And Cragin wondered sardonically if his small rectangular bit of enamelite would be at all impressive on the planet the Owners called home. * * * * * Neither Cragin nor the girl ever saw the planet as such. And it was a planet, Cragin learned, a planet little larger than Earth, honeycombed with subterranean tubes and chambers as had been the control point; a labyrinth which contained a civilization of little more than twenty million members; a headquarters for those who ran and owned the universe. They were escorted to the testing place by two creatures of the fourth grade; bipeds, shorter than men, with hunched backs and splayed tentacles for arms and hands. Cragin noted that they carried armament of a sort; simple tube-like objects which were aimed at him while he was relieved of his Krells. Then he and Lin Griffin were placed in a bullet-shaped vehicle, one of the guards operating its controls and the other stationing himself behind them. Cragin was not prepared for the girl's sudden outburst and jerked his hands vainly at the empty holsters at his hips. "Of course we can escape from these simpletons!" she cried. "We can easily overpower these dimwitted brutes--" There was no reaction from their guards; Cragin's hands relaxed slowly. "What--" "Don't you understand? They're fourth grade--two less than our cloaked friend. They are our guards, so of course our superiors in intelligence, but still not on a high enough plane to interpret the emanations of pure thought as he was." "You'll do, I guess. But I've still got a feeling that if either of us twitches an eyebrow--" She continued as though he had not spoken. "He took your guns; we're now held prisoner under weapons. They have to rely on material means of power. Look, Cragin!" Highly-polished curved metal walls of an alloy comprised of ores that he could not begin to identify flashed past at such speed that all sensation of motion was negated. There was no sound. "I'm looking." "It's a safe bet the tests will be something devised by the Owners themselves. Something that will measure our total thought potential--something based on an extremely advanced function of psychometrics." "You're over my head again." "If we're acceptable, Cragin, we're established in one grade or another--and will be constantly under the supervision of creatures of the next highest grade--that's the way it's been working so far, with the exception of the little excursion we're taking now." "In other words--" "In other words, we've got to think in the simplest patterns possible. Childish things. Anything that will belie our true intelligence level. What's your I.Q.?" "I didn't ask you how old you were, duchess, but I test out at an embarrassed 158 or so." "We match within ten points. It'll have to do. Because we've got to fake--test out at about 115." "Like I say, you'll do. Testing out at 115, our bosses on the next level shouldn't be a shred above 130 or so. So--"