"Neither," Astor said, without amusement. "This is our salvation: an android factory."

The Circle was confused; Alec could clearly sense their puzzlement as the conveyor belt continued to turn through the bright factory. Was it possible they didn't know? Astor had never informed them?

Abruptly, the vision faded. Alec opened his eyes, matching the gaze of the Superior who faced him across the table.

"I thought androids were stupid house servants," this man said.

Astor giggled. "Alec," he said. "I think you ought to be the one to tell them."

"These androids, I believe, are soldiers," Alec said.

"Go on."

"I designed the model. They are foot soldiers, infantrymen, riflemen. Nothing complicated or difficult. The vision Astor showed you was an exaggeration. Production has not yet begun. The contract was only signed yesterday-the day before-whenever it was. The day Mencken was murdered."

"So that's why the others killed him."

"We thought it was another of their jokes."

"Their warnings."

"We thought they were just playing around." Alec could sense their suppressed anger. They were not happy with Astor for keeping them in the dark. But such a technique was just like him. Astor equated power with knowledge and preferred keeping both as much to himself as possible. Alec did not think his attitude was far from wrong.

"So," said Astor, ignoring the gathering dissension, more amused by it than displeased, "the equation turns out brutally simple. We, the Superiors, will emerge from our time of trial ultimately victorious. How? This is the ironic part. Through the means of a species not only inferior to our own but also inferior to the dominant race on this planet: I refer, of course, to the android army. Such an army can lose and lose and lose and never stop coming. In a year's time-wouldn't you agree with that estimate, Alec?"

"At the very most. More likely, six months."

"In a year or less the first android divisions should be trained and ready to take the field. Kept in ignorance, the primitive world will be unaware of the menace until it is too late. Then, when the moment is ripe, a spark will ignite the general conflict. Full-scale war will rage across the globe." His voice, rising toward a crescendo, was filled with an ecstasy close to hysteria. "Armies will meet upon the battlefield, converge, clash. Cities will be destroyed. Entire nations engulfed by flames. The fighting will go on, the advantage rocking back and forth, the masses of the primitive world set against the android mercenaries of the civilized. Who shall win?" He laughed aloud. "That is the joke. No one will win-no one can-except" (another laugh, louder than before) "except us. After a year of war-two years at the most-the human race will turn in horror and fear, issuing a tearful plea for salvation. Perhaps they will ask their gods. It will be we who will answer. You. Me. Our race. The Superiors."

"But this spark," said someone-it was Axel Jorgensen, "what if it doesn't come? What if they don't fight?"

"Oh, that," said Astor, indicating with a wave how inconsequential it was. "That is already settled. The fuse lies in wait, ready to be fired. Shut your eyes again, please, and I will show you."

With the others, Alec prepared himself to receive another vision. What came confused him at first. A jungle setting. Then, through the deep foliage, another factory, as lacking in reality as the other. Past a high barbed fence. Through thick concrete walls lined with lead. Men-flashes of yellow skin, narrow eyes-dressed in radiation-proof garments. A huge oblong object, like an egg. It was a bomb. Alec knew. An atomic bomb.

"This can't be real," Alec said. Atomic weapons had been banned decades ago, before the need for war had reasserted itself.

"It isn't," said Astor.

"Then-"

"Look."

In the vision, one man stepped forward. Slowly, carefully, dramatically, he removed his face mask.

There was an audible gasp of surprised recognition. Alec contributed too. The face belonged to Thomas Mikoshai: a Superior, Inner Circle member.

"You can't do this," Alec said, weakly.

"The spark," Astor said, refusing to conceal his triumph. "You wanted it-there it is."

The vision vanished. "Once the existence of this barbaric weapon becomes known- the location, by the way, is a jungle in Borneo-war will become inevitable. Our only problem is timing. We do not dare reveal this secret until the android army is prepared to take the field. Then, and only then, we can-"

"No!" Alec cried. "The whole idea is inhuman."

"Of course it is." Astor laughed and looked deliberately around the table. "Aren't we?"

"Not in that way."

"But it's your project," said one of the others. Jorgensen again. "You're not going to argue against it?"

"Yes. I am. I didn't know about any of this-this bomb."

"What did you think?" Astor asked. "I intended to use your army as a labor-saving device?" He chuckled loudly-for too long a time. "You could have refused the assignment."

"But-" Astor knew why Alec had not refused. If he had, he would not be sitting here now. The android army had got him into the Inner Circle-but now he fully intended to argue against it. "You all know my feelings. I've expressed them to each of you before."

"I had hoped," Astor said, "that your promotion might have affected your past immaturity. If I am wrong, I'm sorry. But you are a member of the Circle now-so speak."

"I will. But I don't see that it will make any difference. I have only one question to ask. Is it necessary? Do we have to destroy them? Is this horrible war we're so casually discussing really necessary? Can't any of you see how much easier-how much better-it would be if we simply helped them? Not all human beings are-"

"That was four questions," Astor said.

Martinez said, "Help them? Do that, and we die like witches. We burn at the stake. They hate us-fear us. Only fools cannot learn the lessons that history teaches."

"This isn't history," Alec said. "It's been a long time since any witch was burned."

"But they have not changed," Martinez said. "The old fears have not left them. I walk down the street-any street, any city-and I feel it there. Fear, hate. Anything they cannot understand. And we, by definition, are creatures they can never understand."

Alec fell back to his last and strongest ammunition. Another question: "And what about when it is over? When we have won?"

Astor, understanding immediately, went rigid with tension: "What do you mean by that?"

But Alec did not intend to stop until he was finished. Facing Astor, he plunged on: "Have all of you forgotten the most basic fact of all: we are doomed. All of us, sooner or later, are going to die. And afterward? Will there be another generation-further genetic freaks like ourselves? I don't know. Maybe there will be. But, if so, we will not be the ones to produce it. And what if there isn't? What if we are the last? Are we going to destroy the whole human race with nothing to substitute in its place? That is not only inhuman, it is monstrous. It is genocide conducted for no reason beyond brief and transitory power. That is why I say no. That is why I say we should drop this project right now, reveal ourselves selectively to humanity, and help them. In doing that..."

"Don't." Astor sprang suddenly to his feet. "Don't talk about that-don't mention it!"

"It's the truth," Alec said.

"No! No, no, no!" Astor's face turned a deep and ugly red. He seemed to be choking. The others stood up too. Astor's eyes bulged, his lips trembled, his whole body shook. He seemed to be trying to speak but the words refused to come. Stunned, Alec remained in his seat, staring unbelievingly at this unhinged, incoherent creature which had materialized, half-standing, at the head of the table.

Then Astor began to scream. His hands waved over his head, fists banging together, fingers tangling. Two of the others crept behind him. He continued to wail. Tears ran down his cheeks in wide streams, though he did not appear to be weeping. The two men leaped forward. They caught Astor by the arms. Two more went for his feet, dodging kicks. Astor was lifted up, laid on the table. The four men held him there, pinned. He continued to twist and turn, like a man in the grip of a fit-he continued to scream.

Alec turned away from the sight.

The man beside him-Timothy Ralston-an American Negro from Wyoming-said, "You should never have done that."

Alec let his anger out: "It was the truth. What else was I supposed to do? If you people can't-"