Ed Boynton began to understand. "I see. You were experimenting with channel taps, cutting across the confidential channels. Like they teach you to do in communications."

"That's right. I happened to pick up a conversation between you and Robin Turner concerning the raid."

The atmosphere in the room became easier, more friendly. Ed Boynton relaxed, settling back in his chair. "Go on," he urged.

"It was mere chance. I had cut across ten or twelve channels, holding each one for only a second. I was using the Youth League equipment. All at once I recognized your voice. So I stayed on and caught the whole conversation."

"Then you heard most of it."

Harl nodded. "Exactly when are you going up, Dad? Have you set an exact date?"

Ed Boynton frowned. "No," he said, "I haven't. But it will be sometime this week. Almost everything is arranged."

"How many are going?" Harl asked.

"We're taking up one mother ship and about thirty eggs. All from this department."

"Thirty eggs? Sixty or seventy men."

"That's right." Ed Boynton stared intently at his son. "It won't be a big raid. Nothing compared to some of the Directorate raids of the past few years."

"But big enough for a single department."

Ed Boston's eyes flickered. "Be careful, Harl. If such loose talk should get out --"

"I know. I cut the recorder off as soon as I picked up the drift of your talk. I know what would happen if the Directorate found out a department was raiding without authorization -- for its own factories."

"Do you really know? I wonder."

"One mother ship and thirty eggs," Harl exclaimed, ignoring the remark. "You'll be on the surface for about forty hours?"

"About. It depends on what luck we have."

"How many saps are you after?"

"We need at least two dozen," the elder Boynton replied.

"Males?"

"For the most part. A few females, but males primarily."

"For the basic-industry factory units, I assume." Harl straightened in his chair. "All right, then. Now that I know more about the raid itself I can get down to business."

He stared hard at his father.

"Business?" Boynton glanced up sharply. "Precisely what do you mean?"

"My exact reason for coming down here." Harl leaned across the desk toward his father, his voice clipped and intense. "I'm going along with you on the raid. I want to go along -- to get some saps for myself."

"My exact reason for coming down here." Harl leaned across the desk toward his father, his voice clipped and intense. "I'm going along with you on the raid. I want to go along -- to get some saps for myself."

The inner door slid back, and Robin Turner came quickly into the office. He joined Boynton behind the desk.

"He can't go," Turner said flatly. "It would increase the risks tenfold."

Harl glanced up. "There was an ear in here, then."

"Of course. Turner always listens in." Ed Boynton nodded, regarding his son thoughtfully. "Why do you want to go along?"

"That's my concern," Harl said, his lips tightening.

Turner rasped: "Emotional immaturity. A sub-rational adolescent craving for adventure and excitement. There's still a few like him who can't throw the old brain completely off. After two hundred years you'd think --"

"Is that it?" Boynton demanded. "You have some non-adult desire to go up and see the surface?"

"Perhaps," Harl admitted, flushing a little.

"You can't come," Ed Boynton stated emphatically. "It's far too dangerous. We're not going up there for romantic adventure. It's a job -- a grim, hard, exacting job. The saps are getting wary. It's becoming more and more difficult to bring back a full load. We can't spare any of our eggs for whatever romantic foolishness --"

"I know it's getting hard," Harl interrupted. "You don't have to convince me that it's almost impossible to round up a whole load." Harl looked up defiantly at Turner and his father. He chose his words carefully. "And I know that's why the Directorate considers private raids a major crime against the State."

Silence.

Finally, Ed Boynton sighed, a reluctant admiration in his stare. He looked his son slowly up and down. "Okay, Harl," he said. "You win."

Turner said nothing. His face was hard.

Harl got quickly to his feet. "Then it's all settled. I'll return to my quarters and get prepared. As soon as you're ready to go, notify me at once. I'll join you at the launching stage on the first level."

The elder Boynton shook his head. "We're not leaving from the first level. It would be too risky." His voice was heavy. "There are too many Directorate guards prowling around. We have the ship down here at fifth level, in one of the warehouses."

"Where shall I meet you, then?"

Ed Boynton stood up slowly. "We'll notify you, Harl. It will be soon, I promise you. In a couple of periods, at the most. Be at our vocational quarters."

"The surface is completely cool, isn't it?" Harl asked. "There aren't any radioactive areas left?"

"It's been cool for fifty years," his father assured him.

"Then I won't have to worry about a radiation shield," Harl said. "One more thing, Dad. What language will we have to use? Can we speak our regular --"

Ed Boynton shook his head. "No. The saps never mastered any of the rational semantic systems. We'll have to revert to the old traditional forms."

Harl's face fell. "I don't know any of the traditional forms. They're not being taught anymore."

Ed Boynton shrugged. "It doesn't matter."

"How about their defenses? What sort of weapons should I bring? Will a screen and blast rifle be sufficient?"

"Only the screen is of vital importance," the elder Boynton said. "When the saps see us they scatter in all directions. One look at us and off they go."

"Fine," Harl said. "I'll have my screen checked over." He moved toward the door. "I'll go back up to the third level. I'll be expecting your signal. I'll have my equipment ready."

up to the third level. I'll be expecting your signal. I'll have my equipment ready."

The two men watched the door slide shut after the youth.

"Quite a boy," Turner muttered.

"Turning out to be something, after all," Ed Boynton murmured. "He'll go a long way." He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "But I wonder how he'll act up on the surface during the raid."

Harl met with his group leader on the third level, an hour after he left his father's office.

"Then it's all settled?" Fashold asked, looking up from his report spools.

"All settled. They're going to signal me as soon as the ship is ready."

"By the way." Fashold put down the spools, pushing the scanner back. "I've learned something about the saps. As a YL leader I have access to the Directorate files. I've learned something virtually no one else knows."

"What is it?" asked Harl.

"Harl, the saps are related to us. They're a different species, but they're very closely related to us."

"Go on," Harl urged.

"At one time there was only the one species -- the saps. Their full name is homo sapiens. We grew out of them, developed from them. We're biogenetic mutants. The change occurred during the Third World War, two and a half centuries ago. Up to that time there had never been any technos."

"Technos?"

Fashold smiled. That's what they called us at first. When they thought of us only as a separate class, and not as a distinct race. Technos. That was their name for us. That was how they always referred to us."

"But why? It's a strange name. Why technos, Fashold?"

"Because the first mutants appeared among the technocratic classes and gradually spread throughout all other educated classes. They appeared among scientists, scholars, field workers, trained groups, all the various specialized classes."