"In my lifetime," he said, "I have been responsible for the direction of many children. I have yet to turn away a curious—honestly curious—child. Mankind is always curious—providing we know why."

"It is dangerous," she repeated.

"Dangerous," he echoed. "Dangerous, Rhinegallis, to whom? You?"

"Mr. Carroll," she said quietly, "you think you have trapped me into an admission. You have not. Tell me, do you honestly think you can take the position of demanding an answer?"

"I think so."

"You cannot. You have not."

"No?" he said with a bitter laugh, "then if your race has no evil intent it could stop a lot of trouble, suspicion and labor by guiding us instead of blocking our efforts. Add to that your own refusal to tell me one thing that would frighten me away. I come up with a rather unhappy answer, Rhinegallis."

The girl turned away and left. Her offer to join him for breakfast was forgotten. Carroll watched her back as she went down the hallway and considered himself lucky. Even considering that their way of life was alien to Terran thinking, no advancing race could ever deny honest curiosity unless it had some ulterior motive. Ergo, they were suppressing the truth about the Lawson Radiation because they were afraid that Terra would find the answer!

From behind him he heard Kingallis chuckling.

"Val tas Winel yep frah?"

Carroll turned angrily. "Sell it to Tin Pan Alley," he snapped. "I've heard worse jangle songs!"

He stamped off angrily to his room.

CHAPTER VI

Proof

Once in his room, Carroll gave way to a period of complete slump, both mental and physical. He just sat there and felt—not thought about—the sheer impossibility of a single man successfully fighting an entire inimical culture.

The more he considered it the more he felt the futility of it all. The fact that he of all the teeming billions of Sol's heritage, was cognizant made it that more hopeless.

Then out of that last, single, hopeless fact James Forrest Carroll took a new hope.

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