“How many stations are there?”

“About a hundred—planetary colonies, with colonists in ignorance of their own origin, where various special conditions are maintained. Different environments, for instance, or special human stocks. The progress of history is being observed on all of them, secretly, and invaluable data on mass-psychologic processes are thereby gained. But Seventeen has been by far the most fruitful.”

Goram wrinkled his low forehead. With concealed distaste, Heym thought how very like an ape he looked—throwback, atavist, cunning in his own narrow field but otherwise barely above moron level—typical militarist, the biped beast who had ridden mankind’s back like some nightmarish vampire through all history—except on the one planet of Valgor’s Star—

“I don’t quite see the point,” admitted the marshal. “Why spend all that time and money on creating artificial conditions that you’d never meet in real life?”

“It’s the scientific method,” said Heym, wondering at what elementary level he would have to begin his explanation. How stupid could one be and hold a marshal’s position? “The real world is an interaction of uncounted factors, constantly changing in relation to themselves and each other, far too vast and complex to be understood in its entirety. In order to find casual relationships, the scientist has to perform experiments in which he varies only one factor at a time, observing its effect—and, of course, running control experiments at the same time. From these data he infers similar relationships in the real world. By means of theoretical analysis of observed facts he can proceed to predict new phenomena—if these predictions are borne out by further observation, the theory is probably—though never certainly—right, and can be used as a guide in understanding and controlling the events of the real world.”

In spite of himself, Heym was warming up to his subject. After all, it was his whole life. He went on in a gathering rush of words:

“All the evidence shows that reality is not object but process. You yourself are not the same object as an instant ago—physicochemical-psychological changes, the very change of entropy which is ‘time,’ are all continuous. They are rapid in the case of an organism, slow in the case of a rock, say, but always continuous. The object is an abstraction, a set of constant characteristics of a process—more or less constant, I should say, since nothing is permanent, change, process, is always continuous. The grammatical distinction between noun and verb has misled us to think there is a corresponding distinction between what an object is and what it does—completely false, as a moment’s reflection will show.”

“Hm-m-m.” Gorman looked out the visiscope. The boat was sweeping over a broad plain, yellow with ripening grain. A few primitive villages, houses built of stone and wood and brick, were scattered over the great landscape, a peaceful scene, reminiscent of civilization’s dawn. “The planet looks backward enough,” grunted Goram dubiously.

“It is,” said Heym eagerly. “I assure you it is.”

“Well…you were saying—” Goram didn’t look at all sure of what Heym had been saying. “Get to the point.”