again he looked up. Real perplexity was on his face. "Three okays in a row. I didn't have a single okay up until now." His gaze went up the slope in the direction where the bomb had exploded.

"Does that mean I'm all right?" West asked.

"Yes. Definitely all right," the lieutenant answered. "And I don't pretend to understand it."

"I was in a hole, too," West said. He seemed to be amused at some joke known only to him.

The lieutenant brightened. "Then I understand it."

"I wish I did," Zen said, to himself. There was no longer any doubt in his mind that Nedra was one of the new people. As to West, the man was an enigma. Not knowing how long West had been exposed to the radiation, Zen did not know what to make of his freedom from it. But there was certainly something peculiar about him.

"Colonel, it was good to meet you." West was coming toward him with outstretched hand. Zen had the impression that the man's hand could turn into a veritable bear trap, if West chose. "Perhaps we shall meet again, sir." The words were a statement, not a question. An enigmatical smile played over the craggy man's face.

"Who knows whether we shall meet again?" Zen answered, shrugging. "Generally, when people say goodbye these days, they mean goodbye forever."

"I know." Sadness showed on the craggy, lined face. "It is too bad that things have to be this way. Well, experience is a difficult school, but homo sapiens seems incapable of learning in any other."

"It is war," Zen said.

"I disagree with you there," West said. "War is only a symptom of the disease, it is only an expression of humanity. War itself is not at fault, but man. Nor can man really be regarded as being at fault, since what he is now going through is only a stage of growth."

Momentarily the memory of the contact with the race mind flicked through Zen's consciousness. "I know that," he said. Then he hesitated. "Or I knew it once."

"Ah? When?"

"Up the slope there, I knew it. But I have forgotten now what I knew." Zen spoke slowly. He was trying hard to remember—or to forget—he wasn't sure which.

"Ah?" West repeated. "Goodday, sir. Nedra, I would like to speak with you for a moment, before I leave. With your permission, of course, Colonel Zen."

"Certainly," Zen said. He watched the nurse and the craggy man move up the trail a few steps. They carried on a conversation in tones too low for him to overhear, then parted. West went down to the bottom of the ravine and crossed to the other side of the gulch, where he began to climb the opposite slope, staying as far away from the radioactive zone as possible. Nedra returned to Zen beside the truck.

"Does he live back there?" the intelligence agent asked.

"I really don't know," the nurse answered. "I think he does, but I'm not certain."

"It's rough country to live in."

"From what I have seen of him, he seems capable of living almost anywhere."

"Do you know him well?"

The violet eyes regarded him thoughtfully. "You are asking a great many questions, sir."

"I'm going to ask more."

"My telephone number, no doubt. I'm sorry, but I don't have a telephone." The violet eyes grew pensive. "But if I did have a telephone number, there is no one I would rather give it to than you."

He felt a warm glow at her words. The dream that he had once shared with millions of other men, of a wife and kids, came into his mind again, a yearning that was as old as history. If he had his free choice, he would go with this dream.

He knew he did not have a free choice. Indeed, he doubted if he had any choice at all. Nor had any other man. History had moved past the day when this dream could be realized. Fate was sweeping it into the dust heap of good things that were gone forever.