"Why, Anthony?" The new voice was deeper, more aggressive.

"Look. Another typical reaction; retreat to the foetus."

Footsteps approached. Another voice, discouragement heavily weighting
each syllable: "You're right. He's like all the others. We'll have to
send him back."

"And look for no more?" The voice he recognized as Anthony faltered
between question and statement.

A babel of voices, in dispute; then, clearly, the voice Benson had come
to label as Gregory, cut in:

"I will never give up!"

He raised his head; there was something in the timbre of that voice
reminding him of his own feelings in the dark days when the UN had
everywhere been reeling back under the Pan-Soviet hammer-blows.

"Anthony!" Gregory's voice again; Benson saw the speaker; short, stocky,
gray-haired, stubborn lines about the mouth. The face of a man chasing
an illusive but not uncapturable dream.

"That means nothing." A tall thin man, too lean for the tunic-like
garment he wore, was shaking his head.

Deliberately, trying to remember his college courses in psychology, he
forced himself to accept, and to assess, what he saw as reality. He was