The five had finished eating by now, and the Ruler rose. "I will call my advisors together, and discuss this matter with them," he said. "But I can tell you now that I am more than ever disposed to accept your invitation. I could do so this moment," he said with a deprecating smile, "but I like to make sure that the leaders of my people agree with my decisions, as much as possible. I will have a servant show you to my study, where you can discuss your own plans while my ministers, my son and myself talk in the Council Chambers. I will let you know as soon as we reach a definite decision."

"Thank you, k'nyer. We will gladly await your answer," Admiral Newton rose, too, and bowed, as did Hanlon and Hooper.

"And thanks for the fine meal," Hanlon grinned. "I was really hungry."

Inver came up to him and laid his hand on Hanlon's shoulder. "I like you," he said simply but from the heart. "I hope we shall always be friends, and shall meet often through the coming years."

In the little study the three found easy chairs, and Admiral Newton turned first to Major Hooper. "As far as I know now, we'll all be going back when the sneakboat comes in a day or so. I suggest you go back to Simonides and get in touch with the High Command to get your next assignment."

"Right, sir, will do."

"About you, Spence, I want you to come with me and...."

"Excuse me, dad, but if I can have some free time, there is some very important research I want to do, that I think will benefit humanity much more than another detective assignment."

"What's on your mind, son?"

"This new ability I'm beginning to get," Hanlon said seriously. "I've found I can get down to the level of the body cells and glands, with my mind, and I think with more study and research I can learn things no one else has ever known before. But I'll need a lot of help from research doctors and endocrinologists, to tell me things I don't know. I may be all wet, but I have an idea I can, in time, make some very important contributions to medical science—with their help in telling me what to look for, and if it can be arranged so I can have the time to devote to that. I don't mean," he added, flushing with embarrassment, "that I think I'm...."

"You are, whether you think so or not," his father interrupted, eyes gleaming with pride and some amusement. "With those special gifts of yours, you can do things no one else ever hoped to do. Such research would certainly be worthwhile, especially if you can help others learn how to heal wounds as fast as you did mine."

"Speaking of which," Hooper broke in, "I suggest, admiral that you lie down while we're talking. It will be less strain on your body and heart, and you're still weak, even if you won't admit it," he added as he saw a protest forming on Newton's lips.

When Hanlon added his entreaties to Hooper's, the admiral grinned and lay down on a couch there in the study. "Anybody'd think you guys were the head men, not me," he growled, but good-naturedly.

Then he sobered quickly and went back to their discussion. "I'll have to take it up with the Board, of course, but I think they'll agree. I know of nothing definite needing you right at the moment, so they'll probably give you a leave of absence for that research."

"I'd like to go to some other planet than Terra or Simonides," Hanlon said. "One where I'm not known, so I won't have to be watching out for anyone who might recognize me. And if I'm to do the study, I'll want authorization to work at some of their insane asylums, too."

"Why those, in John's name?"

"When I tackled Irad's mind towards the end, I was able to get down inside of it, further than I've ever been in any other person's mind, because he was insane at the last, and his mind was breaking down. There seems to be a block or barrier in every sane person's mind that I can't get through."

"But you got into your father's ..." Hooper looked puzzled.

"In dad's case, Curt, it was only because he was unconscious, rather than asleep or awake, that I could penetrate. Even then, I had to sort of ... well, by-pass the barrier ... to get down deep enough to touch the cells and glands and such things. Of course, with more study and practice, now that I know more about it, I may be able to reach those depths in spite of the block ... oh, heck, I sound like I considered myself a sort of superman," he flushed again, and his eyes implored them not to think him conceited.

"We know you neither are a superman nor think you are," his father assured him quickly. "You have a special gift, and you are trying to use it to benefit others, that's all. Don't be modest—it's really false modesty, in a way. Go ahead with your ideas."

"Well, I'd also like to try working with engineers and technies, to see if it would be possible to rig up some sort of a mechanical method of doing the same thing."

Newton shook his head in puzzled wonder. "You're completely beyond understanding, Spence. I sometimes wonder if you're human ... if you're really the son of Martha and myself."

"Why, no," Hanlon grinned then. "Didn't you know? I'm a changeling the little elves left on your doorstep."

His father and Hooper laughed away the tension. "Could be, at that," the admiral said. "Well, I'll certainly recommend to the Board that they grant you all the time and opportunity you need. If you can get to the bottom of this, and especially if you can teach other doctors how to get at those glands and use them...."

"That'll be the hard part, dad. What I do hope to be able to do is to perhaps find out more exactly how the nerves and cells and glands work, and then doctors would be better able to diagnose and treat various diseases and injuries."

They were interrupted by Inver, who came in to ask certain questions the Ruler and advisors wished to know.

"Would it be possible, or rather, is it something you would permit," he asked, "for us to set up some sort of an advanced school or university here, and have you send us instructors? A place where our best young men and women could go to study the many things we know nothing about?"

"It certainly will be possible, and it is a wonderful idea," Admiral Newton assured him. "And one thing we want to make clear, that you do not yet seem sure of. That is that there is no question of our 'permitting' you to do what you want to do. None whatever, in any way, shape or form. Your government is and will always be completely autonomous—always handled as you people see fit to work it. We never, under any circumstances, try to make other races 'conform' to any standards or regulations they do not wish to make their own. We will give freely of our knowledge, our science and technologies, our beliefs and concepts—but you Estrellans will be the sole and only judge of what you want to accept.

"And we will want to have you send some of your people to our universities, to teach us the advanced things you know that we don't. Your system of ethics, for instance, and the way you have learned to live together so closely and honestly."

After Inver had gone back to the conference, the three men sat about waiting. Newton had almost fallen asleep—Hooper was completely so—when Hanlon stirred.

"I don't know, though," he ruminated aloud. "Maybe there's something else more important than that research at the moment."

"What?" his father roused himself sufficiently to ask.

"That alien being I contacted in Irad's mind."

"What in Snyder's name are you talking about?" Newton raised up in excitement. "What alien?"

"Oh, that's right, I didn't tell you. You're being hurt and my trying to heal you made me forget it." Hanlon explained swiftly about that strange mind and its startling communication.

Admiral Newton swung his feet to the floor, all thoughts of sleep banished.

"And you waited all this time to tell me a thing as important as that?" he demanded incredulously and almost angrily.

"Sorry, dad, I just happened to feel your life was more important at the moment, because the other could wait for a...."

"OK, OK, I'll buy that for now. But we'll have to make other arrangements immediately. We'll have to find out where it came from and whether this other oligarchy or federation or whatever it is, is a menace to us."

"I don't think it is," Hanlon said slowly. "The being's mind was very peculiar, but it appeared to be extremely logical in its thoughts. It said that since it had lost and we have won here, it was withdrawing—and I don't believe it meant temporarily, either. I think it meant it was all through here and...."

"Don't be silly or childish, son," the admiral was intense and forceful. "That one being may have felt that way, but his bosses won't. With two groups of planets so near in space—both with means of space travel—there's bound to be war of some sort, whether actual, ideological or economic remains to be seen. We'll have to hunt them up, and find out what it's all about—and immediately."

Hanlon shook his head. "I'll acknowledge your greater experience, dad, but I still have a feeling you're wrong about this. I believe that other race is entirely different in their way of thinking to ours—that they are coldly logical and not the type to keep on fighting for something they've already lost. But, of course," he shrugged, "it's up to the High Command to decide. I'd still like to get on with that other research."

"I'll put both problems up to the Board," Newton said. "But I bet I know how they'll decide. There's the fact that those beings can read and control all our minds—except yours. It looks like your job, son—yours and no one else's ... although we'll all be behind you in every way we can, of course. Meanwhile," stretching out on the couch again, "until Amir and his advisors want us, I think we'd both better take a nap."

"I am kinda pooped, at that," Hanlon said, and sprawled out in his chair.

The admiral was soon asleep, but only Hanlon's body and part of his mind relaxed. The balance of his mind was inside his father's body again, speeding the healing of that shoulder burn.

Finally Inver came to call the three Terrans into the Council Chamber. His broadly smiling face, and the thoughts Hanlon read from the surface of his mind, told him the decision had been favorable—a fact he signalled to the others at once.

"We are completely convinced now," Elus Amir told them when the Terrans were seated about the conference table, "that our world will be best served by joining your Federation as we were asked to do. If you have the treaty papers at hand, I will gladly sign them. And my son," looking proudly at young Inver, "will sign with me as the next Ruler of Szstruyyah."

"We do not have the proper documents," Admiral Newton said. "But our ship will be here tomorrow night, and it has long-range communicators with which I will immediately get in touch with the Federation Council, who will send accredited ambassadors here at once. They should be here within five days."

"Now that we have made up our minds, we are anxious to affiliate with the other worlds. We feel it is a tremendous honor, being the first non-Terran race asked to join them."

"As it is an honor for us to have such a high-principled peoples joined to us," Admiral Newton said with a courtly bow. "May I suggest, k'nyer and nyers, that when our ambassadors arrive, you ask them for whatever help you desire in the way of teachers, goods or materials. They will gladly explain what we have to offer, and I know they will study you and your people to find the things they will ask for in exchange. Remember always, please, that it is our steadfast policy to teach only what you really want to know, and which you specifically ask for, not what we might 'think you ought to know'."

"That one thing alone," Elus Amir said, deeply moved as were the members of his Council, "would be enough to confirm us in our belief that we will be doing the right thing for our people in joining you."

Amir, his son and the councillors, rose and bowed. The three Terrans had also risen, and saluted punctiliously. Then Newton stepped forward impulsively and held out his hand, which Amir grasped as though he had always used the gesture.

"Welcome to the Federation of Planets, sire," Newton's voice was filled with emotion.

The Ruler silently wrung his hand.

When it was time for the Corpsmen to leave, after some general conversation between them all, the Ruler and his son were again profuse in their gratitude for what the men had done, personally, to save Amir's life, and the peace of their world.

They escorted the three downstairs and out to Newton's tricycle, and stood at Estrellan salute as the Terrans got into their machine.

"Oh, one thing, Lona," the Ruler came forward just as Hanlon was getting in. Amir's eyes were filled with puzzled wonderment. "How did you know Adwal Irad was coming to attack me while I was asleep, locked in my room?"

Hanlon's eyes danced, but he kept his face straight. "We have a saying on Terra, k'nyer, that explains it—'a little bird told me'."

And he bowed again as he entered the machine, and Admiral Newton drove away, leaving behind a more than ever puzzled Ruler of the soon-to-be newest member of the Federation of Planets.

THE END

[1] See "Man of Many Minds," Fantasy Press, 1953.