returned to
her diatribe. Finally, she put her plate and cup on the robot's tray
and got to her feet.

"I have to go," she said. "Maybe I can do something to keep some of
these children from growing up to be Merlin-worshipers like their
parents."

She flung out of the room angrily. Mrs. Maxwell looked after her in
distress.

"And I thought it was going to be so nice, having breakfast together
again," she lamented.

Somehow the breakfast wasn't quite as good as he'd thought it was at
first. He wondered how many more breakfasts like that he was going to
have to sit through. He and his father finished quickly and got up,
while his mother started the robot to clearing the table.

"Conn," she said, after his father had gone out, "you shouldn't have
gotten Flora started like that."

"I didn't get Flora started; she's equipped with a self-starter. If
she doesn't believe in Merlin, that's her business. A lot of these
people do, and I'm going to help them hunt for it. That's why they all
chipped in to send me to school on Terra; remember?"

"Yes, I know." Her voice was heavy with distress. "Conn, do you really
believe there is a ... that thing?" she asked.

"Why, of course." He was mildly surprised at how sincerely and
straightforwardly he said it. "I don't know where it is, but it's
somewhere on Poictesme, or in the Alpha System."

"Well, do you think it would be a good thing to find it?"

That surprised him. Everybody knew it would be, and his mother didn't
share his father's attitude about things everybody knew. She hadn't
any business questioning a fundamental postulate like that.

"It frightens me," she continued. "I don't even like to think about
it. A soulless intelligence; it seems evil to me."

"Well, of course it's soulless. It's a machine, isn't it? An aircar's
soulless, but you're not afraid to ride in one."

"But this is different. A machine that can think. Conn, people weren't
mean to make machines like that, wiser than they are."

"Now wait a minute, Mother. You're talking to a computerman now."
Professional authority was something his mother oughtn't to question.
"A computer like Merlin isn't intelligent, or wise, or anything of the
sort. It doesn't think; the people who make computers and use them do
the thinking. A computer's a tool, like a screwdriver; it has to have
a man to use it."

"Well, but...."

"And please, don't talk about what people are _meant_ to do. People
aren't _meant_ to