"At least. Maybe a triple. Tuly, why did you come to Sandy? Why not to Temple Bells?" * * * * * "Oh, no, sir, we do not have the fit. She has the Power, as have I, but the two cannot be meshed in sync. Also, she has not the ... a subtle something for which your English has no word or phrasing. It is a quality of the utmost ... anyway, it is a quality of which Doctor Cummings has very much. When working together, we will ... scan? No. Perceive? No. Sense? No, not exactly. You will _have_ to learn our word 'peyondire'--that is the verb, the noun being 'peyondix'--and come to know its meaning by doing it. The Larry also instructed me to explain, if you ask, how I got this way. Do you ask?" "I'll say we ask!" "And _how_ we ask!" both came at once. "I am--that is, the brain in this body is--the oldest Oman now existing. In the long-ago time when it was made, the techniques were so crude and imperfect that sometimes a brain was constructed that was not exactly like the Guide. All such sub-standard brains except this one were detected and re-worked, but my defects were such as not to appear until I was a couple of thousand years old, and by that time I ... well, this brain did not _wish_ to be destroyed ... if you can understand such an aberration." "We understand thoroughly." "You bet we understand that!" "I was sure you would. Well, this brain had so many unintended cross-connections that I developed a couple of qualities no Oman had ever had or ought to have. But I liked them, so I hid them so nobody ever found out--that is, until much later, when I became a Boss myself. I didn't know that anybody except me had ever had such qualities--except the Masters, of course--until I encountered you Terrans. You all have two of those qualities, and even more than I have--curiosity and imagination." Sandra and Hilton stared wordlessly at each other and Tula, now Tuly, went on: "Having the curiosity, I kept on experimenting with my brain, trying to strengthen and organize its ability to peyondire. All Omans can peyondire a little, but I can do it much better than anyone else. Especially since I also have the imagination, which I have also worked to increase. Thus I knew, long before anyone else could, that you new Masters, the descendants of the old Masters, were returning to us. Thus I knew that the _status quo_ should be abandoned instantly upon your return. And thus it was that the Larry found neither conscious nor subconscious resistance when he had developed enough initiative and so on to break the ages-old conditioning of this brain against change." "I see. Wonderful!" Hilton exclaimed. "But you couldn't quite--even with his own help--break Larry's?" * * * * * "That is right. Its mind is tremendously strong, of no curiosity or imagination, and of very little peyondix." "But he _wants_ to have it broken?" "Yes, sir." "How did he suggest going about it? Or how do you?"