ou,
Conn?" he asked. "Well, let's go."

III

It wasn't until they were down to the main level and outside in the
little plaza to the east of the Airlines Building that his father
broke the silence.

"That was quite a talk you gave them, Conn. They believed every word
of it. I even caught myself starting to believe it once or twice."

Conn stopped short; his father halted beside him. "Why didn't you tell
them the truth, son?" Rodney Maxwell asked.

The question, which he had been throwing at himself, angered him. "Why
didn't I just grab a couple of pistols and shoot the lot of them?" he
retorted. "It wouldn't have killed them any deader, and it wouldn't
have hurt as much."

"There is no Merlin. Is that it?"

He realized, suddenly, that his father had known, or suspected that
all along. He started to say something, then checked himself and began
again:

"There never was one. I was going to tell them, but you saw them. I
couldn't."

"You're sure of it?"

"The whole thing's a myth. I'm quoting the one man in the Galaxy who
ought to know. The man who commanded the Third Force here during the
War."

"Foxx Travis!" His father's voice was soft with wonder. "I saw him
once, when I was eight years old. I thought he'd died long ago. Why,
he must be over a hundred."

"A hundred and twelve. He's living on Luna; low gravity's all that
keeps him alive."

"And you talked to him?"

"Yes."

There'd been a girl in his third-year biophysics class; he'd found out
that she was a great-granddaughter of Force General Travis. It had
taken him until his senior midterm vacation to wangle an invitation to
the dome-house on Luna. After that, it had been easy. As soon as Foxx
Travis had learned that one of his great-granddaughter's guests was
from Poictesme, he had insisted on talking to him.

"What did he tell you?"

The old man had been incredibly thin and frail. Under normal
gravitation, his life would have gone out like a blown match. Even at
one-sixth G, it had cost him effort to rise and greet the guest. There
had been a younger man, a mere stripling of seventy-odd; he had been
worried, and excused himself at once. Travis had laughed after he had
gone out.

"Mike Shanlee; my aide-de-camp on Poictesme. Now he thinks he's my
keeper. He'll have a squad of doctors and a platoon of nurses in here
as soon as you're gone, so take your time. Now, tell me how things are
on Poictesme...."

"Just about that," he told