ffects of her discoveries--" Harnosh of
Hosh shrugged sadly. "She was devoted, to a rare degree, to her work.
I am sure that nothing but her discarnation could have taken her away
from us, at this time, with so many important experiments still
uncompleted."

Marnik nodded to Verkan Vall, as much as to say: "You were right."

"Well, I intend acting upon the assumption that she is still carnate
and in need of help, until I am positive to the contrary," Verkan Vall
said. "And in the latter case, I intend finding out who discarnated
her, and send him to apologize for it in person. People don't forcibly
discarnate my friends with impunity."

"Sound attitude," Dr. Harnosh commented. "There's certainly no
positive evidence that she isn't still carnate. I'll gladly give you
all the assistance I can, if you'll only tell me what you want."

"Well, in the first place," Verkan Vall began, "just what sort of work
was she doing?" He already knew the answer to that, from the reports
she had sent back to the First Level, but he wanted to hear Dr.
Harnosh's version. "And what, exactly, are the political effects you
mentioned? Understand, Dr. Harnosh, I am really quite ignorant of any
scientific subject unrelated to _zerfa_ culture, and equally so of
Terran politics. Politics, on Venus, is mainly a question of who gets
how much graft out of what."

Dr. Harnosh smiled; evidently he had heard about Venusian politics.
"Ah, yes, of course. But you are familiar with the main differences
between Statistical and Volitional reincarnation theories?"

[Illustration: ]

"In a general way. The Volitionalists hold that the discarnate
individuality is fully conscious, and is capable of something
analogous to sense-perception, and is also capable of exercising
choice in the matter of reincarnation vehicles, and can reincarnate or
remain in the discarnate state as it chooses. They also believe that
discarnate individualities can communicate with one another, and with
at least some carnate individualities, by telepathy," he said. "The
Statisticalists deny all this; their opinion is that the discarnate
individuality is in a more or less somnambulistic state, that it is
drawn by a process akin to tropism to the nearest available
reincarnation vehicle, and that it must reincarnate in and only in
that vehicle. They are labeled Statisticalists because they believe
that the process of reincarnation is purely at random, or governed by
unknown and uncon