the current crop of university students who held similar views. A
product of the educational philosophy of the Planetary Union, Dirrul
was thoroughly adjusted and decidedly aware of both his own abilities
and shortcomings.

He was, first of all, gifted in the use of abstractions and
generalities. In rare combination with this flair he had superior
mechanical intelligence and a talent for expressive verbalization. He
dealt easily in the subtle skills of logic. If he set his mind to it,
he could erect absolute proofs of diametrically opposed truths and few
minds could detect the delicately concealed flaws in the reasoning.

On the negative side of the scale was Dirrul's complete lack of
psycho-biological intelligence, or a sense of scientific semantics.
Neither to him seemed important. He missed them not at all and
resented the legal requirements that forced him to take Dr. Kramer's
course before he could qualify as a space-pilot.

The papers he had written for the professor were beautifully
constructed patterns of logic, cast in well-turned phrases. They had
clarified the criticism which others put inarticulately. It was the
precision of his argument that disturbed Dr. Kramer and his faculty
friends.

Dirrul was amused as the distinguished scientists skillfully
manipulated the conversation to create counter-arguments opposing his.
It was a game played in abstractions, a technique of which Dirrul was
an instinctive master. Apparently the scientists found some sort of
excitement in the game, since on succeeding evenings Dirrul was
swamped with invitations from other faculty members--so many, in fact,
that he had to neglect the serious work of the Movement. When he
complained to Paul Sorgel, the Vininese agent was delighted.

"We can get along without you for awhile, Eddie," Sorgel said. "You're
doing something much more important. You have a real in with the
science crowd, and you've got them on the run because your arguments
make sense. Every doubt you sow in their minds now will make our work
just that much easier when the proper time comes."

Occasionally Dirrul had an uneasy feeling that he was making no real
progress at all, that when he talked to the scientists he was a
dancing puppet dangling on invisible strings. It seemed impossible
that the scientists of the Ad-Air University could be so repeatedly
defeated by his logic. Slowly, however, he reasoned his way to an
explanation.

The scientists, like the s