"It was like nothing I have ever seen except in these memories. Maybe the humans kept us from seeing them so we wouldn't remember." "Exactly." Pwowp was studying the forward viewscreen and making calculations. He swung the giant freighter around a full hundred and eighty degrees. "We're close to our destination," he explained. The robot remained motionless while Pwowp completed the maneuver. "I'll explain the meaning of what you remember," he said finally, relaxing. "The human race discovered a mixture of substances able to duplicate the processes of thinking. It was in common usage for over two centuries, in control devices and calculators. It had only one defect, so far as it went. It was automatic. Separate memories developed in it by its attached stimulating devices remained separate and uncoordinated. _The process of coordination was something that seemed to go down from higher centers to meet the incoming impressions._ It was a behavior matrix that couldn't be synthesized from unassociated sensory-induced patterns. "Then a whole new field of science opened up. Until then, fields were something associated with particles, and were untouchable. The techniques of altering the basic shapes of fields were discovered. Interstellar drive came from it. So did negative matter, as man discovered how to change the polarity of basic fields, make positrons out of electrons, and a host of allied things. Refinements developed so that individual particles could be detected. One of the applications of this new science was the study of the thought-matrix of the brain itself. In a general way humans mapped the higher thought-center of the brain. It couldn't be copied--but they learned how to transfer it to this mixture that could think. Then this inorganic brain had a complete mind, capable of any degree of development. From there what followed was inevitable. "They used living creatures called dogs. I'll show you a dog later to see if it's like those other creatures in your memories. Dogs developed mentally in six months, were able to follow commands. They were ideal. Eventually they were mass-bred by the millions and transferred to inorganic brains--like you were." The robot remained silent. "In the transfer," Pwowp went on quietly, "artificial amnesia was induced. Memories of your life as a dog couldn't be wiped out, but what happens to produce amnesia was known. Unless you _remembered_, you had nothing to enable you to think outside the pattern they kept you in. You would never question...." Ahead, growing rapidly larger, was a bleak planetoid. "We're here," Pwowp said. * * * * *