"You'll dig up a lot of stuff you won't be able to sell, like that stuff you've been bringing in from Tenth Army, and then you'll go looping off chasing Merlin, like the rest of them. Well, maybe that'll be a little better than just sitting in Kurt Fawzi's office talking about it, but not much." It kept on like that. Conn and his father tried several times to change the subject; each time Flora ignored the effort and returned to her diatribe. Finally, she put her plate and cup on the robot's tray and got to her feet. "I have to go," she said. "Maybe I can do something to keep some of these children from growing up to be Merlin-worshipers like their parents." She flung out of the room angrily. Mrs. Maxwell looked after her in distress. "And I thought it was going to be so nice, having breakfast together again," she lamented. Somehow the breakfast wasn't quite as good as he'd thought it was at first. He wondered how many more breakfasts like that he was going to have to sit through. He and his father finished quickly and got up, while his mother started the robot to clearing the table. "Conn," she said, after his father had gone out, "you shouldn't have gotten Flora started like that." "I didn't get Flora started; she's equipped with a self-starter. If she doesn't believe in Merlin, that's her business. A lot of these people do, and I'm going to help them hunt for it. That's why they all chipped in to send me to school on Terra; remember?" "Yes, I know." Her voice was heavy with distress. "Conn, do you really believe there is a ... that thing?" she asked. "Why, of course." He was mildly surprised at how sincerely and straightforwardly he said it. "I don't know where it is, but it's somewhere on Poictesme, or in the Alpha System." "Well, do you think it would be a good thing to find it?" That surprised him. Everybody knew it would be, and his mother didn't share his father's attitude about things everybody knew. She hadn't any business questioning a fundamental postulate like that. "It frightens me," she continued. "I don't even like to think about it. A soulless intelligence; it seems evil to me." "Well, of course it's soulless. It's a machine, isn't it? An aircar's soulless, but you're not afraid to ride in one." "But this is different. A machine that can think. Conn, people weren't meant to make machines like that, wiser than they are." "Now wait a minute, Mother. You're talking to a computerman now." Professional authority was something his mother oughtn't to question. "A computer like Merlin isn't intelligent, or wise, or anything of the sort. It doesn't think; the people who make computers and use them do the thinking. A computer's a tool, like a screwdriver; it has to have a man to use it." "Well, but...."