ked again at the boy, who was sitting tensely, his hands
gripping the arms of his chair, his eyes fastened fearfully on the
officer before him. As Jaeger watched, Elwar half rose from his chair,
then sank back, his face appearing to mirror Kweiros' efforts.

[Illustration]

At last, Kweiros sat up. Shakily, he removed his headband and snapped
the playback off.

"Long time since I checked that tape," he said. "Pretty rugged stuff,
and highly speculative. Always gives me a headache." He shook his head
as he looked at Elwar.

"And this makes it even worse. It was bad enough as pure speculation,
but we've got something real here. Something rough. For one thing, we
have got a planet where no one but native operatives stand a chance of
working. For another we--" He cupped his chin in his hands and examined
Elwar closely.

"Do you really want to learn the secrets you looked for in the books,
youngster? Do you still want the secrets you first thought you might
learn?"

The boy seemed to withdraw a little. "I have a great fear," he admitted
tremulously.

"You haven't been injured or mistreated, have you?"

"No, Master, but--" Elwar looked toward the door.

"And you won't be," he was told reassuringly. "Now you just go ahead on
back to your quarters."

* * *

As the door closed, Kweiros turned to Jaeger.

"Think we'll put you on special assignment. For the next few cycles,
you'll act as a private tutor. Then you can go back to Main Base with
Elwar while they give him his training."

Jaeger raised his eyebrows. "Yes, sir," he said doubtfully. "You think
the boy will develop?"

Kweiros nodded. "I'm quite sure of it," he said. "And he's got a big job
ahead of him. He may be instrumental in preventing a major disaster." He
waved at the tape reels.

"I got that little tape out just on an off chance," he added. "Didn't
really expect to find anything, but--" He flipped his hands out.
"Anyway, I pulled it." He leaned forward, looking at Jaeger.

"We may have run into a second, or even third growth culture," he said
slowly. "Once, before some ancient war of destruction, the people of
this planet might have been normally telepathic." He closed his eyes for
an instant. "Possibly they were unable to use their telepathic power.
And equally possibly, they could have had a highly developed mechanical
civilization. Something went wrong." He waved at the tape reel.

"In this reconstruction, there's an hyp