"If anyone recognizes you, it's easy to take over their minds just long enough to make them forget. We allow that much Controlling." "And then what?" Houston wanted to know. "What happens in the long run?" "In a way," said Reinhardt, "your friend Sager was right. The Controllers will eventually become the rulers of Earth. But not by force or trickery. We must just bide our time. More and more of us are being born all the time; the Normals are becoming fewer and fewer. Within a century, we will outnumber them--we will be the Normals, not they. "But they'll never know what's going on. The last Normal will die without ever knowing that he is in a world of telepaths. "By the time that comes about, we'll no longer need the Penal Cluster, since Controllers will be born into a world where there is no fear of non-telepaths." "I wonder," Houston mused, "I wonder how this ability came about. Why is the human race acquiring telepathy so suddenly?" Reinhardt shrugged. "I can give you many explanations--atomic radiation, cosmic rays, natural evolution. But none of them really explains it. They just make it easier to live with. "I think something similar must have happened a few hundred thousand years ago, when Cro-Magnon man, our own ancestors, first developed true intelligence instead of the pseudo-intelligence, the highly developed instincts, of the Neanderthals and other para-men. "Within a relatively short time, the para-men had died out, leaving the Cro-Magnon, with his true intelligence, to rule Earth." Reinhardt stood up. "Why is it happening? We don't know. Maybe we never will know, any more than we know why Man developed intelligence." He shrugged. "Perhaps the only explanation we'll ever have is to call it the Will of God and let it go at that." "Maybe that's the best explanation, after all," Houston said. "Perhaps. Who knows?" Reinhardt crushed his cigarette out in a tray. "I'll go now, and let you get some rest. And don't worry; I'll have you notified as soon as Dorrine starts to come out of it." "Thanks--Chief," Houston said as Reinhardt left the room. David Houston lay back in his bed and closed his eyes. For the first time in his life, he felt completely at peace--with himself, and with the Universe. THE END Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ September 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.