But I, he said, I was noticed. That is the crime of mutancy, to be noticed. Like the Spartan boy whose crime of stealing a fox was no crime at all, but whose cries when the fox ripped out his guts were a crime indeed. I rose too fast, he thought. I cut through too much red tape. I understood too well. And in governmental office you can not rise too fast nor cut red tape nor understand too well. You must be as mediocre as your fellow office-holders. You cannot point to a blueprint of a rocket motor and say, "There is the trouble," when men who are better trained than you cannot see the trouble. And you cannot devise a system of production that will turn out two rocket motors for the price of one in half the time. For that is not only being too efficient; it's downright blasphemy. But most of all you cannot stand up in open meeting of government policy makers and point out that mutancy is no crime in itself ... that it only is a crime when it is wrongly used. Nor say that the world would be better off if it used its mutants instead of being frightened of them. Of course, if one knew one was a mutant, one would never say a thing like that. And a mutant, knowing himself a mutant, never would point out a thing that was wrong with a rocket engine. For a mutant has to keep his mouth shut, has to act the mediocre man and arrive at the ends he wishes by complex indirection. If I had only known, thought West. If I had only known in time. I could have fooled them, as I hope many others even now are fooling them. But now he knew it was too late, too late to turn back to the life that he had rejected, to go back and accept the dead-end trap that had been fashioned for him ... a trap that would catch and hold him, where he would be safe. And where the human race would be safe from him. West turned around and found the path that led up the rocky decline toward the laboratory. A hulking figure stepped out of the shadows and challenged him. "Where do you think you're going?" West halted. "Just got in," he said. "Looking for a friend of mine. By the name of Nevin." Inside the pocket of his suit, he felt Annabelle stirring restlessly. Probably she was getting cold. "Nevin?" asked the man, a note of alarm chilling his voice. "What do you want of Nevin?" "He's got a painting," West declared. The man's voice turned silky and dangerous. "How much do you know about Nevin and his painting?" "Not much," said West. "That's why I'm here. Wanted to talk with him about it." Annabelle turned a somersault inside West's zippered pocket. The man's eyes caught the movement. "What you got in there?" he demanded, suspiciously. "Annabelle," said West. "She's--well, she's something like a skinned rat, partly, with a face that's almost human, except it's practically all mouth." "You don't say. Where did you get her?" "Found her," West told him. Laughter gurgled in the man's throat. "So you found her, eh? Can you imagine that?"