er. "If they only
knew!" he shouted, apparently feeling secure because they'd turned the
corner and gone out of sight.

"Knew what?" I asked.

"Why," he said, and doubled up with laughter again. "They've covered
up all the innocent parts and left the reprehensible part, which is
right behind the eye, fully exposed."

"Johnny, my boy," I said with a chuckle. "Do you really believe there
are innocent parts and reprehensible parts of any creature in the
universe?"

He stood stock still and stared at me.

"It takes a nasty, salacious mind to make that kind of separation," I
said.

"But your aun ... the Daughters of...."

"I know my aunt and the Daughters of Terra," I said. "I've lived with
them for years. I know their kind of mind. Who would know it better?"

"But you...."

"The human race," I said, "is very young. It's only in the last few
thousand years that it has discovered sex as a concept. So like little
kids in kindergarten it goes around being embarrassed and snickering.
But we'll grow up. Give us time."

"But you...." he said again. "But they.... That's the kind of
organization that keeps us from growing up, Hap. Don't you see that?
They've kept us mentally retarded for generations, centuries. How can
we make progress when...."

"What's the hurry, Johnny? We've got millions of years, billions,
eternity."

He looked at me again, sharply, shrewdly.

"I've underestimated you, Hap," he said. "I'm afraid I always did. I
had no idea you...."

I shrugged and passed it off. I'd had no idea either, not until this
morning, last night, yesterday evening when that eye had turned on
me--and I'd winked back.

I didn't know how to tell him, or any reason why I should, that there
couldn't be anything right or wrong, good or bad; that nothing could
happen, nothing at all, excepting through the working of the law of
nature. Could one say that water running down hill is good, and water
being pumped up hill is bad? Both are operating within known physical
laws. With millions of years to go, wasn't it likely we would go on
discovering the laws governing how things worked? Until one by one we
had to give up all notion of good and bad happenings? Understood them
as only the operation of natural law? In all the universe, how could
there be any such thing as unnatural happenings?

"Don't worry about it, Johnny," I said as we started walking again.
"And don't worry about your career, either. Aunt Mattie likes you, and