ithmetic.

And he wasn't Ronny.

He was an old man, teaching young men, and the old man did not know
about Ronny. He thought sadly how little he would be able to convey to
the young men, and he remembered more, trying to sum long memories and
much living into a few direct thoughts. And Ronny was the old man and
himself, both at once.

* * * * *

It was too intense. Part of Ronny wanted to escape and be alone, and
that part withdrew and wanted to play something. Ronny sat in the
grass and played with his toes like a much younger child.

Part of Ronny that was Doctor Revert Purcell sat on the edge of a
prison cot, concentrating on secret unpublished equations of biogenic
stability which he wanted to pass on to the responsible hands of young
researchers in the concealed-research chain. He was using the way of
thinking which they had told him was the telepathic sending of ideas
to anyone ready to receive. It was odd that he himself could never
tell when he was sending. Probably a matter of age. They had started
trying to teach him when he was already too old for anything so
different.

The water tap, four feet away, was dripping steadily, and it was hard
for Purcell to concentrate, so intense was his thirst. He wondered if
he could gather strength to walk that far. He was sitting up and that
was good, but the struggle to raise himself that far had left him
dizzy and trembling. If he tried to stand, the effort would surely
interrupt his transmitting of equations and all the data he had not
sent yet.

Would the man with the keys who looked in the door twice a day care
whether Purcell died with dignity? He was the only audience, and his
expression never changed when Purcell asked him to point out to the
authorities that he was not being given anything to eat. It was funny
to Purcell to find that he wanted the respect of any audience to his
dying, even of a man without response who treated him as if he were
already a corpse.

Perhaps the man would respond if Purcell said, "I have changed my
mind. I will tell."

But if he said that, he would lose his own respect.

At the biochemists' and bio-physicists' convention, the reporter had
asked him if any of his researches could be applied to warfare.

He had answered with no feeling of danger, knowing that what he did
was common practice among research men, sure that it was an
unchallengeable right.

"Some of them can, but those I keep t