themselves
resent the appearance of intellects far greater than their own."

"I have a feeling there's a lot more in that answer than meets the eye.
Can you estimate to what extent we would surpass the Challon?"

"If my Challon memory serves me, they had no knowledge of any
mind-structure of a capacity remotely approaching that of Man. It is
a maze, incredibly complex, with far-reaching resources I can only
guess at. The Challon part of my mind has the profoundest admiration
for a superb mechanism it can only dimly comprehend, but beneath the
Challon"--the voice dropped almost to a whisper--"beneath the Challon is
the dog, and the dog sees his god." The power of that factor he had not
considered.

Phil laughed uneasily, both shocked and repelled.

"I hope you're joking. We sound like the sweet-smelling Flower of
Creation! When a dog reaches the level you ... um ... Homer has, it
becomes Man's equal, not his pet."

"Until Man's advance thrusts the dog back to an even lower relative
position, as it inevitably must when ... if ... Man comes into his own.
I told you I dared not leave myself isolated and speechless by clearing
the simple short-circuit immobilizing Timmy. Now you see why I dared not
go even farther and release--untrained _and with no hope of adequate
training_--the true Homo superior, the transcendent man."

"That's like turning a tiger loose in a kindergarten! Give a man a
really high-powered intellect and for all his shortcomings--"

"The intellect is nothing. The data, the circumstances, the influences,
the environment that shape the intellect, _these_ are what count. Your
theorists say that although Man may some day create wonderful mechanical
brains with a creative capacity almost equal to Man's own, you can never
create a brain that is your superior. That is true, and the reasoning is
obvious. In a more limited sense, your body repairs itself daily but it
cannot improve on itself, it cannot spontaneously develop functions it
never had--_it cannot even repair severe damage without outside help_.
The same applies to the mind. A sick mind cannot achieve the objectivity
needed to repair itself, if the damage is too great. No, the intellect
is nothing until it learns. What would Timmy have learned, and from
whom? Take a minute to think of _all_ the connotations." Phil thought of
some of them, uneasily. "Assume that from the start his status as Homo
superior was recognized ... is that a fair assumptio