The death crystal
must do thus and so when such and such a meter read to a certain value, but he learned that, too. He became a trained human primate, an animal who knew that four raps plus four raps equalled eight raps; a chimpanzee trained to drive an automobile.

Not that Dave was ignorant, unintelligent, or untutored. Dave was college, postgrad, and a writer. Dave knew as much present-day science as any layman. He wrote science articles for his paper, was constantly exposed to science, and a lot of it took. But this science was as far beyond the kind he knew as the jet plane is beyond the Wright Brothers' original model.

Then DeLieb told him, "Dave, you're ready."

"Let's go."

"Not tonight."

"Why waste time?"

"You're tired. I'm tired. We're all tired, if you want to finish the conjugation. Tonight we loaf and rest and get a full night's sleep. Tomorrow we work. This is the royal edict."

"I vote yea," laughed Jane Nolan. "Come, ambitious one. On nine hours' sleep in four days, you should be easy to handle."

Dave shrugged. DeLieb looked askance. "Jane, if you take him dancing, we'll all kill you."

"You wouldn't have to," she said. "I'd be dead already. No, I'm taking Dave out to the farm where he can see stars and breathe fresh air, and loaf on long grass."

Jane's mother, forewarned, piled the dinner table high, and Dave was fed to the bursting point. They walked under the stars, afterwards, and then sprawled on the long grass, looking at the sky.

"You're quite a guy, Dave," said Jane.

"Probably the only one of my kind in existence," he said solemnly. "Most men have eight eyes, you know. I've only got two."

"Blue, aren't they?"

"Brown," he corrected. "All two of them."


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