et himself get caught, even by a very
low-order probability."

"Well how do you explain the absence, after forty years, of any
mention, in any history of the War, of Merlin? How do you get around
that?"

"I don't have to. How do you get around it?"

"_Huh?_" Lucas was startled.

"Yes. Stories about Merlin were all over Poictesme, all through the
Third Force, even to the enemy. Say the stories were unfounded; say
Merlin never existed. Yet the belief in Merlin was an important
historical fact, and no history of the War gives it so much as a
footnote." He paused for effect, then continued: "That can mean only
one thing. Systematic suppression, backed by the whole force of the
Terran Federation. A gigantic conspiracy of silence!"

Brother! If they swallow that, I have it made; they'll swallow
anything!

They did, all but Lucas. He banged his fist on the table.

"Now I've heard everything!" he shouted in disgust.

"Not quite everything, Doctor," Morgan Gatworth said. "You will hear,
one of these days, that we have found Merlin."

"Yes, that'll be the day!" Lucas sprang to his feet, his chair
toppling behind him. He shoved it aside with his foot. "I'm not going
to argue with you. Conn Maxwell gave you a thousand-year-old
quotation; I'll give you another, from Thomas Paine: 'To argue with
those who have renounced the use and authority of reason is as futile
as to administer medicine to the dead.' I'll add this. Conn Maxwell
knows better than this balderdash he's been spouting to you. I don't
know what his racket is, and I'm not staying to find out. You will,
though--to your regret."

He turned and strode from the room. There was a moment's silence,
after the door slammed behind him. Too bad, Conn thought. He would
have made a good friend. Now he was going to make a very nasty enemy.

"Well, let's get to business," his father said. "We don't have to
argue about the existence of Merlin; we know that. Let's discuss the
question of finding it."

"I still think it's somewhere off-planet," Lorenzo Menardes said. "The
moons of Pantagruel...."

Evidently he'd read something, or seen an old film, about the moons of
Pantagruel.

"No, that's too far; they'd keep it where they could use it."

"The old GHQ," Lester Dawes suggested. "Suppose it's down under that,
like the place Rodney found under Tenth Army."

"I hope not," Gathworth said. "The Planetary Government took that
over."

"Well, wherever it is, finding it