"Trouble with you, my dear," and the Premier patted his pretty daughter's arm, "is that you don't realize women usually lack spiritual insight necessary to interpret veiled words of Ancients. Of course I admit our Healers can foresee future, but they don't always describe it in unambiguous language. Actually, Sarkar issued _two_ Warnings, but they obviously did not mean what they seem to at first glance. First was, that we are in danger because we only think we have mastered all basic knowledge. Second was, that there are undoubtedly other worlds in universe, and one of them will one day affect destiny of Zenob. Taken at face value, these are obviously both false. As to first, no new knowledge has been added to our sciences for generations, in spite of fact that Ainta ages ago showed us how to use faculty of precognition. As to second, it is clearly foolish to think Sarkar meant other worlds in physical sense. He must have meant spiritual worlds." He turned again to Pehn, who had risen from the table and was waiting politely. "When can we have that demonstration? Within month?" "I'll speak to director today, sir." The throbbing in his cheek was becoming evident again, and he touched his face gently. "What's matter, Pehn?" said his mother. "Nothing. My face hurts, little." "Ignore it!" his father ordered. "I won't have any maladjustment in Lord Karn's family!" He picked up the gold-headed cane which was his badge of office, and strode out of the room. Pehn managed to spend a second night with the sleepless group of experts at the signal dome, but fatigue, and the growing pain in his cheek sent him home again just before dawn. Softly he ran up the ramp to the second floor and into his bathroom, to the medicine closet. In Pehn's family, a transient illness was an embarrassment, a persistent illness a disgrace. It had always been his mother's pride, and his father's boast, that in the Karn household the contents of the medicine shelves were never needed, and that the doors of the cupboard remained closed from one year to the next. It was with a sense of guilt, then, that Pehn pressed a spot on the green-tiled wall to slide back the cupboard doors, and picked up an ivory box, from which he took a bolus of pain-killing plant extract. He swallowed the huge pill, then took another. A double dose, this time, for he knew the pain would never yield to anything less. He stood shivering for a few moments, waiting for the drug to take effect. He looked up, and realized that his sister was standing at the open door, watching him sympathetically. "Pehn," she said, "you're ill. Won't you talk it over with me?" "I would talk it over with one of Evil Ones if I thought it would help this pain. It grows worse and worse." "Have you told Father yet? He could arrange for Healer--"