tightened. "You haven't come here for ceremony. There will be none."

"I came for truth," the Prophet said sonorously. "The people of the world are waiting for my words. The mask of secrecy must be ripped from this place and truth and knowledge allowed to wash it clean."

Merrick almost winced. The statement was redundant with the propaganda that Erikson's nightriders peddled on every street corner. It betokened an intellectual bankruptcy among men that was frightening.

"I shall do my best to allay your fears," he said thickly.

Erikson's eyes glittered with suspicion. "I need only a guide. The decisions I shall make for myself. And mind that I am shown every concealed place. The roots of this place must be laid bare. 'For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing; whether it be good or whether it be evil.' The Scriptures command it in the name of Man, the True God."

Twisted, pious, hypocrite! thought Merrick.

"I am sure, sir," Graves was saying placatingly, "that when we have shown you the Creche you will see that there is no menace."

Erikson scowled at Graves deliberately. "There is menace enough in the blasphemy of android life, my son. Everywhere there are signs of unrest among the things you have built here. On Mars, human beings have died at their hands!"

Merrick's face showed his disgust. "Frankly, I don't believe that. Androids don't kill."

"We shall see, my son," Erikson said settling the belt of his energy screen more comfortably about his hips. "We shall see."

Merrick studied Erikson's face. There was a tiny scar under his chin. That would be where the transmitter was planted. He had no doubt that every word of this conversation was being monitored by the Fanatics outside the Creche. The turning point was coming inexorably nearer. He only hoped that he had the physical and moral courage to face it when it arrived.

"Very well, Sweyn Erikson," he said finally. "Please come with me."

our hours later they were in Merrick's office. The preliminary stage of his plan had failed, just as he had known it would. He was almost glad. It had been a vacillating expediency, an attempt to hide the facts and avoid the necessity of facing the challenge squarely. Stage two was about to begin, and this time there would be no temporizing.

The Prophet glared angrily across the desk-top. "Do you take me for a child? You have shown me nothing. Where are the protoplasm vats? The brain machines? Where are the bodies assembled? I warned you against trickery, Han Merrick!"

Merrick glanced across the room at his wife. She sat rigid in her chair, her face a pale mask. He would get no help from her.

"You must realize, Erikson," he said, "That you are forcing me to jeopardize five centuries of work for the chimera of Human Supremacy. Let me warn you now that your life is of no importance to me when balanced against that. When the Board of Psychotechnicians appointed my family custodians of the Creche centuries ago, they did so because they knew we would keep faith—"

"The last member of the founding Board died more than two hundred years ago," snapped the Prophet.

"But the Creche is here, and I am here to guard it as my forefathers did," Merrick said. Once again he was conscious of a strange ambivalence in his attitude. He must guard something he considered wrong against the intrusion of a danger even more wrong. His hand sought the scored grip of the old automatic in his pocket. Could he actually kill?

"You speak of Human Supremacy as a chimera," Sweyn Erikson said, "It is no such thing. It is the only vital force left in the world. Robotism is a menace more deadly, a blasphemy more foul than any Black Mass of history. You are making Man into an anachronism on the face of his own planet. This cannot be! I will