He lived fully, asking questions, accepting the answers, receiving instructions. Some of them he testily disobeyed, was punished compassionately, and learned respect and a kind of love for the mecs. He played the games of childhood, but he played them alone. Once he was gazing out a port, imaginatively sorting the stars of his universe into shapes of the animals in the ship's farm. Mecfather lit up at a nearby panel, glowing faintly red. Adam resisted an impulse to shiver--the panel always made him flinch when it glowed red. Red, he was being conditioned, was his conscience, brought out by Mecfather until he grew old enough to bring it out himself. "Why aren't you playing with the other children?" Mecfather asked. "I've been watching you all day and you've avoided them on every occasion." Though he feared him, Adam loved Mecfather as he had been taught to do and did not hesitate to confide. But how could he explain that the other children did not seem as _real_ to him as the mecs? "I don't know," Adam answered truthfully. "They don't ignore you. They ask you to play, but you always go off by yourself. Don't you like them?" "They're flat, Father. They're not deep--like you." * * * * * Silent hidden computers assembled the answer, correlated, circuited a mechanical smile. Certainly--a child brought up with only three real children and three talking images in his universe could not distinguish between reality and appearance. On the screen, Adam saw Mecfather smile, the panel no longer red. The voice was quiet now and full of understanding. "It is I who am flat, Adam. I am only an image, a voice. I am here when you need me to help, but I am not deep. Your cousins are deep; I am the flat one. You will understand better when you grow older." Electronically, Mecfather was worried. He called a "conference" of the other mecs and their circuits joined in a complicated analog: What was the probable outcome of this beginning of disharmony? There were too many variables for an immediate answer, but the query was stored in each mec's memory banks for later answer. When the mecconference began, the panel switched off and Adam walked thoughtfully through the ship's corridors. Unexpectedly, he spotted the other children. He turned quickly into a room before they saw him and ducked behind the largest of the couches. He was in the aft recroom, he realized, not having paid attention to where he was going. What was it all about? Did Mecfather really mean it when he said the cousins were deeper than the mecs? Adam could believe he was different from his parents and teacher--after all, he was only seven--but he couldn't accept the information that he was _not_ different from his cousins. Somehow, he thought, I am alone....