, out on the street, trying to keep moving this way."

"Got to hole up somewhere," he thought.

He shook his head to clear it and looked around, to find out where he
was. For a moment he did not recognize the street-and then he did. A
stab of alarm brought him all the way awake. He had wandered back once
more into familiar territories-this time again he was only a few blocks
away from the Foundation building.

His mind working momentarily sharply with the impetus of the feeling of
alarm, for the first time since dawn he considered the possibility of
the Foundation building. His original plan had been to return there,
sneak in and hide in the stacks. He had put the plan aside because of
the danger that, once he was suspected to be there, he would be easily
trapped without a quick and easy exit. While, continually walking like
this, he had freedom to change his plans quickly,

Now, with a mind that no longer worked quickly and physical collapse
threatening to betray him into the hands of the local police-or,
probably Just as bad, some good Samaritan who would call the police-the
Foundation building was safer than trying to stay on his feet outside
like this.

He headed for the building.

It was about three blocks away. As he got closer to it, it began to loom
in his mind with all the promise of comfort in a warm fireside to a man
stumbling and freezing through a night of blizzard. Visions of the bed
in the basement room he had occupied until the day before yesterday swam
before him, like a pit of yawning, merciful oblivion into which his
uncertain feet could stumble him. He fought off the seductiveness of the
thought of sleep in bed.

Now, one hand brushing against the damp brick of the blank side of the
Foundation Building to steady himself, he was coming up to the entrance
of the alley that ran along behind it. He turned into the alley. About
thirty feet in was the back entrance to the building-the entrance to the
hallway opening on the kitchen of the old cafeteria and to the steps
down to the basement. There would be people working in the kitchen this
midday. With luck he might get past them. He had had a half-thought-out
scheme. . . .

He came to the blank, metal-faced door set in the back wall of the
building. In the dim light it was just possible to see the scratches and
scribblings on its outer, sheet-metal surface. He paused, leaning
against the closed door, which opened inward, and thought out carefully
what he planned to do, so that it would be all clear in his swimming
head.

He filled his lungs so that his voice would not sound cracked and
exhausted. He swallowed a couple of times to moisten his throat. Thunder
muttered off in the distance, and the rain streamed down. Straightening
up, he beat on the metal surface of the door with his fist as he swung
it open.

"Meter reader!" he shouted and went on into the hallway without
stopping, letting the door bang shut behind him.

"Right downstairs!" shouted back a voice from the clattering,
steam-bright kitchen entrance to his right. No one stepped out to look
at him. He went briskly forward, so that his footfalls would sound
natural. But as he clattered down the narrow, unbanistered wooden
stairs, his knees gave suddenly and he almost fell.

But he kept on, and a second later the soles of his shoes slapped
against the unyielding concrete of the basement floor. He was walking
down a hallway "in which the doors of storage and other rooms were set
like green oblongs pasted against the white-painted walls.

His will power almost failed him as he approached the slightly larger,
varnished-wood door among the green ones on his left. Behind that was
the room and the bed that had been floating in his mind for hours now,
as seductively as a dream of a fountain to a man lost in the desert.

However, he kept going, on down the hall and in through the narrow door
leading into the bottom of the library stacks. Here, on this basement
level, the windows that had been pierced in the outer walls of the stack
higher up were not able to filter down enough light to see by. The
artificial lights were off. He reached up, found the hanging cord of the
first sixty-watt bulb inside the entrance and jerked downward. Yellow
light revealed the shelves of books and magazines stretching away from
him and the narrow, circular metal staircase to the levels above.

He climbed with great effort, turning on lights as he went. On the third
level he left the stair and stumped heavily down aisles between
bookcases until he came to the polished hardwood door that opened from
the stacks into Mele's office.

Putting his ear to the panel of that door, gratefully for a moment
leaning against it, he heard the faint, polite clicking of her
typewriter-recorder. He sighed-it was almost an explosion of air in
relief and exhaustion from his lungs. He put his hand on the doorknob,
opened it, and tottered in and down the two small steps to her desk.

His hand pawed out in search of the wastebasket, to turn it up and sit
on it as he had before. But the effort was too complex and too much for
his strength. His knees gave way, and he dropped down heavily on a large
tape video-audio portable recorder beside her desk. For a moment his
head swam with the relief of being off his feet, and he had to catch the
edge of her desk with both hands to keep from falling over.

He was aware of her face staring at him from behind the now silent
typewriter. He stared back. He had-some uncertain, semidelirious time
ago-figured out what he would say to her, how he would explain that the
situation justified his involving her by asking her for help. But now,
now that he was face to face with her, neither the strength nor the
words would come. He simply sat, still dripping with the rain, leaning
on the edge of her desk, staring at her with eyes burned dry with
sleeplessness-silent.

Then the room began to tilt slowly on end. He was barely conscious of
his falling, sliding off the tape recorder, and his feeble efforts to
stop himself. Then ... nothing.

When he woke, he was back in the stacks. He was not far from the doorway
that opened on Mele's office, but he was back in a corner, and the light
in the adjoining aisle threw shadows that would hide him from anyone
underneath it. He was propped up in an angle of the comer and a heavy,
gray wool blanket was covering him, wrapped around his shoulders.

Mele was kneeling before him, pouring something from a thermos bottle
into a large coffee cup. He blinked at her uncertainly, collecting his
scattered senses. How she had managed to lift or drag his
hundred-and-seventy-five pound body up the two small stairs and back
into the stacks here-to say nothing of getting him wrapped in the
blanket and propped up in this corner-was more than his fatigue-drugged
brain could imagine.

"Drink this, now," she said, holding the full cup to his lips. He
started to swallow, then checked himself so abruptly that some of the
liquid spilled on his chin. He had suddenly realized that what she was
giving him might be coffee, and he had drunk so many innumerable cups of
this in hamburger joints and from coffee machines in the last
twenty-four hours that the thought of swallowing more of it gagged him.

But then the taste of what had touched his lips and the scent rising
from the liquid reassured him. It was hot vegetable beef soup, and he.
tasted it in his mouth like some strange and wonderful dish from a
foreign land. He was thirsty as well as hungry, and shivering now with a
chill that seemed to be fast friends with the fever in his head. And he
gulped eagerly at the soup, indifferent to the fact that it was scalding
his tongue and the inside of his mouth and sore throat.

He swallowed a cup and a half of the soup-and was abruptly full. He
found that he could not drink another drop from the cup, and he closed
his lips against it, trying meanwhile to get his hand out from under the
blanket to push it away. But Mele understood and took the cup away. She
wiped his chin with a paper napkin, and the paper caught and snagged on
the bristles of his unshaven beard.

". . . Better go now ..." he said. "I'll be all right." He hugged the
blanket around him in a new access of shivering. But she did not move.
She continued to kneel there, staring at him.

"Swallow these now," she said, producing some capsules and another cup
filled with water. "They're antibiotics, achrocidin." He took the
capsules in his mouth and swallowed the cool water. "Jase," she said,
putting the cup down. "Did you do it-what they said you did?"

"What?" he asked. "What-they say?"

"Did you add a film strip to the recording Kator made, telling the Ruml
all about our knowing about them, and the Baits, and showing them a
picture of our warships in space?"

"Yes," he said, huskily through his sore throat, which was now beginning
to hurt steadily and fiercely, "I had to. You see-"

"You don't have to tell me." She was still staring at him, on her knees.
"I don't care why you did it. When Swanson first came to see if I knew
you'd been planning something like that, I first tried to think why
you'd do something like that. Give away the only advantage we had to
aliens that outnumber us ten to one. But then, when they didn't find
you, and I began to see how everybody else felt about it-what they
wanted to do if they could capture you-I woke up to the fact that ft
didn't matter."

He blinked at her. In his feverish head her words buzzed and sang
without making sense.

"Jase-," she said. She took hold of his upper arms through the blanket.
"Don't you understand me? You've got to understand. I don't care what
you did! I was so proud of myself-I thought I believed in things being
either right or wrong, no matter how I felt inside-but I don't!"

She leaned forward and flung her arms around his blanket-wrapped body,
hugging him, pressing her head and the side of her face against the
rough blanket over his chest

'It's only you I care about! You!" Her arms tightened around him as if
she would absorb and drown his shivering in her own body. "And they're
not going to get you! I won't let them!"

He could see the dark hair of her head just below his chin. He opened
his mouth to say something, but his lips trembled loosely and he could
force no sound from his throat. Behind her he saw a black shadow move
and obscure the light in the neighboring aisle. For a moment it passed
away, and then it appeared again, like an occulting shape of darkness,
at the end of the aisle they were in.

It came bobbing toward them and revealed itself into the shape of a man,
then of several men, one behind the other. They stole up on them as Mele
still clung to him and he sat, unable to speak.

She was not conscious of their presence until their hands reached down
and seized her. Only then she awoke to the fact that they were upon her
and Jase and began to fight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

"... Why did you do it?" asked Swanson.

It was the same question they had been drumming at Jase ever since they
had taken him and Mele from the Foundation building to this
place-wherever it was. What they had done with Mele he did not know.
What they had done with him was to bring him to this bare room with a
few straightbacked chairs, where men he had not seen before kept asking
him that one question.

The reason they could ask and expect an answer from him was that
chemical miracles had been worked on his sick and exhausted body. Some
capsules and two injections, one in each arm, had broken his fever,
cleared his head, and pushed tiredness back as if behind some wall-so
that he still knew it was there, but somehow it did not bother him. His
heart pumped strongly, perhaps a little too rapidly, and there was a
slight singing in his ears. Outside of these symptoms, and the fact that
perspiration sprang constantly from him, so that he was continually
mopping his face and feeding a raging thirst with paper cups of water,
he felt almost normal.

But not quite. There was something unnatural about his alertness and
lack of shivering and chills that made him feel as if he was made of
delicate china, that any sudden move or emotion would shatter him into
irreparable junk. He held himself tightly erect in his chair as if he
was invisibly gripping himself together with will power, and their
questions seemed to come from some place so remote and disconnected with
him that they were not as threatening as they tried to be. He answered
monotonously, unvaryingly, as he answered the new questioner, Swan-son,
who had come and gone from the room several times already and had just
now once more returned to it.

"I can't explain so you'd understand," Jase said. "You'd have to have
been inside Kator to understand, and none of you were. Only me. I can't
explain."

"Try us," said Swanson. "If we don't understand, nothing's been lost,
has it?"

"There're no words," said Jase. "Not until after you've experienced it.
You see we're intelligent, and so are the Ruml." It was the same
explanation he had gone over many times before since he had come into
this room. "We've both got highly developed fore-brains. But we aren't
reacting with our forebrains, either race of us, in this matter. We're
reacting primitively-" He stopped. It was no use.

"Go on," said Swanson, grimly.

"--Primitively," repeated Jase. "Emotionally. Instinctively. We're
reacting against them as strangers, and they against us. Because the
reaction's on that emotional level, we're not being reasonable.
Reasonableness, understanding-these are intellectual things. Things we
learn in the process of growing up in a civilized culture. A young
animal-a young child-is not reasonable. He's not naturally
understanding. His concentration is all on surviving, and growing. He
takes any advantage that's offered, without considering abstract moral
values or invisible differences. If we'd kept the avenue of basic
research open--"

"Aren't you getting off from the subject?" said Swanson. "We're in a
race against time, here."

"It's all connected. But never mind," said Jase. "I told you you
wouldn't understand. Understanding's blocked out in your minds, just as
it is in the Rumls, by primitive emotional reactions to the stranger.
Basic research would have pointed out that this would happen before it
did, before we contacted some race like the Ruml. We would have been
forewarned and ready to keep from being crippled by the primitive
reaction when we met our first intelligent alien. But we weren't. And
now it's a case of one set of closed minds coming head on against
another set of closed minds."

"Point out," said Swanson, "where our minds are closed. Maybe we can
open them."

"You think you mean that," answered Jase. "But you don't. You have to
start out by understanding Kator. Start out by thinking of him as a man
with a strict moral code-"

"Moral code!" said somebody in the room. Jase did not even look to see
who said it.

"You see?" he said to Swanson. "You didn't say that, but you might as
well have. That's the way you feel."

"We don't even have to consider how he's acted and thought, where we're
concerned," said Swanson. "Against his own people he's shown us
everything but a moral code. Hasn't he just finished lying to
fifty-seven of his own kind, deliberately tricking them into committing
suicide? What's moral about that?"

"The greatest morality there is," said Jase. "The morality of survival,
both individual and race. They died so that he could not only live but
succeed. If there was one person of his own race and family he cared for
it was Bela, and he arbitrarily had Bela killed to increase his prestige
in the eyes of the Expedition-"

"When all the time he knew he was going to kill them off too," said
Swanson. "I think you can see it's pretty hard for us to swallow that
this was a noble thing to do."

"But he hadn't reached the point where he could safely kill them off,
yet!" said Jase, stung at last out of his fragile, china-like
detachment. "You think of his authority in human terms! You think of his
obligations in human terms! You think of his goals in human terms-"

The door to the room opened. A man stuck his head in, and Jase broke off
abruptly at the sight of the expression on his face, which was the
expression of a man who has seen evidence of his own doom.

"It's starting," the man said to Swanson. "You said to tell you. If you
want to come, you'd all better come now."

"Be right there," said Swanson. "Come along, Jase. Come on with us and
see what you've done."

Jase got awkwardly and uncertainly to his feet. With men surrounding him
and Swanson ahead of him, he walked out of the room, down several turns
of corridor, and finally into a room with a large, three-dimensional
viewing screen at one end and seats sloping toward it as in a theater.

In the row two back from the front, with a tall woman and two
business-suited men, was Mele. They brought Jase down to the same row
and moved him in. He sat down in the empty seat at Mele's right.

"Mele," he said. "How-"

"I'm all right." She smiled at him and took hold of his hand, squeezing
it. She continued to hold on to his hand, and neither her attendants nor
Jase's objected. Swanson sat down on the other side of Jase.

"Ready," said Swanson, turning his head to speak to one of the men
behind him. The rows behind were filling in with as many as thirty or
forty people.

A moment later the overhead lights in the room dimmed down to a deep
twilight of gloom, and the cube before them lighted up with a scene.
Instantly, Jase recognized it, although even Kator had never been in it
before. But every Ruml knew what it looked like. It was the Gathering
Room of the currently presiding Family Heads of the Ruml. Normally these
consisted of fifty-one Family Heads chosen by rotation from among the
more than five hundred thousand Heads of Families on all the Ruml
worlds. Disability, disinclination to serve, or pressing business
normally removed half of the list of available men from possible
service. The rest took the turn of their Family when it came up and were
members of the presiding group for ten days of a season.

The chance to serve came therefore never more than once in the lifetime
of an eligible Family Head, if at all. And the responsibilities of the
fifty-one members were two, as Jase knew. First, to order any necessary
actions for the Honor of the Ruml as a race. And, second, to certify a
Founder-whether only of a Family or of a Family and Kingdom.

It was for the last purpose the fifty-one were gathered here this day.
The Brutogas was an invited member, without a voice in the gathering,
making fifty-two in all. Just now, as Jase had sat down, the
heavy-bodied, long-whiskered Rumls of honorable age were filing in to
take their seats in a rising half-circle looking down on a small,
circular amphitheater. When they were all seated, out by a low door into
the amphitheater came Kator to stand and salute his elders with his
right hand over his chest and the claws extended.

At the sight of him, Jase's brain, dreamy with exhaustion, sickness, and
the stimulants that had been pumped into him, jumped the gap. Dreaming
awake, he found himself as suddenly inside the body of the image of
Kator before him as he had been when he had been asleep. The mental link
between them was still operating-and in that second he left the room of
the unknown building in Washington and leaped to the Gathering Room on
the Ruml Homeworld.

His body continued to sit upright and open-eyed, watching the cube in
the room on earth. But only those around him were watching. Jase was
living the scene they saw. For a last time-he was Kator.

Jase looked up at the Heads of Families looking down at him, and when he
saw the gray visage of the Brutogas among them, an instinctive thrill of
pride ran through him-to be washed away almost immediately by a wave of
shame and sorrow. He stiffened and spoke to the assembled Family Heads.

"Sirs," he said. "I am Kator Secondcousin Brutogas. I trust that here I
am among friends."

"Keysman," replied the most honorable member, "here you are among
friends. You have a report to make to us?"

"Sir," said Jase, "I have. The log of my voyage with the ship of the
Expedition to the world of the Muffled People is already in your hands.
You already know what is set down there. I have an additional recording
to show you, but first I would like to put before this gathering a claim
of a special nature."

"Your claim concerns yourself?" said the most honorable member, in the
words which were always used to those who had stood where he stood now,
under such circumstances.

"Yes sir. It is a claim for special consideration, of the fact that I am
become unlike any other man, and therefore necessary and valuable to the
honorable race of men."

"What," asked the most honorable member, "is the basis for your claim?"

"The basis for my claim," said Jase, "is that the Muffled People are
unlike any other race encountered by men since the beginning of time.
They have developed a civilization almost as great as our own, and it
may be that their intelligence and Honor approaches equality with our
own. In the face of such a departure from anything known in history, I
claim a special consideration." He paused.

"What is this special consideration?" The question came down from the
seat of the most honorable member above him among the ranked elders.

"Sirs," Jase said. "Of the Expedition that was sent to the world of the
Muffled People, I alone have returned with the knowledge that would make
any attempt to Found Families upon that world successful. Because of my
unique and special value to the race of men, therefore, I petition this
gathering to take special actions in my case."

"What special actions, Keysman?"

"I would like to point out," said Jase, "that as the Muffled People are
new in our experience, the ways of Honor in dealing with them may also
be new-including the importance of the knowledge of them I have within
me. Therefore, I ask that this gathering not act at once upon my report
once I have included it here, no matter how clear the path of honorable
action seems to be. But that this gathering delay action for at least a
day, during which it consider whether the clear path of honorable action
is truly honorable, and whether it should be taken rather than a new
path of Honor not yet suspected."

There was a little silence from the room when Jase had finished.

"Keysman," said the presiding elder, after a moment. "This is not in the
usual manner. Let me make it clear-you ask this Gathering to refrain
from any action toward you, any judgment of whether your actions were
honorable or dishonorable, any response of reward or retribution? No
matter how clearly the matter appears to us when you have finished your
report?"

"For one day only," said Jase. "I want you to refrain and consider your
judgment for one day only."

There was another hesitation.

"Does any among the elders wish to object?" asked the presiding member
at the end of that time. There was a rustle of movement, but no voice
spoke from the ranks of seats. "Very well," said the presiding elder.
"One day's delay and our consideration during that time can make no
difference if it is a question of Honor, since all questions of Honor
must be clear to an honorable man. We grant you this, Keysman. Now, you
will give us your report?"

"Yes, sirs, and thank you," said Jase, inclining his head. "I think I
need say no more now than to repeat what I said earlier, that the
Muffled People represent a new perception to us and possibly therefore
require new ways of Honor to deal with them. And now I will show you my
additional recording."

Jase stepped to one side of the open space and touched the control at
his harness.

"You have seen," he said, "how I escaped the Muffled guards and returned
to the ship of the Expedition to find all the crew dead. Since they had
thought me dead and return to Homeworld was impossible without the Keys
of the ship and the Keysman, they had suicided-as was honorable for them
under the circumstances. I had, as you may have deduced, tricked them
into this action so that I might be the only one to return with the
knowledge of the Muffled People necessary to colonize their world in the
face of their native oppositions--"

He broke off and looked up at them for emphasis.

"As was," he said, "honorable for me under the circumstances. To a man
committed to Founding his Kingdom, such actions which contribute to his
success are honorable. Are they not?"

"They are," answered the voice of the presiding member of the Gathering.

"However," said Jase, slowly and sorrowfully, "once I was back aboard
the ship and headed Home, I viewed what was in my recorder, up to and
past the moment of my fall in the native factory. And what I saw there
caused me to renounce my ambition-"

"Renounce?" It was half a dozen voices speaking at once from the seats.
"Keysman! A man cannot renounce ambition once he has begun his actions
to Found a Kingdom!" It was the voice of the presiding member, sharp and
clear above the other voices.

"I know," said Kator, his face stiffening with anguish. "Let me show you
my reason. You've seen the copy in the log of what my recorder recorded
up until the moment I fell unconscious in the factory. Let me show you
now what I found following that record, in my own recorder that was part
of the Mufflings I wore as disguise. It was this I saw when I got back
to my ship that not only caused me to renounce my ambition-but, in
Honor, to refrain from joining the suicided members of the Expedition
and return to you, here."

"Joining--," began the voice of the presiding member. But Kator had
already activated the control button on his harness. He was no longer
visible to those in the seats. Instead; they saw a projection of sight
and sound, filling the empty space beneath them.

For a second they saw only the bright flicker of an interrupted
recording where some of the sensitized surfaces had been destroyed. Then
this cleared, and the fifty-two of them, counting the Brutogas, looked
down to face a native of the Muffled People-the native who had spoken to
Jase earlier on the recording, when Jase had crossed the bridge over the
creek.

Now the native took the container of burning vegetation out of his
mouth, .knocked the embers out on a rock beside him, and laid down his
stick with the line attached as he put the container away. He spoke in
Rural as perfect as the alien vocal apparatus could produce.

"Greetings," he said, "I trust I am among friends. Greetings to Kator
Secondcousin Brutogas and to all those honorable Heads of Families who
will be viewing this back on Homeworld. As you know, I am a member of
that race of intelligent beings you Ruml refer to as the Muffled People,
because of our habit of wearing body coverings, unlike yourselves. We
are, however, correctly to be referred to as humans." The alien's lips
pronounced the native word carefully for them in the way a Ruml would
pronounce it, "Heh-eu-mans. With a little practice you should find it
not too hard to say."

A babble of voices was beginning to rise from the seats of the Gathering
when the voice of the presiding member spoke.

"Quiet!" he said sharply. "Listen!"

". . . we humans," the image of the native was saying, twisting his face
in an odd fashion that lifted the corners of his mouth upward, "have a
warlike history. But we prefer not to war. Our honor does not have the
same basis as your Honor. Therefore, let me show you some of the means
we have developed to do for us what your Honor does for you."

The scene changed suddenly. The assembled Rural saw before them one of
the small, long-tailed scavenging native animals Kator had used as a
model for some of his collectors of information. This one, however, was
smaller than the ones the Expedition had used as models, and
white-furred. It was nosing its way up and down the corridors of a
topless box-here being baffled by a dead-end corridor, there finding an
entrance through to an adjoining corridor.

"This," said the voice of the native, "is a device called a 'maze' in
the human tongue. We use it to test the intelligence of the experimental
animal you see. This device is one of the investigative tools used in
our study of a division of knowledge known as 'psychology,' which
corresponds in some respect to what you Ruml call your system of Honor,
which you believe is developed of necessity in any civilized,
intelligent being."

The picture changed to show the native once more facing and speaking to
them.

"Psychology," he said, "teaches us humans many useful things about how
other organisms must react. This is because, like your system of Honor,
it is based on primal and universal desires, such as the urge of the
individual or race to survive."

He reached to one side and picked up the stick he had held, with the
string attached. He held it up for them to see.

"This," he said, "though it was used by humans long before we began to
study psychology as a conscious effort, operates on psychological
principle--"

The view slid out along the rod, down the line attached to the rod,
and-surprisingly-into some water that those watching had not been aware
was there earlier. The line continued underwater until it terminated in
a dirtworm like the one Kator had kept and sealed in a transparent cube.
Then it moved off to the side a few inches and picked up the image of a
native underwater-living creature possessing no limbs but a fan-shaped
tail and minor fans farther up the body. The creature swam to the worm
and swallowed it. Immediately it began to struggle, and a close-up view
revealed a barbed metal hook in the worm. The creature, however, for all
its struggling, was drawn up out of the water by the native, who hit it
on the head and put it in a woven box.

"You see," said the native, once more imaged and speaking to them, "that
this device makes use of the subject's-a so-called fish-desire to
survive, on a very primitive level. To survive, the fish must eat. We
offer it something to eat, but in taking what we offer, the fish
delivers itself into our hands. It fastens itself to the hook hidden in
the offering we placed before it, and we secure it by means of the
attached line."

The native paused, as if to let his words sink in. There was silence
among the Ruml of honorable age in the amphitheater seats.

"All intelligent," went on the native, "space-going races conceivable to
us must exhibit the universal desire to survive, like the fish, though
on a much more complex level."

He seemed to lean forward toward those watching, confidentially.

"The worm on the hook," he said, "is known as `bait.' Similarly, the
worm Kator found on the space wreckage resembling part of one of our
spaceships was 'bait.' It was intended to operate upon unknown races and
cultures as the worm operated upon the 'fish.' The object on our part
is, of course, to study whoever or whatever takes the "bait.' Now, when
Kator took the spaceship wreckage in tow, there was a monitor device
following it at a distance of only a few thousand miles that followed
it-and him-back here to Homeworld.

"When your Expeditionary ship came, it was allowed to land on our moon
and an extensive study was made, not only of it but of your methods of
gaining information about our world and people. Again, of course, our
purpose was to learn as much as possible about you Ruml, on the basis
that he who knows about a potential competitor when the competitor does
not know about him has an undeniable advantage."

The native straightened up.

"After as much as could be learned by such observation had been
recorded," he said, "we allowed one of your collectors to find one of
our underground launching sites, and for one of your people-Kator- to
come down on to our world and actually enter the underground area.

"We ran a number of maze-level tests on Kator while he was making his
entrance to and escaping from the underground site. You may be glad to
learn," once more the native's face twisted in the odd fashion that
lifted the corners of his mouth, "that your racial intelligence tests
highly in our opinion, although you aren't what we'd call
maze-sophisticated. We experienced little difficulty in influencing
Kator to leave the conveyor belt and follow a route that would lead him
on to a surface too slippery to cross. As he fell, we rendered him
unconscious--"

There was a collective sound, half-grunt, half-exclamation, from the
listening Heads of Families.

"And, during the hour that followed, we were able to make complete
physical tests and studies of an adult male Ruml. Then Kator was put
back where he had fallen and allowed to get his senses back. Then he was
allowed to escape."

The native put aside the stick with the string attached, to which he had
been holding all this time. There was something about the gesture that
signalled the end of his words.

"We know," he said, "all about your honorable race. And you, as a race,
and with the single exception of Kator, know nothing about us. Because
of what we have learned about you, we are confident that Kator's
knowledge will not be allowed to do you any good." He lifted a finger.
"I have one more scene to show you."

He disappeared. In his place, against a backdrop of stars none of them
recognized in the Gathering room, there stretched inconceivable numbers
of space ships, great shape beyond great shape, like dark, giant demons
waiting.

"Kator," said the voice of the native, "should have asked himself why
there was so much empty space in the underground site we let him enter.
Come see us on earth whenever you're ready to discuss contact between
our two races that does not involve violence."

The scene in the open space of the Gathering Room winked out. In the
glare of the lights, Kator stood small and alone with the Fifty-two
Heads of Families staring down at him.

For a moment, they sat silent and unmoving. Then, as if in response to
some unconscious, instinctive, primitive signal-reflexive as the signal
which causes the wolf pack to turn on a crippled member-they rose from
their seats and swarmed down upon him.

"Wait!" cried Kator desperately. "Wait and think! You're throwing away
your only advantage, just like the native said you would! Can't you see
I'm your only chance, and this is different from anything we've--"

But they were already on him. He was young and strong, but there were
fifty-two of them, including the Brutogas, and instinct fought against
him as it fought for them. He went down, hardly feeling the claws
piercing and tearing at him.

"I die in Honor!" he managed to shout while there was still breath in
his body.

And, as he died, the body of Jase back on Earth rose fighting among the
seats of the viewers around him, then fell lax and empty as Jase felt
the darkness of death take him finally into her arms and bear him away
from all that was, on Homeworld and Earth alike.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

To die, thought Jase idly, is to stop. To experience stopping without
dying is to go a long way away and have a long way to come back.

He did not know how long it had been since he had stopped, with Kator's
death and the feeling of the claws tearing the life out of him, but it
had been some days since he had first become conscious of the white
ceiling above this hospital bed in which he lay. Daylight and dark
alternated in coloring that ceiling. People came and went about the bed.
Occasionally they spoke to him, but for a long time he did not bother to
answer.

After you have stopped, he thought, nothing, not even stopping again, is
very important It is only necessary to let go a little in order to stop
again-this time for good. Sometimes Jase wondered, vaguely, why he did
not do so. There seemed to be some reason for not doing so, but he was
too indifferent to inquire into it.

Then, after a while, Mele began to be among those who came and went.
Gradually he became aware that she sat by the side of his bed for as
much as several hours at a time. And, very slowly, after a while, he
found himself answering now and then to the questions she asked about
how he felt or what he was thinking. And in this way, imperceptibly, he
drifted back into awareness of the world and conversation with her.

"... No," he said, in answer to something she said, "Kator was a very
rare, brave, and unusual man- Ruml I mean. For one like him there's a
million among the Ruml who would never have tried what he did. That's
one thing Swanson and the rest couldn't understand. Another-"

"You don't have to say anything if you don't want to," said Mele. "This
room is wired for sound, you know. They just want to get information to
help them try you for treason or something. That's why they let me come
here, hoping you'll talk to me."

"That's all right," he said, indifferently. "I want them to understand.
What was I saying? Another thing people here don't understand-but they
will, eventually-is that neither Kator nor the other Ruml wanted to
conquer earth, in the sense we think of it. Kator wanted to win the
right to Found a Kingdom-which means he could start a family of his own
and have as many sons as he could. Ordinary Ruml can only have one."

He saw Mele sitting close to him, watching him.

"You say you want people to know?" she said.

He nodded, absently. He was already drifting off on the receding tide of
his indifference.

"If you really want them to know, I'll ask questions," she said. "Do you
want me to ask questions?"

He considered the question idly. Slowly, as if from some sluggish
reflex, came the response. He woke up a little.

"Of course," he said. "But I just told you."

"I know what you told me," she said. "But why did he want a lot of sons.
Just so he could be proud of them?"

Jase shook his head.

"You're thinking like a human being," he said. "The chance he could be
proud of one of his sons was very remote. But by having a lot he
increased the chances."

"What chances?"

"Of having," he said, "another like himself-either among his sons or
their sons, and so on. There might crop up one or more who would also
Found Families."

Mele, gazing at him, slowly shook her head.

"Why?" she asked. "I don't understand. He Founds Families-or Kingdoms--"

"Same thing," murmured Jase.

"So that some descendants of his can do the same thing? It's a circle.
The same thing repeating itself."

Jase shook his head upon the pillow.

"It's survival of the fittest, their way," he said.

For a moment she did not answer. Then she burst out, suddenly.

"I see! I understand!" she said. "So that finally all the Ruml will be
descended from those who Found Families, the leaders!"

"Yes . . ." Jase said. He was beginning to drift off again.

"But Jase .. .»

However, he was already drifting beyond reach of her voice. The extended
talk had tired him. In the next few days he grew stronger, but he
resisted her efforts to get him to talk again. It was no use. It had
been mere reflex telling her as much as he did. People were emotionally
blocked against understanding Ruml reasons-as the Ruml Family Heads had
been against understanding Kator and letting him accept the shame of
living. There was no point trying to explain.

Then, suddenly, he woke one bright morning to find Mele physically
shaking him.

"Wake up!" she was saying in a low voice, but fiercely. "Wake up, Jase!
The Ruml have cornel A great fleet of them is in orbit around the world,
right now. You've got to wake up! I wasn't supposed to know, but it was
on the radio in the nurses' room and I overheard. And I heard you're
going to be taken away-someplace. And probably shot. The night nurse was
telling the day nurse! Jase-wake up! Maybe we can get out of here first,
somehow. But you've got to wake up!"

He stared numbly up to her, irritated at the fact she continued to shake
him. Then, understanding and consciousness of what she was saying
returned to him like a smooth rush, gathering speed as it came. He
caught at her arms that were shaking him.

"Help me up," he said. "Help me try to walk."

She aided him. When he was on his feet, his knees almost gave, but he
forced them to move.

"Help me walk," he said. She guided him, and they went up and down the
room. "Swanson," he said. "I've got to talk to Swanson."

"You can't, Jase!" she said. "We've got to get you away. Those nurses-"

"Never mind that. This is important!" he said, making his legs walk.
"How do we get hold of Swanson?"

"We can't," Mele said. "Oh, Jase, don't be foolish, now! You're not in
Swanson's hands any more. You've got to get away, somehow. They don't
think you can leave your bed, so we've got a chance. If we go down the
hall the other way, there's a fire escape-"

"No," he said. "Listen, Mele-. If they take me away, I want you to try
to get to Swanson yourself. If the Ruml are here, you've got to get to
him and make him understand how to deal with them. If he does the wrong
thing, they'll attack. Just as surely as they killed Kator-"

"But they'll attack anyway-"

"No. Listen to me. Will you listen?" he said. "We probably don't have
much time before whoever's coming for me gets here."

"I'll listen," she said. "If that's what you want, I'll listen. But,
Jase-"

"Just listen, and remember this," he interrupted. "Tell Swanson-he may
be ready to listen and believe -this now, after seeing Kator die and the
Ruml come-tell him the problem's with both races, ours and the Ruml.
Both of us have an instinct to preserve our race and improve it through
survival of the fittest, but because of basic animal differences, its
evolved two different cultures. Cultures whose individuals' instincts
will bring them into a head-on clash unless they understand each other.
Have you got that?"

"I... think so ..." She was still guiding him up and down the room.

"There's no time to repeat it, anyway," he said. "I'll go on. The first
protective unit was the family, among humans. Then the clan, the tribe,
expanding out and out, to include the nation and the nation-group.
Including more and more people in the not-stranger category. Until we
finally began including the whole population of the world in one
self-protective group. All right--"

He broke off suddenly; his legs were trembling.

"I better sit down for a minute, after all," he said. She steered him
back to the bed, and he perched on the edge of it, feeling awkward in
the ridiculous hospital gown with its ties in the back. "At any rate-the
appearance of an intelligent, alien race kicked off, both in us and the
Ruml, the ancient protective anti-stranger feeling that has its basis in
the primitive association of the family, in human beings, but in
something else in the Ruml."

"Something else?" said Mele.

"Yes. That's what I'm going to explain. The instinct that causes humans
to band together in the face of danger from a strange enemy is based on
the primitive bonds of affection not only in the human family but in the
higher mammals. It's what causes elephants to try to hold up one of
their number who's been shot by a hunter, or porpoises to support one of
their number who's been hurt or knocked unconscious. This response grows
out of the affection between mother and children, male parent and female
parent-and so on. But the Ruml don't know that land of affection."

"But they have Families. You were always talking about their Families."

"Not in the sense we do," said Jase. "A young Ruml spends his formative
years semiconscious in his mother's carrying pouch. Shortly after he
leaves her pouch, at what would be the age of ten for a human child-they
mature faster than we do-he's forgotten even what she looked like. The
years of affection of a human child are lost to a Ruml. The only
affection they're capable of on an individual basis is a sort of warm
admiration between males and a momentary, transitory love between male
and female that is entirely unrelated to the emergence of their child
into the Ruml world ten years later."

Mele's brow wrinkled.

"But- They have a society?" she said.

"A different kind of society. I told you," said Jase, "that the family
wasn't the basis of their social response. But they have the same racial
instinct for survival. In their case it finds expression in their
concept of Honor." He stared earnestly at her. "Do you understand?"

She shook her head.

"I don't see how Honor could compare to--"

"That's just it. A human being can't imagine it. Unless," said Jase,
wryly, "he's been inside a Ruml mind the way I have. You'll have to take
my word for it. Everybody will have to take my word for it-but it's
true. Believe me, a Ruml reacts as strongly, emotionally, to a possible
threat to his Honor, or the system of Honor, as a human reacts to a
threat to his child." Jase pulled himself off the edge of the bed. "Help
me try to walk again. He reacts as strongly, and as primitively."

"But why?" said Mele helping him. "How can he react to something so-so
cold and abstract. I mean, why should he?"

"Because," gasped Jase, gritting his teeth and making his legs go, "it's
the way the Ruml system of racial survival, and the weeding-out process
of survival of the fittest, works."

"How?"

"The Ruml race--," said Jase. "No, I want to keep walking-" His knees
had given way, and he resisted Mele's response for steering him back
toward the bed. "The Ruml race is exactly like an army waiting for a
general, at all times. Any individual who wants to lead it to some
exploit, the settlement of new lands or something that will make
available room for more or better living conditions for the race, can
have its services by just putting himself in a way to accomplish such an
exploit."

"But that doesn't make sense!" said Mele. They'd all be trying--"

"Sure!" said Jase, mirthlessly and grimly, "but there's a penalty
attached. Whoever leads them, whoever tries to Found a Kingdom, a
Family, as Kator did, has to succeed or else. He isn't allowed the
smallest, the most indifferent mistake. If he has anything but complete
success, it's a sign the Random Factor wasn't working for him-he wasn't,
that is, a chosen leader-and he must be disposed of, at once."

"Killed?" said Mele.

"You saw," said Jase, "what they did to Kator."

"But why kill him? To punish him for trying-"

"No," said Jase. "That's where the primitive, instinctive element of the
reaction enters in. Socially, they think that they kill him as
punishment-but the modern Ruml sociologist knows the real reason is
something else." He turned his head to stare at Mele. "You see, if they
let him live, he might go back and succeed after all. And that would
raise a question. Did he succeed because of his innate, generic genius
for leading the Ruml to success or improvement? Or did he succeed,
because he learned from his first mistake? It's to make sure of pure
genetic talents that they kill off those who don't prove out all along
the line. You see, evolutionarily, they're unconsciously working toward
a super-Ruml, just as we're unconsciously striving toward a superman."

"But," said Mele. That still doesn't explain why you said Kator was one
in a million Ruml. Don't more Rural than that try it?"

"No," said Jase. "That's the other side of the coin. The emotional block
in the average Ruml against making the attempt is tremendous. The
governor on this whole process is a countertrait of the Ruml character
that works against trying to Found a Kingdom. The fear of failure is
intense-and the fear of facing recognition of their failure is more so.
That's why Kator was so noble in going back-but let's not get into that
now. The point is, if the Ruml individual or the Ruml race has any
reason to doubt success in anything they undertake, they can't be
brought to try it, except as a last-ditch, desperate measure--"

He broke off. The door* had opened. Two tall, quiet-faced men in gray
suits had just come in.

"You've been listening to me!" said Jase. "You heard? Let me explain how
this affected us-"

"I don't know what you're talking about," answered one of them. "We just
got here. You're to come with us-both of you."

"He can't walk!" cried Mele. "He was just trying to take a few steps.
He's been flat on his back for three weeks."

"I know," said the man who had spoken. "That's been arranged. We've got
a wheel chair outside in the corridor for him. Come on." He took hold of
Jase's arm.

"What do you want her for?" demanded Jase as he was propelled toward the
door. "Where are you taking us?"

"You might as well not ask questions," said the man holding his arm.
"You're not going to get any answers."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The two men in gray suits escorted them down a service elevator of the
hospital and out to the lawn behind the building. An air force
helicopter was waiting for them there. And in this they all lifted from
the hospital grounds and went swinging northward. Twenty minutes of
flight brought them in sight of a large military installation, which
after a moment Jase recognized as Fort Laud, halfway between Washington
and Philadelphia. The helicopter drifted in and descended toward the
spaceship pad in the northeast corner of the Fort.

However, before they reached it, the 'copter set down before a wide,
rectangular building with a glass-sided control tower rising from it and
beyond it, a reaching spread of concrete pad for spaceship landings.
They were brought into the building and up in an interior elevator to
the top level of the control tower. They found themselves in a nearly
square, window-sided room. Across from him one window faced the pad, and
among the spaceship shapes there he saw one, reaching skyward, that
looked familiar, though he had never seen one like it with his human
eyes before.

Just then, he saw Thornybright Erect, in a blue suit, thin, sharp, and
competent looking as the blade of an injector razor set on end. He was
standing with Swanson, Coth, and some others in civilian clothes. They
all turned to look as Jase and Mele entered. In the bright daylight
through the windows all looked to Jase to be strangely pale. As they
came up to Swanson, Jase saw the man's eyes were ringed with tiredness,
and standing close, he could almost hear the beating of the other's
heart.

"I told them," said Thornybright, behind Swanson, "that you were their
only chance, Jase. For once they believed me."

"Never mind that," said Swanson without turning his head. He looked at
Jase. "That spaceship, out there? You recognize it?"

Jase looked through the window at it again.

"I don't know the individual ship," he said. "But of course it's a Ruml
space vessel-of the type used for troop transport and assault."

Coth turned and said something inaudible to one of the other officers.

"The officers of the ship," said Swanson, sharply. "Can you pick them
out?" The Ruml ship was about three hundred yards distant on the pad.
Someone put a pair Of wide-angle binoculars into Jase's hands, and as he
looked over to take them his eyes met the eyes of Mele. Those blue eyes
were perfectly calm and rested on him with perfect faith.

He lifted the binoculars to his eyes.

"Yes," he said, as the figures jumped into recognizable shapes before
him. "That's the Captain standing to the foot of the ramp at the right
there. The first and third officers are fining up the crew. The
Keys-man's inside. He won't come out until last."

He studied the furred and harnessed Ruml shapes a moment more through
the twin lenses of the binoculars. The binoculars were a beautiful
instrument, lighter and with an even wider range of vision than his own.
He would have liked to have watched the autumn hawk migration southward
over the hills of the west shore of Lake Superior, north of Duluth,
Minnesota, with a set like these. He lowered them at last and turned
back to Swanson.

"There's no one outside the ship yet I recognize," he said. "The crew
seems to be split right down the middle. Half Hooks and Half Rods,
politically."

"What're they here for? What do they want?" demanded Swanson. Jase
looked at him.

"They're here to negotiate-if you'll let them," Jase said.

"If well let them!" said Swanson. That's what we want them to do!"

"Then, go ahead," said Jase. There's nothing more to talk about, is
there?" He had been through a lot. He could not help sounding somewhat
bitter.

Swanson stared at him for a long moment.

"We don't want to do the wrong thing," he said, at last.

"Finally," said Jase, with a great and weary sigh. "Finally-you don't
want to do the wrong thing. It's time ..." The room started to tilt and
move slowly around him. He felt himself falling, hands grabbing him,
easing him into a chair ...

"Doesn't . . ." He found himself laughing, weakly and uncontrollably.
"Doesn't want to do the wrong thing. . . . Doesn't . . ." Laughter
spilled helplessly from him, getting in the way of the words. He felt
himself going down like a drowning man for the last time, into
hysteria--

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Mele was suddenly beside his chair. He felt her hands on his shoulders.
He began to throttle back the laughter.

"He ought to rest!" she said fiercely to the men around her.

"No." Jase shook his head, sobering. "I'm just not used to being on my
feet, that's all. I'll be all right sitting down." He smiled a little
wryly at them. "Why doesn't everybody sit down."

Swanson pulled close a chair that was standing empty nearby and sat
down. The rest remained standing.

"All right," Swanson said. "Maybe you told me before and I wasn't
listening. I'll listen now. To anything you've got to say, anything at
all."

Jase nodded.

"It's a matter of basic instinct, in us and the Ruml, too," he said.
"You've got to understand that to understand how to deal with them. I
was telling Mele-"

"What you told her in the hospital room just before we brought you
here?" said Swanson. "We've got that" Jase blinked at him. "We were
taping your conversations. When we called to order you sent to us, the
monitor in charge of the taping read me what you'd said over the phone."
He glanced out at the spaceship pad and the Ruml ship. "Go on. Don't
waste time. Go on from where you left off telling her . . "

"Basic research," said Jase. "If we'd had a decent program of basic
research this last hundred years, we'd have been ready for the
differences in the Ruml character, their differences from us, when we
met them."

"How could we know anything before we met them?" said Swanson. "How
could we know about them before we knew what they were like?"

"You don't understand how basic research works," said Jase. "It's a
search after knowledge for the sake of knowing. There was work done
right here on earth that could have warned us of the Ruml type of
psychology and character. In fact, there was; I found it. I was looking
for a bridge, some common understanding between their kind of being and
ours. And I found it in an article written by a Finnish zoologist back
in I960."

"In 1960?" Swanson's voice trembled on the edge of disbelief.

"In a magazine called Natural History," said Jase. "I think in the
January issue. It was called 'A Key to Ferocity in Bears,' and it was
written by a man named Peter Krott. It told how he, his wife, and
children raised two bear cubs under free conditions one year in the
Italian Alps. And it gave some conclusions he came to as a result of
observing the two bears."

"The Ruml are like bears?"

"No--" Jase was beginning, shaking his head, when one of the uniformed
men interrupted.

"Some of the aliens are going back into the ship!"

"It's all right," said Jase. "They're just going to attend the Keysman.
He won't come out without an escort in a situation like this-- Where was
I?"

"Rumls aren't like bears, you said," answered Swan-son.

That's right. Only," said Jase, "in one small way are they similar. But
the way bears aren't like humans points up the way Rumls aren't like
us." He paused, feeling his exhaustion.

"Go on," said Swanson.

"What Krott discovered," said Jase, "was that, after a certain period of
growth, the bear cubs he observed began to develop a feeding pattern--"
Jase looked around at the ring of faces. "Do any of you know about
feeding patterns-like the sharks, for example? Do you know what a
feeding pattern, so-called, is?

"When a shark," said Jase, "tastes blood in the water, instinct sends
him into a feeding frenzy. In this frenzy, reflex action will make him
snap at anything, a turning propeller blade or his own trailing entrails
where another shark has slashed him. He'll go on trying to eat when he's
dying. That reaction is part of his feeding pattern. It's below the
level of conscious control."

"But the Ruml--" .

"Just a minute," said Jase. "Humans, although they pretty well have them
buried nowadays for lack of use, have reflexes below the level of
conscious control. Survival reflexes. A young child under a certain age
will reflexively scramble up in to the arms of the nearest adult in the
face of danger, or imagined danger. That's part of the survival
pattern."

He looked at Mele.

"Intellectually, Mele didn't think I ought to be doing what I did when I
added that information to Kator's recorder," he said. "But that was
intellectually. On the instinctive level, she obeyed the reflex to
protect me, because she loved me." He looked over at Mele. She looked
back at him with steady eyes.

"The bears, Krott found," said Jase, "developed a reflex that led them
to attack any moving source of food. Though they were affectionate and
gentle with all of the family, one day one of them attacked Mrs. Krott
and clawed off her jacket to get at some test tubes of alcohol in her
jacket pocket. The attack had nothing to do with how the bear felt about
Mrs. Krott."

"But the Ruml-!" said Swanson, impatiently.

"That's it," said Jase. "The Ruml are carried for three years inside the
mother's body, and for six years after in a marsupial-like-say
kangaroo-like-pouch, during which six years they're only semiconscious.
Then they start to grow suddenly, emerge from the pouch, and within a
week they're on their own. They wander away from their mothers and pick
up the language and customs during a few weeks of extremely rapid
learning of the type we call 'imprinting' here on Earth, when we observe
it in young babies and animals. Within weeks they're small adults,
individually independent and responsible."

"I see . . ." said Swanson slowly. "They operate by reflex where we
think, is that it?"

"And we operate by reflex in areas where they think," said Jase. "The
young puppy, for example, on earth goes through four stages of very
important development: neonatal, the nursing stage; transitional, when
he starts to shift to adult methods of locomotion and feeding;
socialization, in which he learns to play and respond with his fellows;
and juvenile, a final weaning stage of achieving independence. By
contrast, a song sparrow has six stages. The Ruml have none- that
correspond. When the young human child is learning and responding to the
affectionate social structure of the human family, the young Ruml is
still unconscious in his mother's pouch. He emerges from that pouch
essentially adult and independent. He'll hardly remember his mother, let
alone have any affection for, or any imprinted reflex of affection for,
her. Being so, the Ruml couldn't develop a society on the same basis as
ours."

"Well?" said Swanson. "What's their basis?"

"Are you sure you know what ours is?" Jase asked. "Oh, that's right, you
said you heard what I told Mele in the hospital just now. Well, I'll say
it again to make sure. Our instinct as humans is to protect the race as
individuals. The Ruml, lacking the early formative years of human
development, have instead an impulse to protect the race as an idea-a
system of Honor which tends to insure the survival of the race."

He looked directly at Swanson.

"That's what I was working for," he said. "Some way to convince them
they should live peacefully side by side with humans. But a way that
could be expressed in terms of Honor as they saw it-not in terms of our
own human rights and feelings about the matter, which are invisible to a
Ruml. Literally, they .don't exist for him. To us-for example-it would
be immoral to condemn our best friend unjustly to death just to impress
other people. To someone like Kator there was no connection between
morals and such an action. What was moral to him was to succeed in
Founding his Kingdom. Everything that helped him to that end was moral
because it was aimed at improving the Ruml race-by justifying the
survival and spread of his particular superior genes as Head of a Family
with unlimited children, whereas because of space limitations on the
already settled worlds most Ruml are restricted to one son."

Jase paused" and closed his eyes for a moment, to rest. He heard the
others fidgeting impatiently and opened his eyes.

"What's immoral, then?" asked Swanson, as if he wished to prod Jase back
into talking rather than as if he was actually interested in the answer.
But Jase chuckled, a little weakly.

"I'm glad you asked that," he said. "I was just going to get to it. It's
immoral to fail. That's what's immoral among the Rumls. The whole Ruml
race is like a kingdom of subjects, ready and waiting to be taken over
by anyone who has the guts to put on the crown and lead them forward
into the future. But if he puts on the crown, he has to present them
with unvarying success-that's why only one Ruml in millions tries it.
Any failure, no matter how slight, condemns him. That's why I added that
section to Kator's recording."

"What do you mean?" said Swanson.

"I mean--"

"Just a minute!" interrupted one of the uniformed men by the window
looking out on the spaceship. "Something's happening. There's more of
them coming out. There's one in the center with a sort of metal belt--

"The Keysman." Jase tried to get up. "That'll be the Keysman. Someone
ought to go meet him--"

"Sit down." Swanson's hand held him in the chair. "Tell us why you did
that with Kator's recording."

Jason smiled sadly.

'To prove him a failure," he said. "The fact we'd known about him all
this time, and the fact I claimed-that we'd been using him-made him a
failure. That made everything he had done immoral instead of moral. He
had been a false leader. He should have driven the Expedition ship into
the nearest sun or cut his throat."

"Why didn't he? Did you know he wouldn't?" demanded Swanson.

"I knew," Jase nodded. "I'd been living in his mind and body for weeks.
He was too great a man-too great a Ruml, if you like-to take the easy
way out. Instead of killing himself and ending his shame, and it's a
shame human beings can't even imagine, at killing fellow Ruml who might
otherwise have sired sons who would be true leaders, he decided to live
with it. He decided to go back and tell the Family Heads on Homeworld.
He decided to ask them-you saw him ask them-to let him live long enough
to make his knowledge of us useful to them in their action against us.
You saw what happened."

"They killed him," said Swanson. His eyes were hollow with lack of sleep
and tension. "They didn't know any better, then."

"They knew better. They promised him to think for a day before they
acted. Remember?" Jase said. "But when they came down to it, and were
faced with the fact he was a failure, they acted instead of thinking. As
with all of us, Ruml and human, both. As with Mele, in a different way,
when she was faced with a decision between her intellectual justice and
her instinctive urge to protect me under any circumstances. Their
instinctive reaction overrode their intellectual centers."

"But they're here now," said Swanson.

"They've had plenty of time to think it over," said Jase. "They're
intelligent, and civilized. They see they should have suffered Kator to
endure the moral pain of staying alive and helping them. And they think
we have a positive advantage over them because we know about them and
they don't know about us."

Swanson stared at Jase for a long moment.

"You knew they'd kill him!" the spectacled man exploded. "You knew
they'd kill Kator when you added that section to his recording."

Jase felt the pain of memory like a blow in the body.

"Yes," he said. "Just as I knew Kator was great enough to go back
instead of taking the way of an easy suicide. It was the only way to
convince the Rural we had an advantage over them."

"But-" Swanson stared at him, hollow-eyed. "Why stake everything on
getting an advantage? Wouldn't it have been better to try to deal with
them through Kator--"

Jase shook his head.

"Kator only wanted his Kingdom. Anything less than that would have been
failure for him and made his life unbearable anyway, once he had set
himself to the task of winning a Kingdom. You're thinking now like a
human. There is no middle ground to a Ruml, because it's not his own
life that's important-it's the improvement of his race embodied in the
concept and system of what he calls Honor."

Jase put his hands on the arms of the chair he sat in, ready to hoist
himself up.

"We had to stop Kator. But by stopping him, we created a question of
Honor, a question of whether in stopping him, we were not ourselves in
organization behind some one individual who wanted to Found a Kingdom on
the Ruml worlds. That question had to be resolved, in Honor. It didn't
make any difference that the civilized, present-day Ruml Family Heads,
once they thought about it, could entertain the concept of peaceful
association between our two races. Their instincts told them that by
stopping Kator, as we had to, since the alternative was becoming his
creatures, we had posed a threat to the future of their race. They were
in Honor bound to move against us-except for one thing."

"What thing?" asked Swanson. They were all staring at him now, he saw,
even Thornybright.

"The control reflex. The governor. You said you heard what I told Mele
in the hospital," said Jase. "The reflex that keeps nearly all the Ruml
individuals from ever attempting to Found a Kingdom. The Ruml know only
how to bet everything-or not to bet at all. Their culture rests on the
discovery of pure talent. It's either success or failure-nothing in
between."

He looked about at them but saw they still did not understand.

"As I told Mele," he said, "the fear of failure is intense. Only as a
last-ditch, desperate, back-to-the-wall measure will the Ruml nature
undertake any attempt where failure seems likely or even possible.
That's why games are unknown among them, and duels are automatically to
the death. If you demonstrate an advantage, as I did in the section I
added to Kator's recording, the instinctive impulse in the Ruml is to
avoid the contest."

"But you said--" Swanson hesitated. "You said that intellectually they
were capable of seeing through their instinctive impulses when they had
time to think, as after they killed Kator."

"That's right," said Jase. "And that's why they're here now. If the
human race does anything to challenge their sense of racial survival,
they'll fight, here and now. But if a challenge like that can be
avoided-by us," he smiled tightly, "-the intellectual centers of their
minds will have a chance to gingerly approach and entertain the idea of
existing in the same area of interstellar space with monsters like
ourselves."

"Monsters?" said Thornybright, speaking up now for the first time since
Jase had come in. "Do they really think of us as monsters, Jase?"

"Why not?" asked Jase, grimly. "Don't we think of them as monsters?
After all, they've got no milk of human kindness. And we, in their eyes,
have no sense of Honor."

Swanson nodded. He straightened up, looking down at Jase.

"I get it, finally," he said. "Yes, I think if you're up to it, you'd
better come along with us to meet them. We wouldn't want to get off on
the wrong foot."

He reached down and took Jase's arm. Jase swayed to a standing position
and held himself steady. Now that it was all over, he felt as if a
hidden source of strength had been released in him.

With Swanson on one side and one of the other men in civilian clothes
supporting him on the other they went down the elevator and out on to
the landing pad. A baggage truck with a low platform was waiting. They
stepped up on the platform and rode out to the ship, where the lines of
dark-furred Ruml stood clustered in formation, with the metal-belted
Keysman before them.

The truck halted. They got down. Jase, with Swan-son and the other man
at his side, walked up to within a couple of paces of the Keysman. The
Keysman stared at him.

"You-" The human words came out almost unrecognizably mangled by the
narrow jaw and near-lipless mouth in the dark-furred face. "You are the
Fisherman!"

"Yes," said Jase. He nodded, with the inclining of the head that was the
Ruml gesture of respectful assent.

The Keysman stopped staring. He pulled himself erect. He was an older
Ruml, wearing a harness with many Honors clipped to it, and the hair of
his upper body was almost uniformly gray.

"I trust," he said formally and precisely in the Ruml tongue, "that I am
among friends?"

"Yes," said Jase in Ruml, "Keysman. Here you are among friends."