aightened out well enough now to permit giving attention to such
legalistic details. Incidentally, you will naturally be free to leave
when I do. Transportation is available for you if you wish to welcome
your friends at the spaceport."

"Thank you," said Rainbolt. "I believe I will."

Spokesman Dorn shrugged. "What could we do?" he said, almost
disinterestedly. "You never slept. In the beginning you were drugged a
number of times, as you probably know, but we soon discovered that
drugging you seemed to make no difference at all."

"It doesn't," Rainbolt agreed.

"Day after day," Dorn went on, "we'd find thoughts and inclinations
coming into our minds we'd never wanted there. It was an eerie
experience--though personally I found it even more disconcerting to
awaken in the morning and discover that my attitudes had changed in
some particular or other, and as a rule changed irrevocably."

Rainbolt said, "In a sense, those weren't really your attitudes, you
know. They were results of the conditioning of the Machine. It was
the conditioning I was undermining."

"Perhaps it was that," Dorn said. "It seems to make very little
difference now." He paused, frowned. "When the first talk of
initiating change began in the councils, there were numerous
executions. I know now that we were badly frightened men. Then those
of us who had ordered the executions found themselves wanting similar
changes. Presently we had a majority, and the changes began to be
brought about. Reforms, you would call them--and reforms I suppose
they actually were. There was considerable general disturbance, of
course, but we retained the organization to keep that within
reasonable bounds."

"We expected that you would," Rainbolt said.

"It hasn't really been too bad," Spokesman Dorn said reflectively. "It
was simply an extraordinary amount of work to change the structure of
things that had been imposed on Earth by the Machine for the past
century and a half. And the curious part of it is, you know, that now
it's done we don't even feel resentment! We actually wouldn't want to
go back to what we had before. You've obtained an incredible hold on
our minds--and frankly I expect that when at last you do relinquish
your control, we'll commit suicide or go mad."

Rainbolt shook his head. "There's been just one mistake in what you've
said," he remarked.

Spokesman Dorn looked at him with tired eyes. "What's that?" he asked.

"I said I was undermining