Lanny turned away from the smoldering heap of charred flesh and went back to his father's cell. He disorganized the energy units of the tormented knot of metal bars and knelt beside Pendillo. Lanny was amazed that his father had made no effort to heal his wounds. Juan was bleeding profusely; his eyes were glazed with pain. Lanny lifted Pendillo tenderly in his arms. "Father! You must begin the healing--" "I do not know how, Lanny." "All men control their own body cells!" "So you were taught, and what a man believes is true--for him." Cautiously Lanny extended his energy integration into his father's body. It was something he had never done before with a living man. The weak disorganization of cells frightened him. Clearly Pendillo was telling the truth; he was incapable of ordering his own healing. Then how had he taught his sons so well, if he could not use the technique himself? Hesitantly Lanny released into his father's body some of the energy he had stored. He wasn't sure what the effect would be, but it seemed to help. Pendillo tried to smile; his eyes became clearer. "Thanks, Lanny. But you can't save me, my son. I've lost too much blood; I have too many internal injuries." "But you could do it for yourself, Father." Lanny shook his head. "I don't understand why--" "You wouldn't, Lanny. You're the new breed." "You say that so often." "In my time that might have meant a new species--supermen we created by genetics in a biological laboratory. But we've done more than that. You aren't freaks; you're our children in every sense of the word. We have made you men; we've taught you how to think." "You deliberately made us as we are?" "Every man who lived before your time was an Almost-man, Lanny. He had your same potential, but he hadn't learned how to use it." "How are we different?" Pendillo was seized with a sudden spasm of coughing; blood trickled from his lips. Once again Lanny released a shock wave of energy into his father's body, and Pendillo's strength was partially restored. "I will tell you as much as I can," Pendillo promised, but his voice was no longer as clear as it had been. "I don't have much time left. The idea for our new breed of men began at the time of the invasion. Lanny, there wasn't much to choose from between our people and the enemy. Our cities were like theirs; we were enslaved by machines--by the technological bric-a-brac of our culture--as they are. Only our science was different. We had exploited the energy of coal and oil and water-power; we were beginning to accumulate a good deal of data about the basic atomic structure of matter. "But we would have ridiculed any serious consideration of degravitation, or the magnetic energy of a field of force. These were the trappings of our escapist fiction, not of genuine science. We had a more or less closed field allowed to legitimate scientific research; any data beyond it was vigorously ignored.