in at the other. A swarm of big contragravity machines,
some robotic and some human-operated, clustered around the skeletal
hull like hornets building a nest.

Trisystem & Interstellar Spacelines was chartered; the lawyers
reported having to overcome a little more resistance than usual from
the Government about that. And the bill to nationalize Merlin, which
had died in committee, was resuscitated and was being debated hotly on
the floor of Parliament. The Administration was now supporting it.

"Are they completely crazy?" Conn wanted to know, when he heard about
that. "They pass that bill and nobody's going to look for Merlin if
they know the Government will snatch it as soon as they find it."

"That is precisely Jake Vyckhoven's idea," his father replied. "I told
you he was afraid of Merlin. He's getting more afraid of it every
day."

He had reason to. There was a growing sentiment in favor of turning
the entire Government over to the computer as soon as it was found. To
his horror, Conn heard himself named as chairman of a committee that
should be set up to operate it. The moderates, who had merely wanted
Merlin used in an advisory capacity, were dropping out; the agitation
was coming from extremists who wanted Merlin to be the whole
Government, and now the extremists were developing an extreme wing of
their own, who called themselves Cybernarchists and started wearing
colored-shirt uniforms and greeting each other with an archaic
stiff-arm salute, and the words, "Hail Merlin!"

And the followers of the gospel-shouter on the west coast were now
cropping up all over the mainland, and on the continent of Acaire to
the north, and another cult, non-religious, was convinced that Merlin
was a living machine, with conscious intelligence of its own and
awesome psi-powers, a sort of super-Golem, which, if found and
awakened, would enslave the whole Galaxy. Fortunately, these two hated
each other as venomously as both did the Cybernarchists, and spent
most of their energies attacking each other's meetings. The
news-services were beginning to publish casualty lists, some heavy
enough for outpost fighting between a couple of regular armies.

One thing, it helped the employment situation. Everybody was hiring
mercenaries.

"But what," Conn asked, "are the sane people doing?"

"You ought to know," his father told him. "I suspect that you have all
of them on Koshchei now."

The sane people, if that was what they were, w