Steen's face took on an angry look. "Of course there are. But none with the potentialities that Krieg showed. Don't you realize that ever since that sad day when Earth realized that she was a has-been, she's had to take advantage of every single opportunity offered her, just to keep alive? Oh, they were clever, those ancient ones who realized that if a civilization is to be kept together, it must have a myth. And so they gave our civilization its myth--that of Earth, the Great Ancestral Home. Just accidentally, it also offered Earth a means of retaining at least a part of her power." Steen waved his hands in the air. "From an economic viewpoint it was nice too. Only the very wealthy could afford an Earth burial, and so it became a means of hidden, graduated taxation--Earth soaked the rich and ignored the poor, and cut her overt taxes while doing so. Burial became so costly that it helped break up the huge estates, it helped leaven out the wealth. Our propaganda was sharpened to the point where we could take a man like Anderman and drive him all of his life towards an almost unattainable goal, force him to expend his tremendous energies in the accumulation of great wealth, extending the frontiers of the Galaxy as he did so, building up our civilization's strength in the process, and then, in the end, make him turn all of his wealth over to Earth in one form or another. Oh, I tell you, Braun, those ancient ones were clever." The tirade halted. The air hung silent for a moment, and the twittering of a nearby bird could be heard. "They were very, very clever. They gave us all the tools, and somehow we've failed to use them correctly. What was it, Braun? What did we do, or fail to do, that let Krieg get away from us?" Braun frowned. "I don't know, Sir. Perhaps he just changed his mind about Earth." Steen snorted. "Impossible! He's had too many years' exposure to our propaganda for that. He can no more give up his dream of burial in Manhattan than he can give up his very personality. No, Braun, I think we just underestimated the man. Somewhere along the line he had an idea, he saw something that we failed to see." Braun shrugged his shoulders. "But what are we going to do about it?" Consolator Steen pursed his lips. "I tell you what I'm going to do about it. I'm going straight back to the office and sit and think, and think, and then think some more. Krieg's got a good fifty years ahead of him yet, and that means I've got exactly that long to guess what's on his mind. I'll get that quintillion credits if it's the last thing I do." * * * * * They had no more than reached the gate when one of the mechanical Guardians appeared from behind a bush, chortled to itself and scurried over to the bench. It cleansed the rough-hewn stone, then washed the path the two men had taken. Then, its exceptional chores accomplished, it went back to its normal pursuits.