ass contains the
members of the class.

"Remember that I said I was making a little speech, sitting there, that
assured Ford Gratrick and the members of the crew present in the room
that we weren't going to risk landing, but get away in a couple of days.

"At the same time, while I was talking, I was experiencing this strange
feeling. It was quite clear, for a few seconds. I was two Ren
Gravenards, saying two different things. The two of me were very close.
But while I talked they separated distinctly as the bank of the stream
and the chunk are suddenly not one, but two.

"It was not me alone. Every man in that room was doing the same. The
ship itself was doing it--and suddenly ..."

* * * * *

"Before anyone says something they might regret," Hugh Dunnam, the
commander, said in a quiet warning voice, "get this straight, all of
you. This is a government ship. I'm an officer of the Earth Space Fleet
and my command is law. I have a right temporarily to promote any member
of my crew to complete command of the ship with power equal to mine or
even greater than mine. If Ren Gravenard says we go down, we go down
even if it seems certain we'll all be killed. You have a choice of
certain but honorable death, and equally certain but dishonorable death.
Or you have a choice between an uncertain but honorable death if death
it is, and certain but dishonorable death as a coward and a traitor.
Let's not have any more thoughts of insubordination. You, Ford Gratrick,
under a stricter commander, would already be on the way to the brig."

Ford looked at Hugh Dunnam through slitted eyes, his face
expressionless. Suddenly he smiled.

"You forget, sir," he said smoothly. "Under a less human commander I
would have kept my thoughts to myself."

* * * * *

"I was sitting there, Martha," Ren said. "Trying to grab hold of the
strange 'split' in things. It's even more mixed up than I pictured it. I
had a feeling of BEING both Hugh Dunnam and myself, and also of being
myself on a 'something' drifting apart from all I could see. At the same
time there was a feeling of two separate things now existing on the
ship. Those two things might be called a composite of each of the two
forces that began their existence at that moment--the forces obedient to
the commander, and me; and the forces that were to side in with Ford
Gratrick."

"In a way numberness in any group depends on the