"The race mind will have to start over again," she explained. Her manner indicated that she was explaining something that she clearly understood. She seemed to wonder why he did not understand it. "Maybe we will be turtles? That will be funny! A turtle that can remember when it was a man! That's the way it will be. Except--" "I know all about that." "Except that the turtle won't be able to do anything about its memories," the girl continued as if she had not heard him. "It will have flippers and a beak but what it will need will be hands. It won't have them until it grows them itself. A turtle with the memories that it was once a man, knowing that if it had hands, it could rebuild human culture!" A bemused expression appeared on her face. "I wonder how the race mind will solve that problem." Again she seemed to muse. "It would be worse to be crabs. Or would it?" "Shut up!" Zen snarled. "We're not turtles yet. Or crabs. And we're not back on the mud flats." "But we're on the edge of them," the girl insisted. "One more teeter and we will go totter." Zen turned to West. "What the hell has happened to Nedra?" "Nothing," the craggy man answered. "She has some degree of clairvoyance and it is coming to consciousness. Unfortunately, she has not yet had time to develop her talents in that direction." "Maybe the turtle wouldn't want to rebuild human culture," the girl interrupted. "Maybe it wouldn't want to go back down that blind alley again. Perhaps it would decide to go into another channel, to develop into something totally different. In that case, it might not need hands." Zen deliberately ignored her. He turned to West. "A bomb will be going off," he said. "That is what I've been trying to talk to you about," the craggy man answered. "This is another reason why we came back for you--so we could talk to you about that bomb." "To me?" Zen said startled. "Yes, to you." "Why?" "Because you are a colonel of intelligence and have experience in such matters. Also because you are something that none of us are--a fighting man." "I--I don't understand you," Zen answered. "I can get you there. But once there, my knowledge fails. I, to my regret, know nothing of fighting." West spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "Get me where?" Zen asked. "To Asia. To the underground cavern where they are getting ready to launch that bomb," West explained. The tone of his voice said this was easy. The hard part came in knowing what to do, and being able to do it, after they were there. "To Asia?" Zen parroted the words. He had the dazed impression that this whole scene was unreal, that the snoring Asians on the floor, Cal huddled by the wall, and the new people crowding into the room, would shortly all vanish in puffs of green smoke. "How in the hell will you get us to Asia?"