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where they were strangers, and they began to go to parties and invite friends over and Garol's father even joined a group of gamers and Garol's mother became a gourmet cook of sorts. They thought Garol was so young the didn't notice. But he noticed, and though it was not in his nature to say anything, his parents' apostasy shook him to the foundation.

At first he thought his parents had betrayed the faith and wavered between hating them for their infidelity and fearing that God would strike them down.

But, God didn't strike them down, and after a few years Garol discovered that his parents were still decent, good people, and about this time Garol discovered science.

At first it was geology, with the pictures of rocks. He had never seen a rock in his life. To him even granite was a gem, and he lovingly fondled the school's samples of rocks as if just touching them could give him an understanding of a planet and what made it live.

Then it was biology, the endless variety of plants and animals working together to form one vast, planetwide organism. It struck Garol's sense of beauty more than it stimulated his scientific curiosity-- there were few mysteries in biology anymore, and Garol studied it only until he knew how it worked.

And then he found the field where the mysteries still endured: physics. And though he was locked into a planet where nothing grew that was not forced to grow, and where nature was utterly defeated, he became a pioneer for the colony ships. Surely there must be a way to learn, before a ship ever landed on a planet, exactly what mineral deposits there were, and where; exactly what kind of animal life there was, and which animals could be safely killed for food; and what the weather and climate patterns were. His goal was to create a way for an orbiting ship to know everything the colonists would need to know before they landed-- so that the best possible landing site could be chosen, and all necessary precautions could be taken. He was an eclectic-- he knew the questions in other fields that only physics could answer.

He was fifteen and a college graduate when he began his serious work. His professors in his graduate school were uneasy at having a student so young, and their uneasiness turned to outrage when they discovered that he was designing, of all things, machines.

"Mr. Stipock," said the dean to the young man who was quietly listening and obviously not paying the slightest attention, "we are concerned because you seem to be wasting your time with toys."

Garol looked surprised. "Not toys," he said. "Tools."

"Physics is a theoretical science, a mathematical manipulation of the universe, Mr. Stipock. Not a field for magic boxes."

"But Dr. Whickit," Garol protested, "I have to measure minute amounts of radiation. That means I have to have a tool to measure it. And there isn't any such tool."

"If you want to make tools, perhaps you should be in a different program. A technical school."

And Stipock laughed. It was an unnerving laugh, and Whickit was offended. "Dr. Whickit," Garol said, "if you really believe physics is a mathematical game, why do you persist in using data acquired from the telescopes and the accellerators? It isn't the fact that I'm working with tools that bothers you, is it? It's the fact that I know how to ask questions for which there are no tools to get the answers-- and that I am daring to make those tools. If I were so unscientific as to be a psychologist, I'd speculate that you were a bit envious and felt threatened. And since I've already made my tool and it works very well, I'd be perfectly delighted for you to expel me from this university, and I'll just go to Sector H-88 to publish my papers and patent the machines."

Whickit was furious; he shouted, he resented, he plotted, he undermined. But Stipock had already won. His tools did all he meant them to, and Whickit quickly discovered that the administration would trade twenty Whickits for one Stipock any day.

And they offered Stipock somec.

"We need to keep you alive," the Sleeproom people said. "You're one of the ten or twenty most valuable minds in this century. We need to let you live for centuries so you can help answer the questions that arise then."

Stipock said no. "I'm working on several projects that no one can complete except me, and if they