important moment of your life."

Charley tried to think of something to say to this, but there wasn't anything. He shifted on the bunk, scratched at his nose with his left foot, and grinned spastically. "Sure," he said at random. "And, by the way, I'm sorry about before, professor. But the show was going on, and—"

"The show," Professor Lightning said, in tones of the utmost contempt. "Forget about the show—now, and tomorrow, and forever."

"But—"

"No words," Professor Lightning said, raising a hand delicately. "Please. Allow me to tell you of my invention."

Charley sighed and lay back on the bed. "Invention, professor?" he said. "You mean sort of a machine?"

For some reason, Professor Lightning looked irritated. "It's not a machine," he said flatly. Then he sighed and his tone changed. "Charley, my boy," he said, "do you remember what I was telling you before? About how the world has entered a new Age of Science? How new inventions, new discoveries, are coming along every day?"

"Well, sure," Charley said. "The papers talk about it every once in a while. You know, I see the papers, or the Chicago American, anyhow. My mother sends it to me. She likes the columns."

"Why," Professor Lightning went on, as if he hadn't been listening at all, "right here in Wrout's Carnival Shows, we have things that just didn't exist ten or fifteen years ago. The electronic band. The Forever bulb."

"That's right," Charley put in. "And look at Joe Wicks. Why, he can do tricks with all those new things they got on cars, tricks nobody ever did before or even thought about in the old days."

"And more fundamental discoveries," the professor said. "Chadwick's Law of Dimensionality, Dvedkin and the Ontological Mean ... oh, I keep up with the literature. No matter what's happened to me, I keep up with the literature."

Charley sighed, very softly so as not to injure the professor's feelings. But he did hope the old man wasn't going to start on all those stories about his lost career again. Charley knew—everybody in the Wrout show did—that Professor Lightning had been a real professor once, at some college or other. Biology, or Biological Physics, or something else—he'd taught classes about it, and done research. And then there had been something about a girl, a student the professor had got himself involved with. Though it was pretty hard to imagine the professor, white-haired and thin the way he was now, chasing after a girl.

He'd been fired, or something, and he'd drifted for a while and then got himself an act and come with a Carnival. Charley knew the whole story. He didn't want to hear it again.

But the professor said: "I'm as good as I ever was—better than I ever was, my boy. I've been keeping up, doing experiments. I've been quiet about it."

Everybody, Charley thought, knew about Professor Lightning and his experiments. If they kept the old man happy, kept him contented and doing shows, why not? After all, the old guy didn't drink or anything really serious; if he wanted to play around with test tubes and even Bunsen burners, people figured, why, let him.

But Professor Lightning thought nobody knew. Well, he had been a real professor once, which is to say a square. Some people never really adjusted to carny life—where everybody knows everything.

Charley figured maybe it was better to act surprised. "Really?" he said. "Experiments?"

Professor Lightning looked pleased, which satisfied Charley. "I've been on the track of something big," he said. He seemed to be talking more to himself than to Charley. "Something new," he said. "And at last ... at last, my boy, I've found it. I'll be famous, Charley, famous—and so will you!"

"That's nice," Charley said politely. Then he blinked. "But what do you mean," he added, "me?"

"I want you to help me," the professor said. He leaned forward, and in the dim light of the tent's single lamp, his eyes glittered. "I want you to come with me."

"Come with you?" Charley said, and swallowed hard. He'd never thought, the way some did, that the old man was crazy. But it did look as if he'd slipped a couple of cogs for sure and for real. "Where?" Charley said.

"Washington," the professor said instantly. "New York. London, Paris. Rome. The world, Charley. The world that's going to do us homage."

Charley shifted a little in the bed. "Look, professor," he said, "I've got a job, right here in the carny. I couldn't leave here. So suppose we just—"

"Your job?" the professor said. "Your job's gone, my boy. Wait. Let me tell you what I've discovered. Let me tell you what has happened—happened to you, my boy. To you, and to me."

Charley sat upright, slowly. "Well," he said, "all right, professor."

Professor Lightning beamed, and his eyes glittered brighter and brighter. "Limb regeneration," he said, and his voice was as soft and quiet as if he'd been talking about the most beautiful woman in the world. "Limb regeneration."

Charley waited a long minute before he admitted to himself that he didn't have the faintest idea what the professor was talking about. "What?" he said at last.

Professor Lightning shook his head slightly. "Charley," he said softly, "you're an Armless Wonder. That's right, isn't it?"

"Sure it is, professor," Charley said. "You know that. I was born that way. Made a pretty good thing out of it, too."

"Well," Professor Lightning said, "you don't have to be one. Can you realize that?"

Charley nodded slowly. "Sure I don't," he said. "Only it's pretty good money, you know? And there's no sense in sitting around back home and feeling sorry for myself, is there? I mean, this way I can make money and have a job and—"

"No," Professor Lightning said emphatically.

Charley blinked. "No?" he said.

Professor Lightning shook his head, meaningfully. "Charley, my boy," he said, "I don't mean that you should go home and mope. But think about this: suppose you had your arms? Suppose you had two arms, just like everybody else."

"Why think about anything like that?" Charley said. "I mean, I am what I am. That's the way things are. Right?"

"Wrong," Professor Lightning said. "I can give you arms, Charley. I can make you normal. Just like everybody else."

"Well," Charley said. After a few seconds he said: "Gee." Then he said: "You're kidding me, professor."

"I'm perfectly serious," Professor Lightning said.

"But—"

"Let me show you," Professor Lightning said. He stood up and went to the flap of the tent. "Come with me," he said, and Charley got up, dumbly, and followed him out into the cool darkness outside.

Later, Charley couldn't remember all that Professor Lightning had showed him or told him. There were some strange-looking animals called salamanders; Professor Lightning had cut their tails off and they'd grown new tails. That, he said, happened in nature. But he had gone a step farther. He had isolated the particular factor that made such regrowth possible.

Charley remembered something about a molecular lattice, but it didn't make any sense to him, and was only a puzzle. But the professor told him all about the technique, in a very earnest and scientific voice that was convincing to listen to, and showed him mice that he'd cut the tails off of, and the mice had brand-new tails, and even feet in one or two cases. There were a whole lot of small animals in cages, all together in back of the professor's tent, and Charley looked at all of them. The professor had a flashlight, and everything was very clear and bright.

When the demonstration was over, Charley had no doubts at all. It was obvious to him that the professor could do just what he said he could do: grow limbs on things. Charley scratched his head with his left foot, nervously.

"That's why I came to you," the professor said. "I need a human being—just to show the scientific world that my technique works on human beings. And I've worked with you for a number of