and the boys from the treaty area," he sighed. "Arriving right on schedule. We've forced them to attack the city without weapons; to survive, they'll have to make the same mental reintegration that you did, Lanny."

"How could you have been so sure, father, that we would be able to—to handle the matter-energy units the way we do?"

"We weren't, my son. We were sure of nothing. We only knew that you were the first generation whose minds had been set completely free. Nobody had done any of your thinking for you. If any man is equipped to solve problems, you are—you of the new breed."

"But why couldn't you learn the same techniques yourselves? Why can't you save yourself now, father?"

"Because we belong in the old world. Because the technique is only an application of the data you know, Lanny; that is something you have worked out for yourselves. We could give you the theory; we were incapable of following it through your minds."

Pendillo gasped painfully for breath. He closed his hand over his son's. "The old survivors are still imprisoned by beliefs carried over from the world we lost. We teach, Lanny, but we cannot believe as you do, even when we see our own children—our own sons—" His voice trailed away, and he slumped against Lanny's chest.

A series of explosions rocked the metal walls; Pendillo opened his eyes again. His dying whisper was so soft, so twisted by pain, the words were almost inaudible. "One more thing, son. We did more—more than we thought. Don't retreat to our world; make your own. Without the machines and the city walls and the uproar—"

Juan Pendillo grasped his son's hand. His fingers quivered for a moment of agony. And then he died.

Lanny stumbled away from the cell, his eyes dim with tears. The repetitive explosions continued outside in the domed city. Lanny discovered the origin of the sound when he made his way up the incline to the upper level. The parade of gigantic freight spheres was swinging in from the void of night, but the port machines, which handled the landings, were idle. The spheres were crashing, one upon the other, into the field just beyond the city. From disengaged, pliable tubes, jerking with the spasmodic torment of mechanical chaos, the raw materials plundered from the earth poured out upon the ruin. Fire licked at the wreckage, probing hungrily toward the city of the Almost-men.

Lanny ran through the deserted 

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