"I know." Sadness showed on the craggy, lined face. "It is too bad that things have to be this way. Well, experience is a difficult school, but _homo sapiens_ seems incapable of learning in any other." "It is war," Zen said. "I disagree with you there," West said. "War is only a symptom of the disease, it is only an expression of humanity. War itself is not at fault, but man. Nor can man really be regarded as being at fault, since what he is now going through is only a stage of growth." Momentarily the memory of the contact with the race mind flicked through Zen's consciousness. "I know that," he said. Then he hesitated. "Or I knew it once." "Ah? When?" "Up the slope there, I knew it. But I have forgotten now what I knew." Zen spoke slowly. He was trying hard to remember--or to forget--he wasn't sure which. "Ah?" West repeated. "Goodday, sir. Nedra, I would like to speak with you for a moment, before I leave. With your permission, of course, Colonel Zen." "Certainly," Zen said. He watched the nurse and the craggy man move up the trail a few steps. They carried on a conversation in tones too low for him to overhear, then parted. West went down to the bottom of the ravine and crossed to the other side of the gulch, where he began to climb the opposite slope, staying as far away from the radioactive zone as possible. Nedra returned to Zen beside the truck. "Does he live back there?" the intelligence agent asked. "I really don't know," the nurse answered. "I think he does, but I'm not certain." "It's rough country to live in." "From what I have seen of him, he seems capable of living almost anywhere." "Do you know him well?" The violet eyes regarded him thoughtfully. "You are asking a great many questions, sir." "I'm going to ask more." "My telephone number, no doubt. I'm sorry, but I don't have a telephone." The violet eyes grew pensive. "But if I did have a telephone number, there is no one I would rather give it to than you." He felt a warm glow at her words. The dream that he had once shared with millions of other men, of a wife and kids, came into his mind again, a yearning that was as old as history. If he had his free choice, he would go with this dream. He knew he did not have a free choice. Indeed, he doubted if he had any choice at all. Nor had any other man. History had moved past the day when this dream could be realized. Fate was sweeping it into the dust heap of good things that were gone forever. V