r thoughts were miles away in an
introspective world that was all her own. She had said her piece and
having done that was content to let the two men develop it. Kennon
looked at her with odd respect. Alexander eyed her with a mildly
startled expression on his lean face. And both men smiled, but the
smiles were not amused.

"Judging from Copper," Alexander said, "I don't think we'll have to
worry about how the Lani will turn out." He looked at Kennon with mild
sympathy. "You are going to have quite a time with her," he said.

"I suppose so. I'll probably never know whether I'm guided or whether
I'm doing the guiding. I've changed a lot of my opinions about Copper
since the day I met her."

Copper looked up and smiled at them. It was an odd smile, hinting at
secrets neither of them would ever know. Alexander chuckled. "It serves
you right." He crossed his legs and looked up at Kennon standing before
him. By some uncanny legerdemain he had gotten control of himself
and the situation at the same time. Being telepathic was an unfair
advantage, Kennon thought.

"You were equally unfair with your accusation," Alexander said.
"Sure--humanity makes mistakes, and like this one they're sometimes
brutal mistakes. But we are capable of atonement. Morally we have come a
long way from the brutality of the Interregnum. I shouldn't have to use
examples, but look at that"--he waved at the view wall at the panorama
of gleaming fairy towers and greenery that made Beta City one of the
most beautiful in the Brotherhood. "Don't tell me that five thousand
years of peace and development haven't produced civilization. That's a
concrete example out there."

"It isn't," Kennon said flatly. "Sure, it's pretty--clean--and
beautifully designed for art and utility--but it isn't civilization.
You're confusing technology with culture. You look at this and say,
'What a great civilization man has built,' when you really mean, 'What
a great technology mankind has developed.' There's all the difference in
the world. Technology is of the mind and hands. Civilization is of the
spirit--and spiritually we are still in the Dark Ages.

"We conquer, kill, loot, and enslave. We establish standards to keep
humanity a closed corporation, a special club in which men can live but
aliens can't. We've made the standards for admission so rigid that
we even enslave our own kind and call them animals. That's not
civilization--that's savagery!

"For nearly five hun