, stupidly perpetrated--because the
people in power _are_ people, and not the kind of synthetic
super-intellects dreamed up by frustrated fiction-fabricators. You
found out that the logical candidates to constitute an Underground
were the Naturalists; again, they were just ordinary individuals with
no genius for organization. As for coming in contact with key figures,
you were actually on hand when Leffingwell completed his experiments.
And you came back, years later, to hunt him down. Very much in the
heroic tradition, I admit. But you never saw the man except through
the telescopic sights of your rifle. That was the end of it. No
modern-day Machiavelli has hauled you in to play cat-and-mouse games
with you, and no futuristic Freud has bothered to wash your brain or
soft-soap your subconscious. You just aren't that important, Collins."

"But they put me in a special prison. Why?"

"Who knows? They put me here, too."

"You said something once, about stockpiling us. What did you mean?"

"Well, it was just an old science fiction idea, I suppose. I'll tell
you about it tomorrow, eh?"

And so the matter--and Harry Collins--rested for the night.

The next day Richard Wade was gone.

Harry called to him and there was no answer. And he cried out and he
cursed and he paced his cell and he walked alone in the courtyard and
he begged the impassive guards for information, and he sweated and he
talked to himself and he counted the days and he lost count of the
days.

Then, all at once, there was another prisoner in the adjacent cell,
and his name was William Chang, and he was a biologist. He was
reticent about the crime he had committed, but quite voluble about the
crimes committed by others in the world outside. Much of what he said,
about genes and chromosomes and recessive characteristics and
mutation, seemed incomprehensible to Harry. But in their talks, one
thing emerged clearly enough--Chang was concerned for the future of
the race. "Leffingwell should have waited," he said. "It's the
_second_ generation that will be important. As I tried to tell my
people--"

"Is that why you're here?"

Chang sighed. "I suppose so. They wouldn't listen, of course.
Overpopulation has always been the curse of Asia, and this seemed to
be such an obvious solution. But who knows? The time may come when
they need men like myself."

"So you were stockpiled too."

"What's that?"

Harry told him about Richard Wade's remarks, and tog