from the technological aspect, of course. The so-called 'secrets' of science cannot be kept 'secret' at all, at least not by men. They exist everywhere in the universe, for any man to seek and to exploit as he sees fit." He paused, at last found the temerity to meet the gazes of the others.

"Go on," Angelo said.

"Both sides have come to absolute stalemate. But not, regrettably, the kind of stalemate that means cessation of activity. In a conflict to the death, stalemate simply means battle without victory; battle until neither side has a living man left to fight.

"So, in short, we are desperate. There must be a victor, or Earth is lost entirely. One more mass strato-attack with L-bombs and.... Well, at any rate—there must, as you can readily understand, be a victor, and soon. Obviously, the Others must be defeated."

Yes of course, thought Maler, the Philosopher. It is the Others, always, who must be defeated....

"And so we have," the leader was saying, "come to you for help."

He stopped speaking then, for a moment, waiting for Angelo's reply. Waiting simply for him to ask "what kind of help could we Artists possibly give you...."—waiting for, and prepared to take unflinchingly, the searing taunt that could not help but be in the question ... "—you who can fly ships through Space, who have at your computer-tips the hard-won miracles of science and engineering?" But wordlessly, the leader waited.

And in the brief moment before he spoke, the history of it all flashed through Angelo's mind; the history that began with the Revolt. Three centuries ago, with the Ancestors of them all on Ste. Catherine. The artists, the philosophers, the writers, the orators, the dramatists, the poets—all of them, who had, when at last they could no longer stomach their civilization's arrested adolescence and its refusal to be weaned from its electronic and atomic toys, remembered the first Fundamental Law of Order in art, and put it to devastating use. Unity.

In Unity, they rebelled.

They warned, first, in fairness. They took pains to point out carefully that it is a healthy sign for the developing child to become intrigued with movement, sound, and color—that it was normal for a child to spend hours observing, examining, operating, even building a new mechanical toy. But when his new books gathered dust and fell into disuse—when he could quote all of Faraday and 

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