by Edward Elmer Smith and Edward Everett Evans

“ Director Hilton, I am it who was once named Tula, the—not wife, not girl-friend, perhaps mind-mate?—of the Larry, formerly named Laro, it which was formerly your slave-Oman. I am replacing the Sora because I can do anything it can do and do anything more pleasingly; and can also do many things it can not do. The Larry instructed me to tell Doctor Cummings and you too if possible that I, formerly Tula, have changed my name to Tuly because I am no longer a slave or a copycat or a semaphore or a relay. ”

“ Then a new Larry spoke.
“That did it, folks. Thanks. I'm a free agent. You want me, I take it, to join the first team?”
“That's right.” Hilton drew a tremendously deep breath. “As of right now.”
“Tuly, too, of course ... and Doctor Cummings, I think?” Larry looked, not at Hilton, but at Temple Bells.
“I think so. Yes, after this, most certainly yes,” Temple said.
“But listen!” Sandra protested. “Jarve's a lot better than I am!”
“Not at all,” Tuly said. “Not only would his contribution to Team One be negligible, but he must stay on his own job. Otherwise the project will all fall apart.” ”

“ You all have two of those qualities, and even more than I have—curiosity and imagination.”
Sandra and Hilton stared wordlessly at each other and Tula, now Tuly, went on:
“Having the curiosity, I kept on experimenting with my brain, trying to strengthen and organize its ability to peyondire. All Omans can peyondire a little, but I can do it much better than anyone else. Especially since I also have the imagination, which I have also worked to increase. Thus I knew, long before anyone else could, that you new Masters, the descendants of the old Masters, were returning to us. ”

“ And thus it was that the Larry found neither conscious nor subconscious resistance when he had developed enough initiative and so on to break the ages-old conditioning of this brain against change.”
“I see. Wonderful!” Hilton exclaimed. “But you couldn't quite—even with his own help—break Larry's?”
“That is right. Its mind is tremendously strong, of no curiosity or imagination, and of very little peyondix.” ”

“ When working together, we will ... scan? No. Perceive? No. Sense? No, not exactly. You will have to learn our word ‘peyondire’—that is the verb, the noun being ‘peyondix’—and come to know its meaning by doing it. The Larry also instructed me to explain, if you ask, how I got this way. Do you ask?”
“I'll say we ask!” “And how we ask!” both came at once.
“I am—that is, the brain in this body is—the oldest Oman now existing. In the long-ago time when it was made, the techniques were so crude and imperfect that sometimes a brain was constructed that was not exactly like the Guide. ”

“ He's unusually decent and extremely idealistic, the same as I am. So just one intimacy would blow everything higher than up. He knows it. I know it. We each know that the other knows it. So I'll still be a virgin when we're married. ”

“ Think that Larry must do what the old Masters would have made him do... No, that is too long and indefinite and cannot be converted directly into sathura... I have it! You will each of you break a stick. A very strong but brittle stick. A large, thick stick. You will grasp it in tremendously strong mental hands. It is tremendously strong, each stick, but each of you is even stronger. You will not merely try to break them; you will break them. ”

“ You don't love him. You never did and you never will.”
“I don't want him!” Sandra stamped a foot.
“I see. You just don't want me to have him. Okay, do your damnedest. But I've got work to do. This has been a lovely little cat-clawing, hasn't it? Let's have another one some day, and bring your friends.”
With a casual wave of her hand, Temple strolled away; and there, flashed through Sandra's mind what Hilton had said so long ago, little more than a week out from Earth:
“... and Temple Bells, of course,” he had said. “Don't fool yourself, chick. She's heavy artillery ”