I nodded. "Okay. Fine, Scharber," I said. If folks had all been like Scharber, there would have been no obstruction of progress. If they had all been like Bowhart, there would at least have been no danger. But as always, there were other types. Among them were those who like to speak out against something. * * * * * Among these, now, was an old classmate of mine, whom I have mentioned before, one Armand Cope. Already he was becoming minorly famous, laying down the "facts" with a definite oratorical talent. I think that he was, in the main, honest in his beliefs. But pledged and prejudiced to one point of view, he was blindly violent toward its opposite number. Cope was a fanatic. And now, with the smokes of fear curling in many minds, nothing could have been more dangerous than his activities, and the activities of the numerous individuals who were like him. I heard him speak over the radio and television. Always his words drummed on the same points: "Friends, the craze for gadgets has become a folly, an insult to man's dignity. The proof has become brutally plain today. All we ever wanted was to live an uncomplex life--having houses that we build, and crops that we raise, with simple materials and simple work of our muscles, as nature intended. Science? Much of it should have stopped before it ever started. It was a trap from the first, offering its benefits as bait, not letting us know that it led to this mechanical abomination, which seeks to sully our own natural being with a hideous slime of the laboratory! The prospect makes one's nerves crawl; death is better than the triumph of such a thing! We must fight and fall, if necessary! Let the maniacs and fools know the real strength of humanity!" Plenty of people were eager to listen to Cope, and to cheer him on. I gulped, and then grinned at Doc rather wanly. Jan and I were in his house that particular evening. "It's like we thought it would be, before anyone on Earth even knew about what we were bringing them," Jan said. "You're going to talk back, Shane," Irma, Doc's wife, commented, with a thread of steel in her voice. "Of course I'm going to talk back," he answered. "But I'm afraid that that could never do enough good. There'll always be enough point to what Cope and his kind say, for scared, furious souls to cling to. I wish mightily that it could be different; but I suspect that what I say will only help to consolidate another fierce belief, to oppose Cope's believers. Yes, like two mighty armies being drawn up for battle. That is the real danger! Well, anyway I've got to try." And so Dr. Lanvin was on television the following evening, speaking from the Civic Center of Chicago. Jan and I left to run the lab, listened from my office. It was a good speech: