read or heard the words of Captain West's appeal. They will be looking for the day when there will come marching from our laboratories, like a robot, the errorless man he asked for.

"Do you mean we have to fight the stated objectives of this Project? Can we not discover sufficient understanding to establish some method of training which will accomplish, in another way, the things the Space Command needs?"

"We are not fighting the Space Command's desire for more adequate men for its ships," said Paul. "We are fighting only against the false conclusions they have already formed concerning the nature of such men.

"We must solve the problem of human error. We know its purpose in the learning process. We must discover the reason for its existence in a learned process. We have to find out what training actually means.

"We have to ask how we know when an error has been made. It is obvious, of course, when a spaceship rams a fixed orbit station. But what of the subtler situations, where results are less dramatic, or are postponed for a long time—?

"The primary thing to remember at this point is that our basic goal is to prevent any false confirmation of the dogma that Man is no more than a badly functioning machine, which will gain value when he has been tinkered with sufficiently so that he can slip in beside the gears and vacuum tubes and be indistinguishable from them. And to reach this goal we must discover his true nature."

It was two weeks later that General Oglethorpe made his first visit since Superman got under way. The soldier's face seemed more deeply lined and his eyes more tired than Paul remembered seeing them before.

"You seem to have things well in hand," he said. "How soon can you give us some tangible results?"

"Results! We've just started housekeeping. In a year, maybe two, we'll have an idea where to begin a concentrated search for what you want to know."

The General shook his head slowly, his eyes remaining on Paul's face. "You aren't going to have anything like a year. You haven't got time to run down one line of research and then another. Run them all at once—a thousand of them if you want to. Why do you think you've got the budget you have!"

"Some things," said Paul, "like threading a needle—or analysing a human being—don't go much faster when a thousand men work at it than when there's only one."

"They do when there're a thousand needles to thread—or brains to pick. And that's what we're up against here. We need a volume of the kind of men we've been talking about, and we need them quick!"

"We have to find out how to get the first one."

"And you haven't got as much time now as we thought you had when Superman began. They're trying to close us up.

"We hadn't planned to build another Wheel right away, not until some refinements of design had been worked out, and we had some results from Superman.

"Now, all that's been scrapped. We've received orders from Washington that erection of a second Wheel is to begin at once, using the plans of the first one. Fabrication of structures is already under way."

"I don't understand," said Paul.

"If we don't get another one up there within a matter of weeks, this hysterical opposition among the public is liable to prevent us ever getting one there again. We have to act while we still have authority, before the crackpots persuade Congress to take it away. And by the time it's built, I want some men to put in it. Men who can be trusted to not jeopardize it the moment they put their clumsy feet aboard. I want them, Medick, and I intend to have them. That's by way of an order!"

The General rose, but Paul remained seated. "You can't get them that way, and you know it," the latter said. "We'll do all we can, as I've told you before."

"I think you'll do considerably more, now. That was quite a talk you delivered to your boys a couple of weeks ago. We will 'ostensibly work at the task of developing an errorless man', is the way I believe you put it. You're going to do a lot more than ostensibly work at it, Medick. Just how much do you think you can get away with?"

Paul remained motionless in the chair. Only his lips moved. "So you had a report on our little meeting? I hope it was complete enough to give you the rest of the things I said, that my basic purpose was not to produce human robots, but to validate the humanity of man."

Oglethorpe leaned closer, his fists resting on the top of the desk. "The humanity of man be damned! I told you before we want men who've forgotten they were ever human, men of metal and electrons. If I didn't think you were the man who could do it—probably the only man in the whole country—you wouldn't last here another minute. But you can do it, and you're going to.

"Your little lecture was enough to ruin your career in any place you try to run to, if you undermine Superman. Who do you suppose would trust you with any kind of research after that expression of intent to sabotage the Project your Government entrusted you with, and which you agreed to carry out?

"You're finished, Medick, washed up completely in your own profession, unless you give me what I've asked for! I won't take promises any more. The only assurance you can give me from here on out is results! I want those men, and I want them damn fast!"

Professor Barker listened attentively as Paul sat across from him in the administration office and reported Oglethorpe's visit and demands.

"We're caught in a squeeze, and we've got to push both ways," Paul said. "If the Base goes down, Superman goes with it, and we've lost an opportunity that will never come again in our lifetimes. So we've got to do two things: We've got to give active support to the rebuilding of the Wheel, and we've got to develop some kind of show that will convince Oglethorpe that Superman is giving him what he wants. It will mean detouring our basic objectives, but it's necessary in order to have a project at all. I'd like you to take charge of it."

"It'll be a waste of time," Barker said slowly. "I wonder if we'll ever get back on the track."

"We'll have to gamble on it," said Paul. "I don't want you to feel I'm deliberately pushing you up a blind alley, but I think you're the best man for bringing up something we can sell Oglethorpe—while we try to do some real research on some honest goals."

"We can follow the usual lines of so-called training—brute conditioning through shock and fear and pain and discomfort. Most of the men here are already well anaesthetized in that respect. Their breakdown level is high."

"Cummins' was the highest," said Paul, "and he cracked. But work along those lines anyway. Maybe we can find a way to thicken the conditioning armor. At the same time let's push a genuine investigation into the nature of error as hard as we can. For the moment we'll forget broader objectives, until we know the Project is safe."

Barker agreed reluctantly, feeling that they would end up as mere personnel counselors before long. As soon as he left, Paul called Oglethorpe.

"I've got a suggestion," he said. "Let's not get on the defensive about this thing. Why don't you propose a Senatorial investigation of Space Command?"

"Are you crazy? Why would we want to have them come out here and pick our bones to pieces before making final burial?"

"We've got a story to tell them—remember? We've got Superman, that's going to produce for the first time in the world's history a man adequate to go into the dangers of space. And there's that little story of yours about courage. I think that would go over with them. We'd be out in front if we took the initiative in this instead of just waiting until it rolled over us."

There was a long pause before Oglethorpe spoke again. "I wonder just what you're trying to do," he said finally. "I know you don't mean a word of what you're saying at all—"

"But I do mean it," Paul said earnestly. "I want