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And so many survival reactions outlast their usefulness, becoming essentially antisocial and antisurvival. For a telepathic race there are no false fronts or motives or impulses. In a nontelepathic society, nothing but false faces are ever seen." "It's beginning to get home to me ... what about that night near the swamp?" "My poor Challonari.

If their natural weapons claws, size, poison, fangs rendered them potentially dangerous should the Mentor leave the ship, then the Challonari projected into their minds a simple disinterest in the environs of the ship, a reluctance to approach closer. If this failed, the reluctance impulse became tinged with fear, the intensity of the fear increasing until the desired retreat occurred.

If it is an entity, what right have its makers to control it and use it as a tool? What right have they to the thorniest issue of all destroy it or otherwise put it aside when it is no longer required? Until these fundamental issues could be settled, the handful of Challonari in existence must be cared for, trained and observed as if they were backward children.

Homer sank back obediently to his usual place between Timmy's feet, but his muzzle rested on the boy's muddied knees and his brown eyes regarded both of them at the same time. Apparently he was not convinced that the upheavals were over. "What does 'challonari' mean, Uncle Phil?" "Oh ... that. Just something that came to mind." "But what does it mean?"

Alive after a fashion, it was receptive of emotion up to a point and even capable of emotion up to a point. It seemed an embryo mind, in some ways well developed and in others with no potential whatever. Identity mentor/not mentor. Challonari must obey identity. Result ... so. Challonari limited ... must accept. Must sleep ... sleep ... sleep! Challonari! Challonari!

The Challonari was confused by the contradictions of my present identity, subtly altered as it has been by Homer's channeling mind, and went insane when faced with a basic conflict of duties. It was like ... losing a simple child." "So we return to Timmy." "And to you." "Me? I'm going downhill fast. Let's have it before I hit rock-bottom and really get around to reacting.

It was also one of the most debatable, for the Challonari was capable of independent thought in its limited fashion and yet had been devised solely as an instrument, a tool. It had no freedom of action, no physical independence, but it had childlike emotions and this was the damnable thing a sense of identity and awareness of its creators as such. Thus the moral issue was raised.

To accept the existence of such beings required a flexibility under shock, an adaptability of reasoning, that the limited Challonari could never rise to. It was like a blow at the structure of the universe, but it raised a fascinating, age-old problem what possible means of adequate communication could they have?

The Challonari caught his protective thought and withdrew from contact, though not without a soft protest, for it was inquisitive as any child. It, too, had heard of unsanity. Rare stresses or injuries now and again temporarily upset the balance of the mind and required the healing touch of other minds. But unsanity was not something the Challonari could handle.

Pain and chaos that made coherent thinking difficult shook the artificial brain, but since this evidently was not an intelligent life form, else it would not have reacted in such a manner, the Challonari increased in intensity its fear-reluctance impulse.