on the way back to washington, mesner piloted the heliocar casually. he leaned back, smoking cigarettes, the ashes streaming down the front of his soiled lapels.

"i think you'll work out fine in spa, fred."

i was still sick. i had a throbbing ache in my head and sweat kept stinging in my eyes. i nodded numbed agreement with mesner.

"i appreciate your trying to make an spa man out of me," i finally managed to say. "but could you have made some mistake? gotten the wrong file or something?"

"no. your iq is a nice low eighty, fred. but you're just not aware that you have what is technically known as a quiescent iq."

"what's that?"

"you're a true patriot, fred. we both know that. so don't be scared. you know the sick and evil danger of a high iq and so you've put an unconscious damper on your own intelligence. you're not really so dumb, fred."

"but i am," i said quickly.

"no, fred. you think you are, and you look and act normally stupid and believe me, fred, i admire your patriotic suppression of your intelligence, even from yourself. but a fact is a fact, and you're not so dumb."

"i'm not pretending. i'm not a a subversive—"

"easy now," mesner said. "you're not a subversive, that's right. a real subversive knows he's smart, is proud of it and consciously tries to hide it from others. but you loathe your own inherent mental ability, and you've been able to freeze its operation, conceal it even from yourself. now realize this, fred. the only place we can allow intelligence to operate is inside the government. the government must have a slightly superior thinking capacity in order to run things—for the present anyway."

"but any iq above eighty is subversive. it says in the—"

"that's an ideal, a goal for the future, fred. when the transition's been made, when the last egghead is captured and put away, then all of us will be normal. we'll get ourselves bipped, and burn our excessive intelligence down to the eighty mark. but until that time, fred, some of us—especially the spa—have to keep our wits about us. an unfortunate necessity that we pray will soon be ended."

i gazed numbly out through the plastic canopy at the white clouds streaming past. he was trying to get some admission out of me, i thought. that was the only explanation. working some subtle game with me. but that was absurd on its face, because i was way below normal.

"my iq's no good for you then," i said. "i just don't see—"

mesner interrupted with an impatient laugh. "you're a hell of a lot brighter than you let yourself admit that you are, fred. that's all i'm saying. you know it's a terrible thing to be smart, so you keep it under wraps. but now you know there's nothing to be afraid of. you know it's legal for a while longer to be smart as long as you're in spa. now you can start opening up, releasing your mental capacity. believe me, fred, it's for the good of the state. i know it sounds like a paradox, but that's how it is."

"how can it be good when it's such an evil thing?"

"because right now it's a necessary evil. spa has problems, fred. there are still a lot of eggheads running loose, causing trouble. and the doubledomes still loose are the toughest ones to catch, and that's our job. we've got to track down the old maniac physicists, chemists, engineers, professors, psyche-boys and the like who are still working underground. until they're all caught fred, we've got to live with our own filthy brains. because you see it takes brains to catch brains."

"but i have hardly any brains at all," i insisted.

"you'll see, fred. you'll see."