He stopped again, and pointed a pudgy finger at Themus’s chest armor.

“We established the Watcher Corps as a liaison between us, when we had innovations, new methods, concepts ready for use, and you, with your graspy little hands always ready to accept what the ‘lunatics back home’ had come up with.”

“Usually the ideas were put into practice and you never knew they originated here.”

“We made sure the Watchers’ basic motto was to watch, watch, watch, whatever we did, to save ourselves the trouble of getting the information back where it would do the most good, undistorted — and believe me, if we didn’t want you to see something, it wasn’t hard to hide it from you; you’re really quite simple and stupid animals — so when we had a new invention or concept, all we had to do was walk into a public square and demonstrate it for you. Pegulla , see — pegulla , do.”

Themus mused aloud, interrupting the old man, “But what does, well, stacking juba -fruits in the square demonstrate?”

“We wouldn’t expect your simple-celled minds to grasp something like that immediately,” answered Boolbak. “But I happen to know Shella, who did that, and I know what he was demonstrating. He was illustrating a new system of library filing, twice as efficient as the old one.”

“He knew it would be dictated, sent back to Kyben-Central and finally understood for what it was. We give you enough clues. If something seems strange, think about it a while, and a logical use and explanation will appear. Unfortunately, that is the one faculty the Star-Flung Kyben are incapable of using. Their minds are patterned, their thoughts set in tracks.” The laugh was a barb this time.

“But why are you all so — so — mad? ” Themus asked, a quavering note in his voice.

“Beginning to crack, boy? I’ll tell you why we’re mad , as you put it. We’re not mad, we’re just doing what we want, when we want, the way we want. You rigid thinkers can’t recognize the healthy sanity of that. You think everyone has to wear a standardized set of clothes, go to his dentist a specified number of times, worship in delineated forms, marry a specified type of mate. In other words, live his life in a mold.”

“The only way to stimulate true creativeness is to allow it to grow unchained with restrictions. We’re not mad at all. We may put on a bit, just to cover from you boobs, but we’re saner than you. Can you change the molecular structure of a piece of steel, just by touching it at a juncture of atom chains?”

“Is that — that — how you did it?” Themus asked.

“Yes. How far could I have gotten on a thing of this kind if I’d grown up in a culture like the one you’ve always known?”

“For every mad thing you see on this world, there is a logical, sane answer.”

Themus felt his knees shaking. This was all too much to be taken at one sitting. The very fiber of his universe was being unwound and split down the grain.

He looked at Darfla for the first time in what seemed an eternity, and found it impossible to tell what she was thinking.

“Buy why haven’t you shown this steel pinching to the Watchers, if you want them to know all the new concepts?” the incredulous Themus questioned.

Boolbak’s face suddenly went slack. The eyes became glassy and twinkly again. His face became flushed. He clapped his hands together childishly. “Oh, no! I don’t want that!”

“But why?” demanded Themus.

Again the old man’s face changed. This time abject terror shone out. He began to sweat. “They’re gonna chase me, and bend a bar of iron around my head.”

He leaped up and ran in a flurry back to the coal pile, where he burrowed into the black dust and peered out, trembling.

“But that’s crazy! No one wants to bend a bar of iron around your head. Only a maniac would keep a secret like that because of a crazy reason like that!”

“Exactly,” came Darfla’s voice from behind him, sadly, “that’s just it. Uncle is crazy.”

They had wanted to see Themus after his talk with Uncle Boolbak, and though Darfla had taken pains to cover their tracks, a group of Crackpots were waiting outside the house when they emerged.

Themus was white and shaking, and made no movement of resistance as they were hustled into a low-slung bubble roadster and whisked back to the Cave.

“Well, did he talk to that mad genius?” asked Deere.

Darfla nodded sullenly. “Just as you said. He knows.”

Deere turned to Themus. “Not quite all, however. Do you think you can take more, Watcher?”

Themus felt distinctly faint. One microscopic bit more added to the staggering burden of revelation he had had tossed on him, and he was prepared to sink through the floor.

However, Deere was not waiting for an answer. He motioned to a man in a toga and spiked belt, who came toward Themus. “See this man?” Deere asked.

Themus said yes. Deere tapped the man lightly on the chest, “Senior Watcher, First Grade, Norsim, lately disappeared from the barracks at Kyba Base, Valasah.” He pointed to three others standing together near the front of the crowd. “Those three were top men in the Corps, over a period of ten years. Now they’re Crackpots.”

Themus’s eyebrows and hands asked, “But how?”

“There is a gravitating factor among Kyben,” he explained. “There are Crackpots who are brought up as Stuffs, who realize, when they get here, that their thinking has been fettered. Eventually they come to us. They come to us for the simple reason that the intellect rises through the Watcher ranks, and for several reasons gets assigned here. We’ve made sure the smartest boys get final assignment here.”

“On the other side of the ledger there are noncons who go psycho from the responsibility of being a freethinker, when they want supervision and their thinking directed. They eventually wind up as Kyben, after minor reconditioning so they don’t remember all this,” he waved his hand to indicate the Cave. “Now they’re somewhere out there and probably quite happy.”

“But how can you make a Watcher disappear so completely, when the whole garrison here is looking —”

“Simple,” said a voice from behind Themus.

Supervisor Furth just stood smiling.

Themus just stood choking.

The elder Watcher grinned at the confusion swirling about Themus’s face.

“How did — when were you —” Themus stuttered.

Furth raised a hand to stop him. “I was an unbending Stuff for a good many years, Themus, before I realized the Crackpot in me wanted out.” He grinned widely. “Do you know what did it? I was kidnapped, put in a barrel with a bunch of chattering pegullas , and forced to think my way out. I finally made it, and when I crawled out, all covered with pegulla dung, those grinning maniacs helped me up and said, ‘More fun than a barrel of pegullas! ’ ”

Themus began to chuckle.

“That did it,” said Furth.

“But why do you send men like Elix back to the Mines? You must know how horrible it is. That isn’t at all consistent.”

Furth’s mouth drew down at the corner. “It is, when you consider that I’m supposed to be the iron hand of the Watcher garrison here on Kyba. We have to keep the Stuffs in line. They have to be maneuvered, while they think they’re maneuvering us. And Elix was getting too far out of line.”

“Do you know how close to being killed you came when we brought you here the first time?” Deere said.

Themus turned back to the pock-faced little man, “No. I — I — thought you’d just send me back and let the Corps deal with me.”

“Hardly. We aren’t afraid of our blundering brothers with the armored hides, but we certainly don’t take wide chances to attract attention to ourselves. We like our freedom too much for that.”

“You see, we aren’t play-acting at being odd. We actually enjoy and live the job of being individuals. But there is a logic to our madness. Nothing we do is folly.”