ing was far away. It
might never come--for him. If and when it did he would cope with it.
"Mom," he whispered. "Mom...."

_Crrroak!_ The sound of the frog broke the silence. The croak of a frog
that was part of the universe--the universe that was basically
illogical. More....

Fred sobbed.

The universe was insane. Police looking for you. Doctors with their
standards of sanity and insanity. Right now they were looking for him to
protect him from himself. They didn't want to know why things were done.
To them even the reason would be part of the insanity. They dealt in
tags. Words. Their science was an illusion within an illusion.
Meaningless inside a universe of meaninglessness.

_Crrroak_, the frog said cautiously. And a night creature came down on
silent wings, to weave back into the darkness.

That was the reason for pragmatism. He could see it now. He had always
thought his father made pragmatism his God because it was the
intellectual thing to do. But now he could see the reason for it.
Reality was a jungle in which Reason had to cope with Unreason, and
there was no criterion except workability. Belief was an instinctive way
of thought. It was like the appendix. Scientists claimed that long ago
man ate tree bark. And the appendix had had a use. If so, that use was
gone, but the appendix remained. Before surgery had become a common
thing, thousands of people died from appendicitis. The organ that had
once been necessary had become a hazard to living. Belief was something
like that.

He jerked out of his thoughts to listen to a car on the road. It slowed
down. It stopped by the gate. A car door slammed. A man appeared briefly
in the light of the headlamps. Captain Waters--alone.

He loomed a moment later inside the pasture in the light of a
flashlight. He occasionally flashed it on his face so he would be
recognizable.

Fred felt an impulse to slip away into the darkness. He hadn't been
seen. Captain Waters was just hoping he might be here.

A stronger impulse made him remain as he was. The entire pattern of
Captain Waters' approach indicated understanding--or at least the
willingness to understand.

The bobbing flashlight came closer. It speared out and touched him; then
abruptly went out. Footsteps approached. A dark form emerged from the
gloom.

"Hello, Fred," Captain Waters said quietly. "I came to keep you company.
I'll just sit quiet and not bother you."

"Okay," Fred said.

* *