There he placed the book before him on his desk and examined its black and white jacket. “A Study in Technology and Humanism” was printed below the title. From the front flap Pylos learned that Ashmole-Brown had spent eight years compiling this examination of what was called “the diverse traditions, merging present and common destiny of men.” Ashmole-Brown, so the paragraph said, had concerned himself with the historical and current effects of technical change on indigenous cultures; had based himself on the ingenious premise that there was something to be learned from the chronicle of human experience. There followed a brief summary of the author’s background, with a mention of his four years at the Organization. Ashmole-Brown was married, had a grown daughter, and cultivated his garden near Colchester. Pylos turned the preliminary pages and began Chapter I.

Half an hour later he closed the book and laid his hand upon it. Between his fingers the jacket interjected “Literate” and “Illuminating.” He could not deny it. Ashmole-Brown had obviously written an extraordinary book. Here were the contradictions which Pylos had failed to confront during his years with the less technically oriented. Here—but presented with what sympathy, what grace, what goodwill, and yet with what authority—were just such insights as Pylos would have wished to have; just such solutions as he would have wished to propose. It was undeniable: the book was masterly.

There was something grotesque, even terrifying, about the idea that Ashmole-Brown’s great work had all this while been accreting, like an iceberg, for the good ship Pylos to founder upon. Pylos groaned, and opened the back flap of the jacket.

From this he learned that Ashmole-Brown had taken his title from the Apocrypha. Well, why not? Was not Ashmole-Brown himself out of the Apocrypha, in a manner of speaking? But why the devil had the man not said his work was this important? “Sound,” he had said; Pylos could just see him saying it: “I should call it sound.” Did he not realize that no one talked like that these days? One did not minimize one’s achievements—in fact, such diffidence was open to damaging psychological interpretations. It wasn’t done. And yet—Ashmole-Brown was exactly the type who would do it, and Pylos felt he should have known. Damn the man, had he not even written some pamphlet—now it all came back to Pylos—yes, a pamphlet on the abuse of the superlative? (This work appeared in paperback shortly afterward and, advertised as “Early Ashmole-Brown,” sold extensively.) Pylos groaned again, and he turned the book over on its face. From the back cover, Ashmole-Brown’s round face looked up at him, creased for a mild guffaw.