such as he was used to. He felt more at home. He began zestfully to act like the human being he liked to pretend he was.

"He's delightful!" said the girl. "May I show him to Jak?"

Young Walker said:

"Elsa's been helping with the smaller kids. She says there's something the matter that she doesn't understand. She has one of the kids here. Bring him, Elsa."

She vanished. A moment later she brought in a small boy. He was probably six or seven. She carried him. He was thin. His eyes were bright, but he was completely passive in her arms. She put him down in a chair and he looked about alertly enough, but he simply did not move. He saw Murgatroyd, and beamed. Murgatroyd went over to the human who was near his own size. Swaggering, he offered his paw once more. The boy giggled, but his hand lay in his lap.

"He doesn't do anything!" said Elsa distressedly. "His muscles work, but he doesn't work them! He just sits and waits for things to be done for him! He acts as if he'd lost the idea of moving, or doing anything at all! And—it's beginning to show up among the other children! They just sit! They're bright enough ... they see and understand—but they just sit!"

Calhoun examined the boy. His expression grew carefully impassive. But he winced as he touched the pipestem arms and legs. What muscles were there were almost like dough.

When he straightened up, despite himself his mouth was awry. Young Walker's wife said anxiously:

"Do you know what's the matter with him?"

"Basically," said Calhoun with a sort of desperate irony, "he's in revolt. As the rest of you are in revolt against Phaedra, he's in revolt against you. You needed rest you didn't get and recreation you couldn't have and something besides back-breaking labor under a load that grew heavier minute by minute for years. You revolted, and you've a fine justification for the war in which you're engaged. But he has needed something he hasn't had, too. So he's revolting against his lack—as you did—and he's dying as you will presently do from exactly the same final cause."

Walker frowned ominously.

"I don't understand what you're saying!" he said harshly.

Calhoun moistened his lips.

"I spoke 

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