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"but not blind."

"Talking," Tallon replied in similar tones, "but not talking sense."

"Listen to this, son." Winfield moved closer until his breath was brushing

Tallon's ear. He smelled of bread and butter. "You've had training in

electronics. You know that back on Earth, and on most other worlds, too,

a blind person can get many kinds of aids."

"That's a different case, isn't it, Doc? Emm Luther's electronics industry

is part and parcel of its space-probe program. Every electronics specialist

on the planet works on the program or on associated priority projects,

or else is away on this new planet they've found. Besides, the Temporal

Moderator has ruled that it's against the creed to join man-made parts

to bodies fashioned in the Divine Image. The gadgets you're talking

about simply don't exist in this part of the galaxy."

"But they do," Winfield said triumphantly. "Or they almost do. I'm building

a primitive sonar torch in the prison rehabilitation center. At least,

Ed Hogarth, who runs the center's workshop, is building it under my

direction. I can't do the actual work myself, naturally."

Tallon sighed resignedly. It looked as though Winfield's conversation

was made up of absurd statements and fantasy.

"You mean they don't watch you in there? Don't they mind that two of

the government's strictest injunctions are being broken with government

equipment in a government establishment?"

Winfield rose noisily to his feet. "Son, you have an unfortunate skeptical

attitude, but I'm going to assume that in less trying circumstances you

are capable of civilized behavior. Come with me."

"Where?"

"To the workshop. You have one or two surprises in store."

Holding on to Winfield's plump arm, Tallon followed him from the quadrangle,

aware that his curiosity was aroused as he had never expected it to be again.

Winfield moved confidently and quite quickly, tapping with his cane. As they

walked a succession of men touched TalIon's arm in sympathetic greeting,

and one pushed a pack of cigarettes into his free hand. He struggled

to keep his head up and walk boldly, but it was almost impossible, and

he could, feel the fixed apologetic smile of a sightless man engraving

itself on his face.

To reach the workshop of the rehabilitation center they had to pass

the main prison building and walk two hundred yards to an auxiliary

block. During the walk Winfield explained that his torch generated a

narrow beam of inaudible high-frequency sound and had a receiver to pick

up the echoes; an electronic device combined the outgoing and returning

sounds. The idea was that the sound generator would sweep repeatedly

from about 80 to 40 kilocycles a second, so that at any instant the

outgoing signal would be at a slightly lower frequency than any of the

echoes. Combining the two would produce a beat frequency proportional

to the distance of any object in the torch's beam and thus allow a blind

man to build up a picture of his surroundings.

Winfield had partly worked out the theory, and partly remembered it from

articles in old technomedical journals. Ed Hogarth, who apparently was a

compulsive gadgeteer, had built him a prototype, but was having trouble

with the electronics of the frequency-reduction stage, which should have

rendered the high-pitched beats audible to the human ear.

As he listened, Tallon felt a growing respect for the old doctor,

who seemed genuinely incapable of accepting defeat. They reached the

rehabilitation center and stopped at the entrance.

"Just one thing before we go in, son. I want you to promise not to say

anything to Ed about the real reason why I want the torch built. If he

guessed, he would quit work on it immediately -- to save me from myself,

as the saying goes."

Tallon said, "All right, but I want you to make me one promise in return.

If you really do have an escape plan, don't include me in it. If I ever

decide to commit suicide I'll pick an easier way."

They went up a