"But your aun ... the Daughters of...." "I know my aunt and the Daughters of Terra," I said. "I've lived with them for years. I know their kind of mind. Who would know it better?" "But you...." "The human race," I said, "is very young. It's only in the last few thousand years that it has discovered sex as a concept. So like little kids in kindergarten it goes around being embarrassed and snickering. But we'll grow up. Give us time." "But you...." he said again. "But they.... That's the kind of organization that keeps us from growing up, Hap. Don't you see that? They've kept us mentally retarded for generations, centuries. How can we make progress when...." "What's the hurry, Johnny? We've got millions of years, billions, eternity." He looked at me again, sharply, shrewdly. "I've underestimated you, Hap," he said. "I'm afraid I always did. I had no idea you...." I shrugged and passed it off. I'd had no idea either, not until this morning, last night, yesterday evening when that eye had turned on me--and I'd winked back. I didn't know how to tell him, or any reason why I should, that there couldn't be anything right or wrong, good or bad; that nothing could happen, nothing at all, excepting through the working of the law of nature. Could one say that water running down hill is good, and water being pumped up hill is bad? Both are operating within known physical laws. With millions of years to go, wasn't it likely we would go on discovering the laws governing how things worked? Until one by one we had to give up all notion of good and bad happenings? Understood them as only the operation of natural law? In all the universe, how could there be any such thing as unnatural happenings? "Don't worry about it, Johnny," I said as we started walking again. "And don't worry about your career, either. Aunt Mattie likes you, and she's mighty pleased with the results of her work out here. Certain people in the State Department may consider her a bit of a meddlesome pest, but make no mistake about it, every politician in the universe trembles in his boots at the very mention of the D.T.'s. And she likes you, Johnny." "Thanks, Hap," he said as we came to a stop before the doorway of the hotel. "I'll see you before your ship takes off. Oh--ah--you won't tell her she covered up the wrong--well what she would think was the wrong part?" "I could have told her that last night," I said. He walked away with that startled, incredulous look he'd worn ever since our arrival. * * * * *