elf. "You are not. I know that.
Maybe you've controlled me just as you tricked me into entering your
mind and living your memories but, sickened as I am, I still can't help
believing you more implicitly than I've ever believed anyone. Nor do I
see any reason to."

[Illustration]

"You've never known anyone as surely as you know me, now that our minds
have been in phase. Emotional reactions stemming from a dozen hidden
causes may mislead you, but at the back of your mind you _know_ me."

"And you know--me."

"I know only what I need to know about you. Your private memories are
your own and will always remain so unless you invite me to share them."

"Yet you opened all yours to me?"

"Far from it. At this point it would give you too much to digest all at
once. The major part of my concentration was required to maintain mental
contact without any help from you, and to blanket the interference set
up by the analytical part of your ego through its fixed, deep-rooted
conviction equating the individual with mental isolation. Faced with
absolute proof to the contrary, your analytical mind still tries to
insist that what it has always believed to be true must still be true,
otherwise everything is suspect and, therefore, anti-survival. In other
words, on a survival level your mind tries to reject free telepathy
as it would reject any other upsetting of the basic tenets of your
existence. That and the disharmony existing in your mind is a large part
of the 'protecting' aura of discordance that seals you off from me.
The memories I shared with you I selected and edited for expediency.
Unfortunately, your physical reaction to a startling thought caused you
to break away before you had the full truth and left you with a false
impression."

"Either the memories you fed me were truth, or they were lies. Which
is it?"

"The data was true, but your interpretation of it is false because you
are still in a state of shock, still fighting for survival on a moronic
level. What do you take me to be?"

"You name it. By your own admission, at best 'you' are a false
personality forcibly impressed on a helpless mind that never had a ghost
of a chance. In effect, you are a parasite living on a host, the
reincarnation of an ego that should be eleven years dead."

"Not eleven years dead--only eight."

"What difference does ... _eight_?"

"Eight years dead."

Prickles crawled over Phil's scalp and his mind raced. A series of
memorie