orld might
become a fit place to live in!'"

Page 247; "The Prime Minister disagreed. 'There was Napoleon,' he
observed. 'You might despise him, but after he talked to you you served
him. He seemed to throw a spell over people. Alexander probably had the
same sort of magic personality. When his personality ceased to operate,
as a result of too much wine too continuously, his empire fell
immediately to pieces. I've known others personally; an Afghan whom I've
always thought did us a favor by getting killed by a sniper. He could
have caused a great deal of trouble. I'd guess at the Khalifa. Most of
the people who have this incredible persuasiveness, however, seem to set
up as successful swindlers. What a pity The Leader had no taste for
simple crime, and had to go in for crimes of such elaboration!'"

* * * * *

Letter from Professor Albrecht Aigen, University of Brunn, to Dr. Karl
Thurn, University of Laibach.

My dear Karl:

You make me curious with your talk of a rat which levitates crumbs of
cheese and a she-dog who displays other psi abilities. I assume that you
have found the experimental conditions which let psi powers operate
without hindrance. I shall hope some day to see and conceivably to
understand.

My own affairs are in hopeless confusion. At the moment I am overwhelmed
with material about The Leader, the value of which I cannot estimate.
Strange! I ask people who should know what I am commissioned to
discover, and they refuse to answer. But it becomes known that I ask,
and thousands of little people write me to volunteer impassioned details
of their experiences while The Leader ruled. Some are bitter because
they did what they did and felt as they felt. These seem to believe in
magic or demoniac possession as the reason they behaved with such
conspicuous insanity. Others gloat over their deeds, which they recount
with gusto--and then express pious regret with no great convincingness.
Some of these accounts nauseate me. But something utterly abnormal was
in operation, somehow, to cause The Leader's ascendancy!

I wish I could select the important data with certainty. Almost
anything, followed up, might reveal the key. But I do not know what to
follow! I plan to go to Bozen, where the new monstrous computer has been
set up, and see if there is any way in which it could categorize my data
and detect a pattern of more than bewildered and resentful frenzy.

On the way bac