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reason?”
    Glancing at her McRae said, “You mean, are we going into Alpha III M2 because we fear the consequences
to us
of a mentally deranged social enclave, because a deranged society, as such, makes us uneasy? I think either reason is sufficient; certainly for you it ought to be.”
    “I’m not supposed to ask?” She stared at the young cleancut TERPLAN official. “I’m just supposed to—”
    “You’re supposed to do your therapeutic task and that’s it. I don’t tell you how to cure sick people; why should you tell me how to handle a political situation?” He faced her coolly. “However I’ll give you one further purpose for
Operation Fifty-minutes
that you might not have thought of. It’s entirely possible that in twenty-five years a society of mentally ill people may have come up with technological ideas we can use, especially the manics—that most active class.” He pressed the elevator button. “I understand they’re inventive. As are the paranoids.”
    Mary said, “
Does this explain why Terra hasn’t sent anyone in there sooner
? You wanted to see how their ideas developed?”
    Smiling, McRae waited for the elevator; he did not answer. He looked, she decided, absolutely sure ofhimself. And that, as far as the knowledge of psychotics went, was a mistake. Possibly a grave one.
    It was almost an hour later, as she was returning to her house in Marin County to resume packing her things, that she realized the basic contradiction in the government’s position. First, they were probing into the culture of Alpha III M2 because they feared it might be lethal, and then they were probing to see if it had developed something of use. Almost a century ago Freud had showed how spurious such double logic was; in actual fact each proposition canceled the other. The government simply could not have it both ways.
    Psychoanalysis had shown that generally, when two mutually contradicting reasons for an act were given, the genuine underlying motive was neither, was a third drive which the person—or in this case a body of governing officials—was unaware of.
    She wondered what, in this case, the real motive was.
    In any event the project for which she had volunteered her services no longer seemed so idealistic, so free of ulterior purpose.
    Whatever the government’s actual motive, she had one clear intuition about it: the motive was a good, hard, selfish one.
    And, in addition, she had one more intuition.
    She would probably never know what that motive was.
       She was absorbed in the task of packing her drawerful of sweaters when all at once she realized that she was no longer alone. Two men stood in the doorway; swiftly she turned, hopped to her feet.
    “Where is Mr. Rittersdorf?” the older man said. Heheld out a flat black ID packet; the two men, she saw, were from her husband’s office, from the San Francisco branch of the CIA.
    “He moved out,” she said. “I’ll give you his address.”
    “We got a tip,” the older man said, “from an unidentified informant, that your husband might be planning suicide.”
    “He always is,” she said as she wrote down the address of the miserable hovel in which Chuck now lived. “I wouldn’t worry about him; he’s chronically ill but never quite dead.”
    The older CIA man regarded her with bleak hostility. “I understand you and Mr. Rittersdorf are separating.”
    “That’s right. If it’s any of your business.” She gave him a brief, professional smile. “Now, may I continue packing?”
    “Our office,” the CIA man said, “tends to extend a certain protection to its employees. If your husband turns up a suicide there’ll be an investigation—to determine to what extent you’re involved.” He added, “And in view of your status as marital counselor, it might prove embarrassing, don’t you agree?”
    After a pause Mary said, “Yes, I suppose so.”
    The younger crew-cut CIA man said, “Just consider this an informal warning. Go slow,