t know if I
should or not. You may be correct about the Institute and the justice
of its aims and methods. But how can I be sure, when I don't know
what's behind it? How do I know there wasn't more truth than fiction
in that Tau Ceti story, that you aren't really the agent of some
non-human power quietly taking over all our race?"

At another time Dalgetty might have argued, tried to veil it from her,
tried to trick her once again. But now he was too weary. There was a
great surrender in him. "I'll tell you if you wish," he said, "and
after that it's in your hands. You can make us or break us."

"Go on then." Her tone withdrew into wariness.

"I'm human," he said. "I'm as human as you are. Only I've had rather
special training, that's all. It's another discovery of the Institute
for which we don't feel the world is ready. It'd be too big a
temptation for too many people, to create followers like me." He
looked away, into the windy dark. "The scientist is also a member of
society and has a responsibility toward it. This--restraint--of ours
is one way in which we meet that obligation."

She didn't speak, but suddenly one hand reached over and rested on
his. The impulsive gesture brought warmth flooding through him.

"Dad's work was mostly in mass-action psych," he said, making his tone
try to cover what he felt, "but he has plenty of associates trying to
understand the individual human being as a functioning mechanism. A
lot's been learned since Freud, both from the psychiatric and the
neurological angle. Ultimately, those two are interchangeable.

"Some thirty years ago one of the teams which founded the Institute
learned enough about the relationship between the conscious,
subconscious and involuntary minds to begin practical tests. Along
with a few others I was a guinea pig. And their theories worked.

"I needn't go into the details of my training. It involved physical
exercises, mental practice, some hypnotism, diet and so on. It went
considerably beyond the important Synthesis education which is the
most advanced thing known to the general public. But its aim--only
partially realized as yet--its aim was simply to produce the
completely integrated human being."

Dalgetty paused. The wind flowed and muttered beyond the wall.

"There is no sharp division between conscious and subconscious or even
between those and the centers controlling involuntary functions," he
said. "The brain is a continuous structure. Su