"Let's say a small celebration feed for the whole crew when Superman is completed. Nothing chintzy, either!"

They shook on it. And afterward Paul was glad the incident had occurred.

It left no doubt about the direction Nat Holt would be traveling in his work.

Four weeks to the day, from the time Paul had stepped into Oglethorpe's office, he called the first meeting of his staff leaders. Invitations to the General and to Nat Holt were deliberately omitted. He wanted this first get together to be a family affair.

He felt just a little shaky in the knees as he got up before that group for the first time.

"I won't repeat what you already know," Paul said carefully. "You all know the background events that produced Project Superman.

"I am sure that each of you has also caught the two basic errors that have been a.s.sumed by the s.p.a.ce Command, first, that an errorless man is possible, and second, that genuine scientific discovery can be secured wholly upon command. General Oglethorpe recognizes that we consider these a.s.sumptions erroneous, but he also knows that our professional integrity demands that we pursue vigorously a course which he believes will result in success.

"We recognize, too, that we are not here to invent or produce anything that does not already exist. But, in a sense, our superiors and some of our co-workers expect us to do exactly that.

"We can agree, however, that most of Man's potential still remains to be discovered. And for us, who have hoped for a means of understanding that potential, this Project is the fulfillment of dreams. If we fail to take full advantage of it, we will win the condemnation of our profession for a century to come.

"s.p.a.ce Command has already concluded that a man can be stripped of his humanity and driven to an utterly mechanistic state with the robotic responses of a machine. Let there be no mistake about it: we have been brought here to validate that conclusion.

"We will validate it by default, so to speak, unless we can produce a clean-cut a.n.a.lysis and demonstrations of the thing that most of us believe: that the essence of Man is more than a piece of machinery or a collection of bio-chemical reactions.

"Our science of mind and Man is on trial. If we fail, we give consent to a doctrine that will spread from s.p.a.ce technology to all the rest of our society, and bind Man in an iron mold that will not be broken for generations. While we have been hired and will ostensibly work at the task of developing an errorless man, our basic purpose must be to validate the humanity of Man!"

He waited for their reaction. Outside, far across the open desert at the station, a rocket screamed into the air. They waited until the sound died away.

Professor Barker stood up. "There is scarcely a human being who has not by now read or heard the words of Captain West's appeal. They will be looking for the day when there will come marching from our laboratories, like a robot, the errorless man he asked for.

"Do you mean we have to fight the stated objectives of this Project? Can we not discover sufficient understanding to establish some method of training which will accomplish, in another way, the things the s.p.a.ce Command needs?"

"We are not fighting the s.p.a.ce Command's desire for more adequate men for its ships," said Paul. "We are fighting only against the false conclusions they have already formed concerning the nature of such men.

"We must solve the problem of human error. We know its purpose in the learning process. We must discover the reason for its existence in a _learned_ process. We have to find out what training actually means.

"We have to ask how we know when an error has been made. It is obvious, of course, when a s.p.a.ceship rams a fixed orbit station. But what of the subtler situations, where results are less dramatic, or are postponed for a long time--?

"The primary thing to remember at this point is that our basic goal is to prevent any false confirmation of the dogma that Man is no more than a badly functioning machine, which will gain value when he has been tinkered with sufficiently so that he can slip in beside the gears and vacuum tubes and be indistinguishable from them. And to reach this goal we must discover his true nature."

It was two weeks later that General Oglethorpe made his first visit since Superman got under way. The soldier's face seemed more deeply lined and his eyes more tired than Paul remembered seeing them before.

"You seem to have things well in hand," he said. "How soon can you give us some tangible results?"

"Results! We've just started housekeeping. In a year, maybe two, we'll have an idea where to begin a concentrated search for what you want to know."

The General shook his head slowly, his eyes remaining on Paul's face.

"You aren't going to have anything like a year. You haven't got time to run down one line of research and then another. Run them all at once--a thousand of them if you want to. Why do you think you've got the budget you have!"

"Some things," said Paul, "like threading a needle--or a.n.a.lysing a human being--don't go much faster when a thousand men work at it than when there's only one."

"They do when there're a thousand needles to thread--or brains to pick.

And that's what we're up against here. We need a volume of the kind of men we've been talking about, and we need them quick!"

"We have to find out how to get the first one."

"And you haven't got as much time now as we thought you had when Superman began. They're trying to close us up.

"We hadn't planned to build another Wheel right away, not until some refinements of design had been worked out, and we had some results from Superman.

"Now, all that's been sc.r.a.pped. We've received orders from Washington that erection of a second Wheel is to begin at once, using the plans of the first one. Fabrication of structures is already under way."

"I don't understand," said Paul.

"If we don't get another one up there within a matter of weeks, this hysterical opposition among the public is liable to prevent us ever getting one there again. We have to act while we still have authority, before the crackpots persuade Congress to take it away. And by the time it's built, I want some men to put in it. Men who can be trusted to not jeopardize it the moment they put their clumsy feet aboard. I want them, Med.i.c.k, and I intend to have them. That's by way of an order!"

The General rose, but Paul remained seated. "You can't get them that way, and you know it," the latter said. "We'll do all we can, as I've told you before."

"I think you'll do considerably more, now. That was quite a talk you delivered to your boys a couple of weeks ago. We will 'ostensibly work at the task of developing an errorless man', is the way I believe you put it. You're going to do a lot more than ostensibly work at it, Med.i.c.k. Just how much do you think you can get away with?"

Paul remained motionless in the chair. Only his lips moved. "So you had a report on our little meeting? I hope it was complete enough to give you the rest of the things I said, that my basic purpose was not to produce human robots, but to validate the humanity of man."

Oglethorpe leaned closer, his fists resting on the top of the desk. "The humanity of man be d.a.m.ned! I told you before we want men who've forgotten they were ever human, men of metal and electrons. If I didn't think you were the man who could do it--probably the _only_ man in the whole country--you wouldn't last here another minute. But you _can_ do it, and you're going to.

"Your little lecture was enough to ruin your career in any place you try to run to, if you undermine Superman. Who do you suppose would trust you with any kind of research after that expression of intent to sabotage the Project your Government entrusted you with, and which you agreed to carry out?

"You're finished, Med.i.c.k, washed up completely in your own profession, unless you give me what I've asked for! I won't take promises any more.

The only a.s.surance you can give me from here on out is results! I want those men, and I want them d.a.m.n fast!"

Professor Barker listened attentively as Paul sat across from him in the administration office and reported Oglethorpe's visit and demands.

"We're caught in a squeeze, and we've got to push both ways," Paul said.

"If the Base goes down, Superman goes with it, and we've lost an opportunity that will never come again in our lifetimes. So we've got to do two things: We've got to give active support to the rebuilding of the Wheel, and we've got to develop some kind of show that will convince Oglethorpe that Superman is giving him what he wants. It will mean detouring our basic objectives, but it's necessary in order to have a project at all. I'd like you to take charge of it."

"It'll be a waste of time," Barker said slowly. "I wonder if we'll ever get back on the track."

"We'll have to gamble on it," said Paul. "I don't want you to feel I'm deliberately pushing you up a blind alley, but I think you're the best man for bringing up something we can sell Oglethorpe--while we try to do some real research on some honest goals."

"We can follow the usual lines of so-called training--brute conditioning through shock and fear and pain and discomfort. Most of the men here are already well anaesthetized in that respect. Their breakdown level is high."

"c.u.mmins' was the highest," said Paul, "and he cracked. But work along those lines anyway. Maybe we can find a way to thicken the conditioning armor. At the same time let's push a genuine investigation into the nature of error as hard as we can. For the moment we'll forget broader objectives, until we know the Project is safe."

Barker agreed reluctantly, feeling that they would end up as mere personnel counselors before long. As soon as he left, Paul called Oglethorpe.

"I've got a suggestion," he said. "Let's not get on the defensive about this thing. Why don't you propose a Senatorial investigation of s.p.a.ce Command?"