The acolytes stopped him twenty paces from the opening and he looked up at the Tuyere, recognizing them through the power curtains - Nourse in the center flanked by Calapine and Schruille.

'I came,' Svengaard said, mouthing the greeting the agent had told him to use. He rubbed sweaty palms against his best tunic.

Nourse spoke with a rumbling voice, 'You are the genetic engineer, Svengaard.'

'Thei Svengaard, yes... Nourse.' He took a deep breath wondering if they'd caught the hesitation while he remembered to use the Optiman's name.

Nourse smiled.

'You assisted recently in the genetic alterations of an embryo from a couple named Durant,' Nourse said. The chief engineer at the cutting was Potter.'

'Yes, I was the assistant, Nourse.'

'There was an accident during this operation,' Calapine said.

There was a strange musical quality in her voice, and Svengaard recognized she hadn't asked a question, but had reminded him of a detail to which she wanted him to give his attention. He felt the beginnings of a profound disquiet.

'An accident, yes... Calapine,' he said.

'You followed the operation closely?' Nourse asked.

'Yes, Nourse.' And Svengaard found his attention swinging to Schruille, who sat there brooding and silent.

'Now then,' Calapine said, 'you will be able to tell us what it is Potter has concealed about this genetic alteration.'

Svengaard found that he had lost his voice. He could only shake his head.

'He concealed nothing?' Nourse asked. Ts that what you say?'

Svengaard nodded.

'We mean you no harm, Thei Svengaard,' Calapine said. 'You may speak.'

Svengaard swallowed, cleared his throat. 'I...' he said. '... the question... I saw nothing... concealed.' He fell silent, then remembered he was supposed to use her name and said, 'Calapine,' just as Nourse started to speak.

Nourse broke off, scowled.

Calapine giggled.

Nourse said, 'Yet you tell us you followed the genetic alteration.'

'I... wasn't on the microscope with him every second,' Svengaard said. 'Nourse. I... uh... the duties of the assistant - instructions to the computer nurse, keying the feeder tapes and so on.'

'Say now if the computer nurse was a special friend of yours,' Calapine ordered.

'I... she'd...' Svengaard wet his lips with his tongue. What do they want? 'We'd worked together for a number of years, Calapine. I can't say she was a friend. We worked together.'

'Did you examine the embryo after the operation?' Nourse asked.

Schruille sat up, stared at Svengaard. 'No, Nourse,' Svengaard said. 'My duties were to secure the vat, check life support systems.' He took a deep breath. Perhaps they were only testing him after all... but such odd questions!

'Say now if Potter is a special friend,' Calapine ordered.

'He was one of my teachers, Calapine, someone I've worked with on delicate genetic problems.'

'But not in your particular circle,' Nourse said.

Svengaard shook his head. Again, he sensed menace. He didn't know what to expect - perhaps that the great globe would roll over, crush him, reduce his body to scattered atoms. But no, the Optimen couldn't do that. He studied the three faces as they became clear through the power curtains, seeking a sign. Clean, sterile faces. He could see the genetic markers in their features - they might be any Sterries of the Folk except for the Optiman aura of mystery. Folk rumor said they were sterile by choice, that they saw breeding as the beginning of death, but the genetic clues of their features spoke otherwise to Svengaard.

'Why did you call Potter on this particular problem?' Nourse asked.

Svengaard took a tight, quavering breath, said. 'He... the embryo's genetic configuration... near Opt. Potter is familiar with our hospital. He... I have confidence in him; brilliant sur - genetic engineer.'

'Say now if you are friendly with any other of our pharmacists,' Calapine said.

'They... I work with them when they come to our facility,' Svengaard said.

'Calapine,' Nourse supplied.

A trill of laughter shook her.

A dark flush spread up from Svengaard's collar. He began to feel angry. What kind of test was this? Couldn't they do anything but sit there, mocking, questioning?

Anger gave Svengaard command of his voice and he said, 'I'm only head of genetic engineering at one facility, Nourse -a lowly district engineer. I handle routine cuttings. When something requires a specialist, I follow orders, call a specialist. Potter was the indicated specialist for this case.'

'One of the specialists,' Nourse said.

'One I know and respect,' Svengaard said. He didn't bother adding the Optiman's name.

'Say now if you are angry,' Calapine ordered, and there was that musical quality in her voice.

'I'm angry.'

'Say why.'

'Why am I here?' Svengaard asked. 'What kind of interrogation is this? Have I done something wrong? Am I to be censured?'

Nourse bent forward, hands on knees. 'You dare question us?'

Svengaard stared at the Optiman. In spite of the tone of the question, the square, heavy- boned face appeared reassuring, calming. 'I'll do anything I can to help you,' Svengaard said. 'Anything. But how can I help or answer you when I don't know what you want?'

Calapine started to speak, but stopped as Nourse raised a hand.

'Our most profound wish is that we could tell you,' Nourse said. 'But surely you know we can have no true discourse. How could you understand what we understand? Can a wooden bowl contain sulphuric acid? Trust us. We seek what is best for you.'

A sense of warmth and gratitude permeated Svengaard. Of course he trusted them. They were the genetic apex of humankind. And he reminded himself: 'They are the power that loves us and cares for us.' Svengaard sighed. 'What do you wish of me?'

'You have answered all our questions,' Nourse said. 'Even our non-questions are answered.'

'Now, you will forget everything that has happened here between us,' Calapine said. 'You will repeat our conversation to no person.'

Svengaard cleared his throat. To no one... Calapine?'

'No one.'

'Max Allgood has asked that I report to him on-'

'Max must be denied,' she said. 'Fear not, Thei Svengaard. We will protect you.'

'As you command,' Svengaard said. 'Calapine.'

'It is not our wish that you think us ungrateful of your loyalty and services,' Nourse said, 'We are mindful of your good opinion and would not appear cold nor callous in your eyes. Know that our concern is for the larger good of humankind.'

'Yes, Nourse,' Svengaard said.

It was a gratuitous speech, its tone disturbing to Svengaard, but it helped clear his reason. He began to see the direction of their curiosity, to sense their suspicions. Those were his suspicions now. Potter had betrayed his trust, had he? The business with the accidentally destroyed tape had not been an accident. Very well - the criminals would pay.

'You may go now,' Nourse said.

'With our blessing,' Calapine said.

Svengaard bowed. And he marked that Schruille had not spoken or moved during the entire interview. Svengaard wondered why this fact, of itself, should be a suddenly terrifying thing. His knees trembled as he turned, the acolytes flanking him with their smoking thuribles, and left the hall.

The Tuyere watched until the barrier dropped behind Svengaard.

'Another one who doesn't know what Potter achieved,' Calapine said.

'Are you sure Max doesn't know?' Schruille asked.

'I'm sure,' she said.

'Then we should've told him.'

'And told him how we knew?' she asked.

'I know the argument,' Schruille said. 'Blunt the instrument, spoil the work.'

That Svengaard, he's one of the reliable ones,' Nourse said.

'It is said we walk the sharp edge of a knife,' Schruille said. 'When you walk the knife, you must be careful how you place your feet.

'What a disgusting idea,' Calapine said. She turned to Nourse. 'Are you still hobbying da Vinci, dearest?'

'His brush stroke,' Nourse said. 'A most exacting discipline. I should have it in forty or fifty years. Soon at any rate.'

'Provided you've placed each step correctly,' Schruille said.

Presently, Nourse said, 'Sometimes, Schruille, you allow cynicism to carry you beyond the bounds of propriety.' He turned, studied the instrument gauges, sensors, peek-eyes and read-outs across from Calapine on the inner wall of the globe. 'It's reasonably quiet today. Shall we leave the control with Schruille, Cal, and go down for a swim and a pharmacy session.'

'Body tone, body tone,' Schruille complained. 'Have you ever considered doing twenty- five laps of the pool instead of twenty?' 'You say the most astonishing things of late,' Calapine said. 'Would you have Nourse upset his enzyme balance? I fail completely in my attempts to understand you.'

'Fail to try,' Schruille said.

'Is there anything we can do for you?' she asked.

'My cycle has plunged me into dreadful monotony,' Schruille said. 'Is there something you can do about that?'

Nourse looked at Schruille in the prismatic reflector. The man's voice with its suggestion of a whine had grown increasingly annoying of late. Nourse was beginning to regret that community of tastes and bodily requirements had thrown them together. Perhaps when the Tuyere's service was done...

'Monotony,' Calapine said. She shrugged.

There's a certain triumph in well-considered monotony,' Nourse said. That's Voltaire, I believe.'

'It sounded like the purest Nourse,' Schruille said.

'I sometimes find it helpful,' Calapine said, 'to invoke a benign concern for the Folk.'

'Even among ourselves?' Schruille asked.

'Consider the fate of the poor computer nurse,' she said. 'In the abstract, naturally. Can you not feel sorrow and pity?'

'Pity's a wasteful emotion,' Schruille said. 'Sorrow is akin to cynicism.' He smiled. This will pass. Go to your swim. When the vigor's on you, think of me... here.'

Nourse and Calapine stood, ordered the carrier beams into position.

'Efficiency,' Nourse said. 'We must seek more efficiency in our minions. Things must be made to run more smoothly.'

Schruille looked up at them waiting for the beams. He wanted only to be free of the wanton rambling of their voices. They missed the point, insisted on missing it.

'Efficiency?' Calapine asked. 'Perhaps you're right.'

Schruille no longer could contain the emotions at war within him. 'Efficiency's the opposite of craftsmanship,' he said. Think on that!'

The beams came. Nourse and Calapine slid down and away without answering, leaving Schruille to close the segment. He sat alone at last within the green-blue-red winking of the control center - alone except for the glittering eyes of scanners activated along the upper circle of the globe. He counted eighty-one of them alive and staring at him and at the responses of the globe. Eighty-one of his fellows... or groups of his fellows were out there observing him and his work as he observed the Folk and their work.

The scanners imparted a vague uneasiness to Schruille. Before the Tuyere's service, he could never remember watching the control center or its activities. Too much that was painful and unthinkable occurred here. Were the former masters of the control center curious about how the new trio dispatched its duties? Who were the watchers?

Schruille dropped his attention to the instruments. In moments like this he often felt like Chen Tzu-ang's 'Master of Dark Truth' who saw the whole world in a jade bottle. Here was the jade bottle - this globe. A flick of the power ring on the arm of his throne and he could watch a couple making love in Warsopolis, study the contents of an embryo vat in Greater

London or loose hypnotic gas with taming suggestions into a warren of New Peking. The touch of a key and he could analyze the shifting motives of an entire work force in the megalopolis of Roma.

Searching within himself, Schruille could not find the impulse to move a single control.

He thought back, trying to remember how many scanners had watched the first years of the Tuyere's service. He was sure it had never exceeded ten or twelve. But now - eighty- one.

I should've warned them about Svengaard, he thought. I could've said that we shouldn't rely on the assumption there's a special Providence for fools. Svengaard is a fool who disturbs me.

But Nourse and Calapine would have defended Svengaard. He knew it. They'd have insisted the man was reliable, honorable, loyal. They'd wager anything on it.

Anything? Schruille wondered. Is there something they might not wager on Svengaard's loyalty?

Schruille could almost hear Nourse pontificating, 'Our judgment of Svengaard is the correct one.'

And that, Schruille thought, is what disturbs me. Svengaard worships us...as does Max. But worship is nine-tenths fear.

In time, everything becomes fear.