"Dr. Brill," he said, "I am shocked and disappointed. I thought you had
come to believe in this great experiment."

"There is no longer a question of belief--its success to this point is
very obvious."

"Then why do you destroy it?"

"I am trying to save it."

"I don't understand," said Huth. But there was hope in his eyes.

"You have learned much about Earth and its people, but there is one
thing you failed to learn: Man may be blind, warped and prejudiced, but
his frameworks can be changed, and he must--above all--he must control
his own destiny. This law has been proved so often through our history
that I am surprised you missed it."

Huth bowed his head to acknowledge the rebuke.

"Then what do you see in the future of this project?"

"I see great problems, almost insurmountable obstacles; and the
threshold of a vast unknown. I see our people slowly approaching that
threshold--to find their own future."

Huth looked silently over the compound, over the shell of the project
to which he had dedicated his life, and not even his tremendous will
could keep his shoulders from sagging.

"I cannot say that I truly disagree with you, Dr. Brill. But my own
culture views this project from its own framework. I, too, had to fight
with prejudice to keep it going. We are a mighty race, in control of
a great section of the galaxy, and I doubt that you could hold out
against our full power, as you have done tonight against a fragment of
it on this isolated outpost."

"There seems to be a new power on this tiny planet. A power greater
than any of us can yet conceive," Lucifer answered calmly.

"That may be; but there is the extreme likelihood of its total
destruction before you can find out how to use it. I could not prevent
this destruction if I tried--once it is known what happened here
tonight. My people, too, have a destiny, and they are determined to
pursue it."

A great rumble, a mighty rush of air, swept them off their feet. The
spaceship rose in a straight vertical line and leveled off some five
hundred feet above the clearing. Its prow swung toward the Earth
people. A finger of blue flame probed downward.

Huth heaved himself to his feet.

"No! No!" he shouted. "Oh, you fools...."

The blue flame broadened at its extremity, until it resembled a long,
inverted funnel. When it touched the ground, it reduced to grey ash a
fifty foot area of buildings and trees. There was no burning, no odor,
no smoke. Just a sifting of ashes that fell like snowflakes.

Huth cried out in agony at this destruction of his dream. He ran toward
the path of the flame, waving his arms.

In the instant before the flame reached him, Huth stood motionless,
arms outstretched, face straining upward, the great muscles of his neck
standing out in rigid cords.

And then his statuesque body was a sifting handful of grey ash, falling
gently to the damp ground. The flame leaped forward.

Lucifer got to his feet. He could think only one thought: That he must
try to stand upright with as much dignity as possible.

He heard Nina's voice, but couldn't make out the words.

They were followed by a shrill, whistling sound. Surprisingly, the
sound grew fainter, like a siren fading into the distance.

Lucifer realized he had closed his eyes. He opened them and saw the
spaceship streaking upward. It tumbled end over end, out of control.
The blue funnel of flame whipped in wild circles, hissing against the
clouds. The ship disappeared momentarily behind a cloud bank, then
could be seen again, glowing with an incandescent brilliance.

Suddenly it burst into a shower of sparks that flared like a dying
meteor, and fell away into nothingness.

In the clearing behind Lucifer, children chattered gleefully.

Lucifer stood by the window and listened in silence as Albert Fetzer
made his report.

The Earth people had returned to their quarters. Those whose dwellings
had been destroyed or badly damaged were sheltered with friends for the
night. Fifty-three of Huth's men and thirty of the women had survived.
A score of _Goolies_ had come crawling and whimpering out of the
forest. All were put under guard in one of the training buildings. Dr.
Thame, his own shoulder smashed, was helping with the injured.

A twenty-four hour guard was set up to watch for return of the supply
ship, or any other that might come.

"What about the children?" Lucifer asked.

"Mostly asleep. Some of them got a little frisky and started knocking
over things--until their mothers marched them off to bed."

Lucifer shivered, and he was not cold.

"You'd better get some sleep," he told Fetzer. "We'll meet with the
section leaders early in the morning."

When Fetzer was gone, Lucifer remained by the window. Nina came out of
the bedroom to join him. Together they watched the clouds close out the
stars, listened to the sweep of the rising wind and the drumbeat of the
returning rain. The eternal rain.

"Our world," said Nina. "Our new world."

Lucifer started to answer, then could not speak. The weight of his
thoughts was too great a burden to ease with words.

Nina put her arm around him.

"A frontier must always be like this," she said.

But what a frontier! There were the physical problems of existence,
with Huth's administration and most of his technology gone. There was
the moment when the supply ship would return, when a great fleet of
ships might come to see what had happened to the project.

Yet those problems seemed like foothills to the towering peaks ahead,
rising in range after range, beyond the outermost perimeter of thought.

As Lucifer stared into this unknown, he felt his mental stature shrivel
to microscopic size. How could he, or any combination of men, offer
leadership into such a future? If the project could survive against
the return of Huth's people, what would keep it from disintegrating
and destroying itself? How could a psi focus be channeled and used
constructively? How could a professor of parapsychology, a professor
who knew less about his subject than the youngest child on this planet,
assail such peaks?

And the children! A freckled boy whimpering in his arms. A boy with a
potential power that was as yet beyond the imagination. Lucifer thought
of a tiny child behind the wheel of a great diesel truck, speeding
through the crowded streets of a city. Or a child toying with the fuse
of a hydrogen bomb. Raise that capacity for destruction to the nth
power, and then....

God!

Tonight, for the first time, the children had glimpsed how great their
power could be. Tomorrow they would begin to play new games. Quickly
they would realize that they were stronger than their parents and other
adult authorities. How could such children be controlled, educated,
guided to maturity? If there were problem adolescents on Earth, what
problems lay ahead with adolescents who could hotrod among the stars?

"But there are more than problems," Nina said, in a hushed voice. "A
frontier means so much more!"

His thoughts, so recently liberated from their cubicle, drew back with
conditioned reluctance, then leaped toward those towering peaks. A free
thought could surmount any pinnacle, and look beyond the problems to
the grandeur of the infinite.

The view was of a magnitude and beauty beyond his capacity to absorb.
But small, incredibly wonderful details focused before him.

Now he saw knowledge and knowing from all the universe pour into this
steaming jungle planet through communication channels opened by a psi
focus that could leap time and space.

He saw knowledge and love and understanding transmitted outward again
to fall like rain wherever there was parched earth.

His mind drew back from the summit. It was enough to see, for an
evanescent moment of wonder, just a fragment of what lay beyond the
wild mountains. It was madness to look too long.

The future receded; the present returned.

"I was there with you," Nina said, breathlessly.

He buried his face in the softness of her hair and the warm curve of
her throat and shoulder.

He told her about himself, and their child.

She was silent and still for a long time.

"I must have known," she said. "I must have known all the time, without
admitting it to myself."

"I'm sorry, Nina."

Her strong arm tightened around him. Her answer was steady:

"We must have hope, because there is so much to learn. But if our child
cannot see...."

Her voice shook a little, then went on firmly,

"... If our child cannot see, we must find a Braille for the psi-blind!
And we will walk together ... as long as we can ... on our frontier ...
of infinity."