“Most of man’s history has been spent in the stone ages, because the savage is even more superstitious and conservative than the civilized man, whose culture does have a certain momentum. But the people of this planet had invented metallurgy and writing within a thousand years of the colony’s establishment. The essential difference was that there was progress made each generation, rather than every hundred or thousand generations. Every mind is creative, and every individual is willing to accept the ideas and work of every other.

“No doubt there are aggressive and conservative and selfish people born. But on this world the weight of social conditioning and social pressure is away from those tendencies, they don’t get a chance to develop themselves.

“Man’s brain is physically not qualitatively different from that of the other higher mammals. It has no feature not found in the brain of an ape, say. But the quantitative difference, in the relatively immense forebrain, leads to a qualitative difference of mental type. Man is sharply differentiated from the other animals by the power to make indefinite orders of abstraction. Hence progress is possible for him.

“It seems”—Heym’s voice rose over the whistle of wind—“that genius shows a similar qualitative distinction, due to quantitative difference, from mere human intelligence. The genius is basically a distinct type, just as the moron is on the other end of the scale. And here—on Seventeen—the new type has been set free.”

He turned around from the window. The voice of the storm seemed remote, lost in the tremendous silence that suddenly filled the room. Goram sat motionless, staring at the floor, and the slow seconds ticked away before he spoke.

“I don’t know—” he murmured. “I don’t know—”

Defeat and despair and a binding hatred rose into Heym’s throat, tasting of vomit. You don’t know! His mind screamed the thought, it seemed incredible that Goram should sprawl there, not moving, not hearing. No, you don’t know. Your sort never does, never has known anything but his own witless bestial desires, its own self-righteous rationalization of impulses that should have died with Smilodon. You’ll destroy Seventeen, in spite of all reason, in sheer perversity—and you’ll say you did it for the good of the Empire!

The knife seemed to spring of its own accord into his hand. He was lunging forward before he realized it. He saw the blade gleam down as if another man were wielding it. The blow shocked back into his muscles and for an instant his mind wavered, it wasn’t real—what am I doing?

No time to lose. Goram twisted around in his seat, yelling, grabbing for Heym. The knife was deep in his neck. Heym yanked at it—pull it loose, stick it in the throat, kill—

Something struck him from behind. The world shattered in a burst of stars, he crashed to the floor and rolled over. Through a haze of dizzy pain he saw men bending over Goram—men of the planet, rescuers for the monster who would annihilate them.