elieve_ you are--and that is one thing I cannot lie about.
It's possible to lie about a belief verbally, to have a falsely
based belief, or to change a belief. But you can't lie about it to
yourself.

"Equally important--you can't lie about a belief to an empathetic.
Would you like to see how I feel about this? 'See' is a bad
word--there is no vocabulary yet for this kind of thing. Better,
would you join me in my feelings? Sense my attitudes, memories and
emotions just as I do?"

Brion tried to protest, but he was too late. The doors of his senses
were pushed wide and he was overwhelmed.

"Dis ..." Ihjel said aloud. "Seven million people ... hydrogen bombs
... Brion Brandd." These were just key words, landmarks of
association. With each one Brion felt the rushing wave of the other
man's emotions.

There could be no lies here--Ihjel was right in that. This was the
raw stuff that feelings are made of, the basic reactions to the
things and symbols of memory.

DIS ... DIS ... DIS ... it was a word it was a planet and the word
thundered like a drum a drum the sound of its thunder surrounded
and was a wasteland a planet
of death a planet where
living was dying and
dying was very
better than
living

crude barbaric DIS hot burning scorching
backward miserable wasteland of sands
dirty beneath and sands and sands and
consideration sands that burned had
planet burned will burn forever
the people of this planet so
crude dirty miserable barbaric
sub-human in-human
less-than-human
but
they
were
going
to
be
DEAD

and DEAD they would be seven million blackened corpses
that would blacken your dreams all dreams dreams
forever because those
H Y D R O G E N B O M B S
were waiting
to kill
them unless .. un