Everybody wanted to help and simply helped.

“There is no control of it,” Robert the Fox told Jonnie one day in the hospital room.

Jonnie simply gave him a small smile and said, “Why control them?”

The historian, except for Jonnie's account of the drone, which was too sketchy to be called history, was getting bogged down in assembling tribal histories of the last thousand or more years. The Coordinators sent him all kinds of stuff and he couldn't even keep it in order. Some serious-eyed Chinese from a mountain fastness there had shown up to help him, and they were furiously studying English but were not of much help yet.

It seemed at first that language would be an obstacle. But it soon became clear that the future educated person would speak three languages: Psychlo for technical matters; English for arts, humanities, and government; and their own tribal language if not English. The pilots chattered Psychlo at each other: all their equipment was in Psychlo as well as their manuals and navigation and related skills.

There was a lot of protest at speaking the language of the hated Psychlos until the historian learned that Psychlo as a language was really a composite of words and technical developments stolen from other peoples in the universes, and there never had been a basic language called “Psychlo.” People were glad of that and thereafter learned it more willingly, but they liked to refer to it as "Techno."

The parson had his own problems. He had about forty different religions on his hands. They had one thing in common: the myths of the conquest a thousand or more years ago. Otherwise they were miles apart. He had witch doctors and medicine men and priests and such flooding his doorstep. He knew very well the wars that can develop out of different faiths, and he was not going to evangelize any one of them. Man wanted peace.

He explained to them that man, being divided and internally at war, had advanced too slowly as a culture and so had been wide open to an invasion from elsewhere. They all agreed man should not be at war with man.

The myths– well, they knew the truth of it now. They were happy to abandon those myths. But on this question of which gods and which devils were valid...well...

The parson had neatly handled the whole thing for the moment. He would disturb no beliefs at all. Every one of these tribes was demanding to know what was the religion of Jonnie MacTyler? Well, he wasn't really of any religion, the parson told them. He was Jonnie MacTyler. Instantly and without exception, Jonnie MacTyler became part of their religions. And that was that.

But Jonnie was lying a bit wan, trying each day at Chrissie's and MacKendrick's persuasion to walk, to use his arm. And when the parson tried to tell him he was getting woven into the pantheon of about forty religions, he said nothing. He just lay there, not much life or interest showing in the depths of his eyes.

The Council was not having a happy time of it.

He lay half-awake in his bed, not really wanting to try.

The secret behind Jonnie's lethargy was the feeling that he had failed. Maybe the bombs hadn't landed on Psychlo. Maybe all this was just a brief interlude of peace for man. Perhaps soon the beautiful plains of his planet would once more be denied the human race.

And even if the bombs had landed and Psychlo was no longer a menace, he had heard of other races out there in the universe, savage races as pitiless as the Psychlos. How could this planet defend itself against those?

It haunted him at every awakening; it plagued his sleep. People now looked so happy and industrious, so revived. What cruelty if it were just a brief interlude. How crushed they would be!

Today would be just another day. He would get up, and a Russian attendant would bring in his breakfast and help Chrissie straighten the room. Then MacKendrick would come and they would exercise his arm and he would try to walk a bit. Something about there being nothing wrong, really, just having to learn to do it again. Then Sir Robert or the parson would come over and sit uncomfortably for a while until Chrissie shooed them out. A few more dull routine actions and another day would be gone. His failure oppressed him. He saw more clearly than they did how cruel a letdown this would be if the Psychlos counterattacked. He felt a little guilty when he saw a glad face: how soon it might turn to grief.

He had given the historian, Doctor MacDermott, a colorless outline of the drone destruction, all from the viewpoint of what one could or could not do if another one appeared, and Doctor Mac had well supposed there was far more to the action than that, but he had been chased out by Chrissie.

Chrissie had just washed his face and he was sitting at a trolley table when he noticed something odd going on with the Russian attendant. It really did not thoroughly challenge Jonnie's interest, for there were always Scots guarding him in the outside passage against intruders or disturbance– a guard he had at first protested and then accepted when they all seemed so upset at the refusal.

Jonnie had not seen this particular Russian in two weeks; others had been taking his place. Once this Russian had come in with a great big black eye and a triumphant grin on his face; questioned, Chrissie had explained that the Russians sometimes fought among themselves over the right to serve him. Well, this fellow looked like he could win any fight. As tall as Jonnie, heavyset with slightly slanted eyes, and dressed in baggy-bottomed trousers and a white tunic, he was quite imposing, his bristling black mustache standing straight out on both sides of his big nose. His name was, inevitably, Ivan.

After putting down the breakfast, he had drawn back and was standing there at the stiffest attention Jonnie had ever seen.

A Coordinator came slipping in the door, the Scot sentry scowling and privately vowing to send for Sir Robert by runner the moment the door was closed.

Jonnie looked at the Russian questioningly.

The Russian bowed from the hips and straightened up, looking stiffly ahead. “How do you do Jonnie Tyler sir.” His was a very thick accent. He did not go on.

Jonnie went on eating oatmeal and cream. “How do you do,” he said indifferently.

The Russian just stood there. Then his eyes rolled appealingly at the Scot Coordinator.

“That's all the English he knows, Jonnie sir. He has some news and a present for you.”

Chrissie, with a broom in her hand, her cornsilk hair tied out of her eyes with a buckskin thong, bristled at this violation of proper announcement. She looked like she was going to hit both of them with the broom. Jonnie motioned her to be still. He was slightly interested. The Russian was so imposing and was fairly bursting with what he had to say.

Ivan barked off a long string of Russian and the Coordinator took it up. “He says he is Colonel Ivan Smolensk of the Hindu Kush– that's in the Himalayan Mountains. They are descended from a Red Army detachment that was cut off there and intermarried locally; there are about ten groups in the Himalayas; some speak Russian, some an Afghanistan dialect. They really aren't army units. 'Colonel' to them means 'father.' They're really Cossacks.”

The Russian thought this was going on too long– it was more than he had said. So he rattled off another string. The Coordinator cleared up a couple of points and turned to Jonnie.

“This is very irregular,” said Chrissie, her black eyes flashing.

The Coordinator was already in awe of Chrissie and Jonnie had to tell him to go on. “It seems like when they found they could travel around– the steppes there are huge– a troop-that's their name for a family unit-rode clear over to the Ural Mountains. They got on the radio to him-anybody can use a radio it seems-and they gave him some news. Our Coordinator there had told them about this base and that troop for some reason thought there might be a Russian base.