id not want to give.
I'd been eleven before I got walloped across the bazoo by pointing out
to her that _we'll see_ really meant _no_, because nothing that she said
it to ever came to pass.

"Look, Thorndyke, let's take off our shoes and stop dancing," I told
him. "I have a pretty good idea of what's been going on. I'd like an
honest answer to what's likely to go on from here."

"I can't give you that."

"Who can?"

He said nothing, but he began to look at me as though I weren't quite
bright. That made two of us, I was looking at him in the same manner.

My finger itched a bit, saving the situation. I'd been about to forget
that Thorndyke was a Mekstrom and take a swing at him.

He laughed at me cynically. "You're in a very poor position to dictate
terms," he said sharply.

"All right," I agreed reluctantly. "So I'm a prisoner. I'm also under a
sentence of death. Don't think me unreasonable if I object to it."

"The trouble with your thinking is that you expect all things to be
black or white and so defined. You ask me, 'am I going to live or die?'
and expect me to answer without qualification. I can only tell you that
I don't know which. That it all depends."

"Depends upon exactly what?"

He eyed me with a cold stare. "Whether you're worthy of living."

"Who's to decide?"

"We will."

I grunted, wishing that I knew more Latin. I wanted to quote that Latin
platitude about who watches the watchers. He watched me narrowly, and I
expected him to quote me the phrase after having read my mind. But
apparently the implication of the phrase did not appeal to him, and so
he remained silent.

I broke the silence by saying, "What right has any man or collection of
men to decide whether I, or anyone else, has the right to live or die?"

"It's done all the time," he replied succinctly.

"Yeah?"

"Criminals are--"

"I'm not a criminal; I've violated no man-made law. I've not even
violated very many of the Ten Commandments. At least, not the one that
is punishable by death."

He was silent for a moment again, then he said, "Steve, you're the
victim of loose propaganda."

"Who isn't?" I granted. "The entire human race is lambasted by one form
of propaganda or another from the time the infant learns to sit up until
the elderly lays down and dies. We're all guilty of loose thinking. My
own father, for instance, had to quit school before he could take any
advanced schooling, had to fight his way up, had to coll