man meant something important in itself. Our ancestors—they weren't just parts of a machine!"

"Ah!" The Investigator almost beamed. His eyes held a gleam of pleasure. "An ideological protest!"

"I guess you could call it that," Hendley said slowly, wondering at the reaction his words had produced. "Surely I'm not the only one who's ever felt this way."

"Yes, yes, you're quite right," the gray-haired man said with some enthusiasm. "But an active protest! That is rare in this entire section. Why, I've had only one similar case in three years as a senior Investigator!"

Hendley nodded soberly, concealing a satisfaction which held a trace of malice. Tricks could work both ways. And yet what he had said was not really dishonest. He had merely selected that part of the truth which he wanted to reveal. Strangely enough, less than twenty hours earlier, as he had lain in bed while his vaguely formed protest crystallized into a decision, the feeling and the ideas he had just expressed had seemed all-important. Now it was more vital to protect a woman who had lied to him and disappeared—whom he might never be able to find again, even if she wanted to be found.

"This puts an entirely different complexion on your case," the Investigator said, his enthusiasm no longer restrained. "Entirely different! Tell me, when did these symptoms first begin? Obviously they didn't appear overnight. When did you first feel this intense dislike of the idea of the Merger?"

"I don't know," Hendley said honestly. Should he mention the childhood escapade? Had that been significant even at so early an age? Evidently the morale computer didn't think so, for at some stage the fact had been eliminated from his record. Presumably it had appeared to be a meaningless youthful prank.

He thought of his dream of standing on a beach and seeing all of the other beaches within sight blend into one vast, featureless desert. On impulse he recounted the dream, deliberately going into great detail. As an added embellishment at the end he said, "I've had the same dream several times."

"Splendid!" the Investigator exclaimed, as if Hendley had passed some kind of a test. "But surely, as a student of history, TRH-247, you must realize that the Merger was inevitable, that it is the culmination of centuries of social progress under the Organization?"

"Inevitable doesn't mean good," Hendley 

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