"And bring down upon us forces that will destroy us both?" The seer's eyes stabbed at him. "There are worlds within worlds, wheels within wheels. Already I have told you too much for our safety. Moreover, there are things I honestly do not know, things hidden even from the Great Experimenters--and my guesses might be worse than yours." Taut with a sense of feverish unreality, Clawly's mind wandered. What was Oktav--what lay behind that ancient mask? Were all faces only masks? What lay behind Conjerly's and Tempelmar's? Thorn's? His own? Could your own mind be a mask, too, hiding things from your own consciousness? What was the world--this brief masquerade of inexplicable events, flaring up from the future to be instantly extinguished in the past? "But then what am I to do, Oktav?" he heard his tired voice ask. The seer replied, "I have told you before. Prepare your world for any eventuality. Arm it. Mobilize it. Do not let it wait supine for the hunter." "But how can I, Oktav? My request for a mere program of investigation was balked. How can I ask the world to arm--for no reason?" The seer paused. When he finally answered there drummed in his voice, stronger than ever, the bitter wisdom of centuries. "Then you must give it a reason. Always governments have provided appropriate motives for action, when the real motives would be unpalatable to the many, or beyond their belief. You must extemporize a danger that fits the trend of their short-range thinking. Now let me see--Mars--" There was a slight sound. The seer wheeled around with a serpentine rapidity, one skinny hand plunged in the breast of his robe. It fumbled wildly, agitating the black, weightless fabric, then came out empty. A look of extreme consternation contorted his features. Clawly's eyes shifted with his to the inner doorway. The figure stayed there peering at Oktav for only a moment. Then, with an impatient, peremptory flirt of its head, it turned and moved out of sight. But it was indelibly etched, down to the very last detail, on Clawly's panic-shaken vision. Most immediately frightening was the impression of age--age greater than Oktav's, although, or perhaps because, the man's physical appearance was that of thirty-odd, with dark hair, low forehead, vigorous jaw. But in the eyes, in the general expression--centuries of knowledge. Yet knowledge without wisdom, or with only a narrow-minded, puritanic, unsympathetic, overweening simulacrum of wisdom. A disturbing blend of unconscious ignorance and consciousness of power. The animal man turned god, without transfiguration.