“I’d like to buy that, but I’m afraid it’s. . . .” Cloud paused. Until he’d met Joan, he’d supposed his mind ordinary enough. Since then, however . . . all those extra barrels. . . . “Exactly. We are specialists of the mind, young man. We perceive your mind, not as it is, but as it should be and will be. It should have and will have a penetrance, a range, a flexibility of directive force, and, above all, a scope of heights and depths we have never encountered before. It is eminently clear that you, and, very probably, Three Janowick as well, have been developed each for some specific Purpose in the Great Scheme of Things.” “A _Purpose_?” Cloud demanded. “_What_ purpose? What could _I_ do? What could both of us together do?” “We can not surely know.” “Does that mean that you can make a well-informed guess? If so, let’s have it.” “There is a very high probability that Three Janowick was developed specifically to develop you; to pierce and to dissolve those hampering barriers which were amenable to no other force. Concerning you, there are several possibilities, none of which have any very high degree of probability, since you are unique. The one we prefer at the moment is that you are to become the greatest living Master of Thought; the Prime Expounder of the Truth. But that is of no importance now, since in due time it will be revealed. Of present import is the fact that both your minds are confused, cloudy, and disorderly. We offer our services in reorienting and ordering them.” “We’d like that very much; but first, if I am going to develop into a mental giant of some kind—frankly, I have my doubts—why did it wait this long to show up?” “The answer to that question is plain and simple. There is a time for everything, and everything that happens does so in its exact time. Let us to work.” They worked, and when it was done: “We would like to dwell with you for long,” the ancient Fives said, “but the time for such a boon will not come until you are much emptier of cares and much fuller of years.” The Fives split apart. “How do you type this new Master, brother? A full Six, I say.” “A full Six he is, brother, beyond doubt.” They fused. “In a time to come, Six Cloud, we will, with your help and under your guidance, explore many and many a Path of Truth which without you would remain closed. But we observe that there is about to arrive a message which is to you of some present concern. Until a day, then.” The Fives disappeared as suddenly as they had come, and Cloud began to test and to exercise the new capabilities of his mind; in much the same fashion as that in which a good belly-dancer exercises and trains each individual muscle of her torso. “But what. . . . I didn’t. . . . How did they. . . ?” Joan shook her head violently and started all over again. “What did they _do_ to us, Storm?”