"Oh, take it easy," Underwood said. "This is just one little tin-horn preacher who probably didn't have more than a hundred in his congregation. The news broadcasts must have treated it as a humorous commentary on our experiments. Just the same, we should never have allowed the news to be broadcast. It all started with that hysterical mob the day we brought the protoplasm here." Dreyer shook his head amid the smoke aura. "No. It began long ago when the first cave man plastered up his clay gods and found them cracked in the Sun and washed away with the rains. It began when the first cave chieftain was slain by a rival leader and his disillusioned followers looked about for a new head man. It has been going on ever since." * * * * * "It's no concern of ours," said Underwood. Dreyer went on slowly, "As one by one the gods and chieftains fell, men cast about for new leaders who would bear the burdens of mankind and show the way to that illusive paradise that all men sought. Through the ages there have always been those who would let themselves be lifted up and called great, who would undertake to lead. Some had their eyes on faraway starry places that man could never reach and their disciples fell away, heartbroken and discouraged. Others sought their goal by mastery over foreign men and nations and bathed their followers in blood and disaster. But always their star fell and men never found the elusive goal which they could not name nor define." "And so the Age of Disillusion," said Underwood bitterly. "But disillusion is a healthy thing. It leads to reality." "How can you call this healthy?" Underwood demanded. "Men believe in nothing. They have lost faith in life itself." "Faith in life? I wonder what that means," said Dreyer, musingly. "Watch your extensions, Dr. Underwood." Underwood flushed, recalling Illia's remark that Dreyer would tear off every other word and throw it back at him. "All right, then. There are no governments, no leaders, no religions to lean upon in times of need, because men have no confidence in such sources." "All of which is a sign that they are approaching a stage in which they will no longer need such support. And, like a baby in his first steps, they stumble and fall. They get bruised and cry, as I detect that many of our scientists have done, else they would not have run away to Venus and other places." Underwood blinked from the sting of Dreyer's rebuke. "That's the second time I've been accused of running away," he said. "No offense," Dreyer said. "I am merely stating facts. That you do not believe them is not to your condemnation, only a commentary on the state of your knowledge. But our discussion is on the restoration of the alien, and your knowledge may have far-reaching effects in the disposition of this project." "Policy is controlled by the directors, who will be guided by your recommendations--"