But the rest of it was pretty obvious, once I
stopped jumping to conclusions and did a little thinking. You know,
ever since I came here I've been preaching to these people to stop
looking for Merlin and do something to help themselves. You're smarter
than I am, Conn; instead of opposing them, you're guiding them."

"Did you tell Flora?"

Lucas shook his head. "I tried to explain what you're trying to do,
but she wouldn't listen. She just told me I'd gotten to be as big a
crook as you two." He had the car up to fifty thousand; putting it
into a wide circle around the city, he locked the controls and got out
his cigarettes. "Rod, we've got to stop this. You were just lucky this
time. Some of these days your luck's going to run out."

"How can we stop?" Conn demanded. "Tell them the truth? They'd lynch
us, and then go on hunting for Merlin."

"Worse than that; it'd be a smash worse than the one when the War
ended. I was only ten then, but I can remember that very plainly. We
can't stop it, and we wouldn't dare stop it if we could."

"What's been going on here in the last month?" Conn asked. "I've been
too busy to keep in touch. I know there's been rioting, and these
crackpot sects, but...."

"I think this is personal to us. There have been some ugly things
happening. There were four attempts to burglarize our offices. I told
you about some of the other stuff, the microphones we found, and so
on. The worst thing was Lucy Nocero, my secretary. She just vanished,
a couple of weeks ago. Three days later, the police found her
wandering in a park, a complete imbecile. Somebody who either didn't
know how to use one or didn't care what happened had used a mind-probe
on her. It's twenty to one she'll never recover."

"It's this Storisende financial crowd," Wade Lucas said. "They had
things all their own way till Alpha-Interplanetary was organized. Now
they're getting shoved into the background, and they don't like it."

"They're making more money than they ever did, and they just love it,"
Rodney Maxwell said. "I'd think it was either Jake Vyckhoven or Sam
Murchison."

"Murchison!" Lucas hooted. "Why, he's nobody! Federation
Minister-General; all the authority of the Terran Federation, and
nothing to enforce it with. He doesn't have a position, here; he has a
disease. Sleeping sickness."

"He certainly doesn't believe there is a Merlin, does he?" Conn asked.

"I don't know what he believes, but he's getting to be Klem