at now?"

"Now we have you _and_ Tighe," said the other. He took out a
cigarette. "I hope you're somewhat more willing to talk than he is."

"Suppose I'm not?"

"Understand this." Tyler frowned. "There are reasons for going slow
with Tighe. He has hostage value, for one thing. But you're nobody.
And while we aren't monsters I for one have little sympathy to spare
for your kind of fanatic."

"Now there," said Dalgetty with a lift of sardonicism, "is an
interesting example of semantic evolution. This being, on the whole,
an easy-going tolerant period, the word 'fanatic' has come to be
simply an epithet--a fellow on the other side."

"That will do," snapped Tyler. "You won't be allowed to stall. There
are questions we want answered." He ticked the points off on his
fingers. "What are the Institute's ultimate aims? How is it going
about attaining them? How far has it gotten? Precisely what has it
learned, in a scientific way, that it hasn't published? How much does
it know about us?" He smiled thinly. "You've always been close to
Tighe. He raised you, didn't he? You should know just as much as he."

_Yes_, thought Dalgetty, _Tighe raised me. He was all the father I
ever had, really. I was an orphan and he took me in and he was good._

Sharp in his mind rose the image of the old house. It had lain on
broad wooded grounds in the fair hills of Maine, with a little river
running down to a bay winged with sailboats. There had been
neighbors--quiet-spoken folk with something more real about them than
most of today's rootless world knew. And there had been many
visitors--men and women with minds like flickering sword-blades.

He had grown up among intellects aimed at the future. He and Tighe had
traveled a lot. They had often been in the huge pylon of the main
Institute building. They had gone over to Tighe's native England once
a year at least. But always the old house had been dear to them.

It stood on a ridge, long and low and weathered gray like a part of
the earth. By day it had rested in a green sun-dazzle of trees or a
glistering purity of snow. By night you heard the boards creaking and
the lonesome sound of wind talking down the chimney. Yes, it had been
good.

And there had been the wonder of it. He loved his training. The
horizonless world within himself was a glorious thing to explore. And
that had oriented him outward to the real world--he had felt wind and
rain and sunlight, the pride of high buildings a