knowing the dangers of research, were trying to keep Terra from becoming involved until Terra grew up. Handing the secrets of nuclear fission to a race not yet ready for it was one example, though a bad one, for it takes considerable technical excellence to handle it.

A simpler case is plain black gunpowder—sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrate. Boys in chemistry class have lost their hands and their eyes because they played with that which they did not understand well enough. The nitration of glycerine is not too hard to perform, yet in the hands of an amateur it may take the house skyward before the project is finished.

For, strangely enough, the amateur at any science feels that he must make a large batch in order to do it at all. In electricity he wants excessive powers and lethal voltages to do that which a trained technician can accomplish with less deadly items.

However—was the motive avarice or altruism?

James Forrest Carroll studied them as they studied him.

CHAPTER V

Kingallis

Kingallis himself put an end to one of Carroll's worries. After several days of study, the alien doctor called him aside.

"Carroll, you know that you are helpless," he said. "We know that you are helpless. The point is just this: We can study your mind better if you are not worrying. Therefore I am going to put an end to one major worry of yours. Remember, always, we know that you are studying us!

"We are using the forerunner of our mental control beam to study you, Carroll. You know that. The mental educator came first, the mental control without wearing electrodes came long afterwards."

"Understandable," nodded Carroll easily. "Men learned to communicate along a wire long before they used radio."

"The gadget we've been using is none other than a person-to-person telepathy aid. It was first developed as a means of placing men en rapport while studying a complex problem. Thus, for instance, a machinist can do a job for an electrical project while understanding perfectly just why this must or must not be done despite its mechanical desirability.

"It was but a step from that to its use in educating the youth of our race. A rather complex problem, Carroll, and one that cannot be 

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