records of knowledge used by the aliens. These were large reels of wire in metal magazines. On the face and back of each case was its title in the—to Carroll—completely unreadable alien characters.

That was a problem in itself. A lot of good it would do to acquire useless knowledge. Carroll wanted scientific facts or perhaps a recording of their plans. A complete course in alien geography, for instance, would be completely useless—the aliens seemed disinclined to take him from earth.

Yet Carroll had no way of knowing what these characters represented. A book might have given a clue—books often contain pictures. There was no telling on a reel of wire.

Carroll wondered whether the reels were stored in some sort of alphabetical order, in some numerical order or according to some semantic plan that gave the initial startings first and permitted the selector to progress. He knew, however, that if he were running such an expedition, he would not include Guffey's First Reader among the collection of texts. His chances of learning the rudiments of the alien tongue were remote.

In selecting a book one scans through the pages. In selecting a reel one must try it.

So, making a guess, James Forrest Carroll selected a container at random and, still amused at the guesswork quality, he carried it to the machine used by Kingallis to study his mind.

He flipped the switches as he had seen Kingallis do it. He inserted the reel magazine in the obvious slot and fiddled with some tiny toggles until the reel started to feed through the machine.

Then quickly, Carroll slipped the head electrodes on and reclined on the soft couch to let the flow of knowledge enter.

In complete oblivion as the machine ran, Carroll had no control over his actions. It ran on and on and the unreeling wire passed its knowledge into Carroll's brain. It concluded finally and Carroll sat up.

It was faintly light outside and by that faint light Carroll looked at his watch and was amazed to find that it was almost six o'clock in the morning. He quickly replaced the reel and turned to go back to his room.

"Pleased with yourself?" asked a quiet voice.

Carroll jumped a foot. Then in the dim light he saw the form of a woman, fully dressed, sitting in an easy chair not far from the door. To add to 

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