ated neo-human race is what I have learned from the composition of
its defensive screen. The probability approaches unity that the Masters
continued to delve and to learn for millions of cycles while you
Stretts, reasonlessly certain of your supremacy, concentrated upon your
evolution from the material to a non-material form of life and performed
only limited research into armaments of greater and ever greater power."

"True. But that attitude was then justified. It was not and is not
logical to assume that any race would establish a fixed status at any
level of ability below its absolute maximum."

"While that conclusion could once have been defensible, it is now
virtually certain that the Masters had stores of knowledge which they
may or may not have withheld from the Omans, but which were in some way
made available to the neo-humans. Also, there is no basis whatever for
the assumption that this new race has revealed all its potentialities."

"Statistically, that is probably true. But this is the best plan you
have been able to formulate?"

"It is. Of the many thousands of plans I set up and tested, this one has
the highest probability of success."

"Then we will adopt it. We are Stretts. Whatever we decide upon will
be driven through to complete success. We have one tremendous advantage
in you."

[Illustration]

"Yes. The probability approaches unity that I can perform research on a
vastly wider and larger scale, and almost infinitely faster, than can
any living organism or any possible combination of such organisms."

* * * * *

Nor was the Great Brain bragging. It scanned in moments the stored
scientific knowledge of over a million planets. It tabulated,
correlated, analyzed, synthesized, theorized and concluded--all in
microseconds of time. Thus it made more progress in one Terran week than
the Masters had made in a million years.

When it had gone as far as it could go, it reported its results--and the
Stretts, hard as they were and intransigent, were amazed and overjoyed.
Not one of them had ever even imagined such armaments possible. Hence
they became supremely confident that it was unmatched and unmatchable
throughout all space.

What the Great Brain did not know, however, and the Stretts did not
realize, was that it could not really think.

Unlike the human mind, it could not deduce valid theories or conclusions
from incomplete, insufficient, fragmentary data. It c