Ihjel smiled. "Just guessing. But I won the Twenties too, remember, also without knowing a thing about empathy at the time. On top of our normal training, it's a wonderful trait to have. Which brings me to the proof we mentioned a minute ago. When you said you would be convinced if I could prove you were the only person who could help me. I _believe_ you are--and that is one thing I cannot lie about. It's possible to lie about a belief verbally, to have a falsely based belief, or to change a belief. But you can't lie about it to yourself." "Equally important--you can't lie about a belief to an empathetic. Would you like to see how I feel about this? 'See' is a bad word--there is no vocabulary for this kind of thing yet. Better, would you join me in my feelings? Sense my attitudes, memories and emotions just as I do?" Brion tried to protest, but he was too late. The doors of his senses were pushed wide and he was overwhelmed. "Dis ..." Ihjel said aloud. "Seven million people ... hydrogen bombs ... Brion Brandd." These were just key words, land marks of association. With each one Brion felt the rushing wave of the other man's emotions. There could be no lies here, Ihjel was right in that. This was the raw stuff that feelings are made of, the basic reactions to the things and symbols of memory. DIS ... DIS ... DIS ... it was a word it was a planet and the word thundered like a drum a drum the sound of its thunder surrounded and was a wasteland a planet of death a planet where living was dying and dying was very better than living crude barbaric backward miserable dirty beneath consideration planet #DIS# hot burning scorching wasteland of sands and sands and sands and sands that burned had burned will burn forever the people of this planet so crude dirty miserable barbaric subhuman in-human less-than-human but they were going to be DEAD and DEAD they would be seven million blackened corpses that would blacken your dreams all dreams dreams forever because those HYDROGEN BOMBS were waiting to kill them unless ... unless ... unless ... you Ihjel stopped it you Ihjel (DEATH) ... you (DEATH) ... you (DEATH) alone couldn't do it you (DEATH) must have BRION BRANDD wet-behind-the-ears-raw-untrained-Brion-Brand-to help-you he was the only one in the galaxy who could finish the job....