Earl's eyes focused on the tray. They paused briefly on the formula of the third one from the nearest end. Earl sensed that this was the long sought for substance. He built up its theoretical structure. He saw at once how it achieved its properties. "I'll be back this afternoon," Nadine said. "By then you should have your lab reports ready." Then she was gone. Earl's hands went through the motions of pouring each vial into a pump. He turned his attention away from the routine, as a traveler in a passenger plane might turn from the window to something else. A feeling of hopelessness grew within him. How could he stop things or interfere with them when he couldn't affect a muscle? The Cyberene had been playing with him when it tried to get him to do its bidding of his own free will. He realized that now. It would have pleased its vanity if he had. But this was too important to it for it to trust anything other than itself. When it was done? When the fluid was forced into the hundreds of thousands of miles of hair-like glass tubing, the billions of fine glass cells? It would never give him his freedom. It would be afraid of what he might be able to do. So it would kill him. Unless he could prevent the Brain from being activated. And unless he were free to command his body, he could never do that. What had the Cyberene said to him about time travel and alternate time streams? The theories weren't exactly new. They had been explored in imaginative fiction for over fifty years. No one had really thought there might be some basis in fact for the theories. What had caused the "split" which had produced two Earths in separate time streams? The Cyberene hadn't seemed to know that detail--or if it had it had brushed over it casually so as not to make him curious about it. _Was it events? Or was it something in the basic substratum of matter, and the events were the result? That might be an important distinction._ If it were events, then bringing the Brain to life in this time stream might eliminate the divergent streams, bringing them together as one. That, in effect, might destroy the other world of 3042 A.D. Maybe that was what the Cyberene intended. But suppose he were able even yet to defeat the Cyberene's scheme. Then the two time streams would remain unchanged. The free world of the future would remain free. But that was not enough. He wanted to destroy both Brains. How could he accomplish that, assuming he were able to accomplish anything? * * * * * The logical time to do it would be in 1980--now--before the Cyberene gained control of the world and made itself impregnable. But how? And if he could figure that out, could he act if an opportunity arose? Irene Conner came in at lunch time. "I had a wonderful time with Basil last night," she said. "I'm glad you did," Earl heard his voice say.