The soldier looked at him a moment and then his eyes glittered. "Pass, friend," he said, and standing aside he watched Alan go on toward the buildings. There was a cynical smile on the soldier's mouth. Alan came to a squat flatroofed structure like a concrete shed. He knocked on the door. It opened and he went in. One weak bulb burned in a lamp. There was a tall man standing there in the shadows. He shook hands with Alan. "Welcome, companion. Just sit down here." Alan seated himself on a stool. The other passed along two walls and in succession a number of vivid lights flared out, bathing Alan in their burning radiance. He did not blink, but looked steadily and fixedly ahead. _Greetings_, said the voice. _Greetings, master._ _Are you happy to return to me?_ _I have never been away from you._ _That is true. Now I have things to tell you. You will not remember them consciously tomorrow, but you will obey the commands and refuse to do those things which I tell you are wrong. Understood?_ _Understood._ _Now first, slave_, said the voice coldly, anger piled on icy anger in the dripping wordless thoughts: _you have decided that there are aliens among you. A race of supermen, mutated from your own weak breed._ _Yes._ _That is untrue. Forget it._ _It is forgotten._ _Such an idea is foolishness._ _It is stupid_, said Alan, believing. _There are no aliens. There are neither supermen nor mutants. There is no thinking race on earth but the genus Homo. The accidents are unrelated; the welder a victim of shock, the pilot merely lucky._ _I see._ _The disks are under the supervision of the government, who wished to keep their purpose secret until now._ _Security reasons_, said Alan in blind agreement. _There is only you and there is only me, I who am you, you who are me. And this is our private knowledge and not to be spoken of._ _I would die rather than tell of it._ _Now you are mine again._ _Never anything else, master._ _Forget me._ _Forgotten._ _Go home._ _Of course._ Alan rose and passed out of the range of the lights, and the tall man nodded with approval and began to switch off his terrible lamps. * * * * * Alan woke in the grayness of dawn, cramped and half-chilled from sleeping in a chair. He stretched and groaned, and got up to brew some coffee. Brave woke at the clinking of china and came padding out to the kitchen. "Up so early, commodore? You look as if you hadn't slept." "I slept, all right, but it didn't do much good. My head's splitting." Brave took over the coffee pot. "Any more ideas on the mutant theory?" "Oh, hell. I guess I was wrong." Brave turned and looked at him. "Why do you say that?" "Well, look. The welder might have been suffering from shock. The pilot was--just lucky. And the business of the disks can be explained by obtuse government security regulations. And where does that leave our precious superman notion? Out in the cold and wet."