be interested in it. I know of six fully
supplied hospitals, intended to take care of the casualties in case of
a System States space-attack. You can imagine, better than I can, what
would be in them."

"Yes. Medical supplies of all sorts are getting hard to find. But look
here; you're not going to let these people waste time looking for this
alleged computer, this thing they call Merlin, are you?"

"We're looking for any valuable war material. I don't know the
location of Merlin, but--"

"I'll bet you don't!" Lucas said vehemently. That was the same thing
Flora had said.

"--but Merlin is undoubtedly the most valuable item of abandoned TF
equipment on this planet. In the long run, I'd say, more valuable than
everything else together. We certainly aren't going to ignore it."

"Good heavens, Conn! You aren't like these people here; you were
educated at the University of Montevideo."

"So I was. I studied computer theory and practice. I have some doubts
about Merlin being able to do some of the things these laymen like
Kellton and Fawzi and Judge Ledue think it could. Those sorts of
misconceptions and exaggerations have to be allowed for. But I have no
doubt whatever that the master computer with which they did their
strategic planning is probably the greatest mechanism of its sort ever
built, and I have no doubt whatever that it still exists somewhere in
the Alpha System."

He almost convinced himself of it. He did not, however, convince Wade
Lucas, who was now regarding him with narrow-eyed suspicion.

"You mean you categorically state that that computer actually exists?"

"That, I think, was the general idea. Yes. I certainly do believe that
Merlin exists."

Maybe he was telling the truth. Merlin existed in the beliefs and
hopes of people like Dolf Kellton and Klem Zareff and Judge Ledue and
Kurt Fawzi. Merlin was a god to them. Well, take Ghu, the Thoran
Grandfather-God. Ghu was as preposterous, theologically, as Merlin was
technologically; Ghu, except to Thorans, was a Federation-wide joke.
But he'd known a couple of Thorans at the University, funny little
fellows, with faces like terriers, their bodies covered with matted
black hair. They believed in Ghu the way he believed in the Second Law
of Thermodynamics. Ghu was with them every moment of their lives. Take
away their belief in Ghu, and they would have been lost and wretched.

As lost and wretched as Kurt Fawzi or Judge Ledue, if they lost their
be