Billy turned and asked Toralen Ki. "You're surprised? Just as Lane and Downing will become mental twins, you, Billy Thompson, have gained twinship with my mind. Also that of Kregar, the dead Loard-vogh." Billy smiled. "Simple enough," he explained to the pair. "After your minds are given release, you'll be able to understand him, too." Thompson did not explain the twinship idea. Co-operation was one thing to explain, but the concept of accepting one another's personality would have to be given to them by someone who outranked them. Let them wonder--or even better, let them remain in ignorance, on the basis that what they did not know wouldn't harm Terra. Toralen Ki shook his tiny head and looked puzzled, as well as shamefaced. "I didn't expect this," he said. "The concept of mental struggle between myself and another never occurred to me." "It saved my neck," grinned Billy. "And the collective necks of most of the Galaxy. And it is just as well that we didn't energize them, too. The main release for the solar sector must come when they go into the change. Had they gone into the change out here, in Sscantoo, the mental radiation would not have been strong enough to trigger the minds of your fellows near Sol." Thompson nodded and turned to Lane and Downing. "You two are going to have something to fight--but against, not over. That's been a private fight of yours for years. If you'd like to continue it, you'd better knock off the battle long enough to stop the Loard-vogh cold. Then you can resume personal hostilities and be damned." "What about this Sscantoo?" asked Lane. "They have some stuff that'll come in handy in fighting the Loard-vogh," nodded Thompson. "But we're not running off half-cocked. We're heading back to Sol right now, to make plans." X. Stellor Downing's hard fist came down on the table with a shattering crash. "I will not!" he said in a powerful tone. "And I agree," echoed Cliff Lane. Kennebec smiled patiently. "So far as I know it is the first time you've ever agreed on anything." "The future--?" pleaded Toralen Ki. Kennebec nodded at the Tlemban. "He's willing to die. He thinks enough of the future to die for it. You two might sublimate your lives just a little for it." "Get a couple of others!" "There are none suitable." "What a stinking set-up," grunted Lane. "I've got to forget my identity and become a sheer hyphen." "Look," snapped Downing, "it happens that you're sneering at my personality, remember?" "I wouldn't have your personality for a gift." "You couldn't--it's too big for the like of you!" "All right," said Kennebec. "Stop it." Toralen Ki said, sorrowfully: "I might have been dishonest, Co-ordinator Kennebec. I should have told them that the mental transformation would prove who was the better man." "A convincing lie for the benefit of mankind is often better than the disquieting truth," observed Kennebec.