"I could tell you some things, Jorak. You have some psi-power, but that and anything else you've got, including some very bad features, you got them all from Earth. You got the germs for it all a long time back. And what you have left is just something that's a kind of left-over after a few thousand years. The Earth has forgotten more psi-power, friend, than you'll ever have." Jorak's eyes popped. Veins were coloring thickly through them. "You're here to learn something, Jorak. Listen. We developed psi-power on Earth so long ago we don't bother remembering when it was." Smith felt the power all right. Latent psi-power, dormant and unused and unneeded and uninteresting for aeons. He threw Jorak into the corner. Jorak curled up there, sucking in air and rubbing his bruised neck. "We had it. We threw it away," Smith said. "We had a defense against it too. But we don't use psi, or the defense anymore. We outgrew it. It had its day and then we forgot about it, Jorak. Why? We lost interest. Individual sanctity was better. Privacy of the human mind was something a lot more to be desired than being able to pry into someone else's brain, or vice versa. But you take a lot of pride, Jorak, in having a little residue floating around." Smith grinned more widely. It was funny in a way, and sad too. And he didn't particularly care about pushing it any further. "_ ... the decision is in your hands._" * * * * * He wished his thoughts would organize, fuse somehow with the stirring, rebelling emotions. Integration right now was vital. You lose, or you're not equal to something. And a really top-notch defense-mechanism will turn the whole thing around and say IT is not equal to YOU. That's a danger. And of that he was afraid. Could he, should he, pass judgment? On a culture that had left Earth wallowing in the cosmic back-waters? Twice, thrice, he had tried to pass that judgment, but he could not. He should be judged, theoretically, not the school. So what if their concept of history was primitive, basking in its own importance, ignoring the philosophical precepts upon which the social sciences are based? Surely they had reason, and he shouldn't question.... And if they valued Wortan fighting above all else ... if it made their women look like eager animals waiting to see the blood spill ... how could he question? Why should he dare assume that the whole culture was depraved, simply because he regarded it that way by Earth standards? And their dream empathy was enjoyable, he had to admit that--but it was too enjoyable. No wonder Earth had dropped that sort of thing long ago. It was a good gimmick to divert attention from important things. It was also regressive, a kind of sick introversion. It was decadence, an invasion of privacy, an offense against the dignity of human privacy of the mind--the individual's last precarious citadel. He jumped a little when the Registrar barked: "Your decision, Smith of Earth."