Cadnan knew from gossip about the field: that was the place where the metal lay. Alberts worked there, digging it up and bringing it to the buildings where Cadnan and many like him took over the job. He nodded slowly, bending his body from the waist instead of from the neck like the masters, or Marvor. "If you are in the field," he said, "why do you come here? This is not a place for diggers." "I am brought here," Gornom said. "I am an elder many times. What the masters say, I do. Now they say I come here, and I come." Cadnan looked doubtful. "You are to work with me?" "So the masters say." That was unanswerable, and Cadnan accepted it. He flicked a glance at the TV screen which showed him the smelting process, and leaped for the buttons. After a few minutes of action he was finished: there was a slight breathing-space. "I am to tell you what to do," he said. Gornom looked grave. "I see what it is you do," he said. "It is a lesson. When you act for the masters, the great machines obey you." "It is true," Cadnan said. "This is the lesson," Gornom said slowly, as if it were truly important. "We are shown the machines so that we may learn to be like the machines. When the master tells us what to do, we are to do it. There is nothing else." Cadnan thought about that. It made sense: it made a structure he could understand, and it made the world a less confusing place. "You have said a truth," he judged at last. "It is one of many truths," Gornom said. And that was an invitation, Cadnan recognized. He hesitated no more than a second. "Where may I learn the others?" But Gornom didn't answer, and Cadnan's breathing-space was over. He had to be back at the board, pushing buttons, watching carefully. Gornom stood behind him, peering over his shoulder with a cloudy eye. Neither said a word until the new spell of work was over. Then Cadnan repeated his question. "It is not for all," Gornom said distantly. "One must be chosen." "You have come to me," Cadnan said. "You have been sent to me. Is this what you call chosen?" It was the right answer, perhaps the only right answer. Gornom pretended to consider the matter for a minute, but his mind was already made up. "We are above you, on the floor over yours," he said. "When our work is finished I will take you there." Cadnan imagined a parade of new truths, a store of knowledge that would lay all his questions to rest and leave him, as after a meal, entirely satisfied. He went back to work and contemplated the first of the truths: he was to be like the machine. He promised himself he would try to imitate the machine, doing only what the masters ordered. And for the rest of that day, indeed, life seemed to make perfect calming sense. * * * * * But, after all, Gornom was only an elder and not a master. He could be wrong.