"Keep going," he said to the foreman. "If you get stuck, I'll be in the control room. Otherwise keep using the same plans we used this morning."
"We ought to clean up by four," the man answered.
Benton once more heard that chuckle which wasn't quite audible. "Gotta hand it to you," Urei said. "You've got a well-trained crew."
"Yes," thought Benton. "Except that when you boss them, they don't make reports of their work."
"I guess you're talking about this energy-rectifier I just told you about. It wouldn't have paid to let them remember what they made. After all, your science doesn't know enough to understand what it is, or how it works. Also it would have given me away. Don't worry, you'll catch up to it in another generation or six."
"I'm wise to you," Benton reminded. "Why not tell me? It would do humanity a lot of good, you know. And you're supposed to be helping humanity, if I remember correctly."
There was a barely noticeable hesitation. Then: "Let's not discuss it now. I haven't quite made up my mind concerning policy of that sort. I'm still adhering to my rule of answering any question that's asked, within the scope of the knowledge which has been fed to me by man. That leaves your progress up to yourself. And incidentally, I did a little monkeying today which has nothing to do with policy; it was strictly a matter of self-preservation. You'll see what I mean when you turn to that video set."
Benton had entered the control room. He leaned over and fumbled with a shoe lace. "In a minute. You said you guessed I was talking about the energy-rectifier, whatever that is. Didn't you know? Weren't you reading my mind? In fact, weren't you reading it all along and saw through my efforts to disguise my thoughts?"
There was another instant of hesitation. "I see what you're driving at; I should have seen it sooner. As a matter of fact, I did look in on you a couple of times, inasmuch as you were quite distraught about your fantastic idea that I might be going to take over your silly race and run it to suit myself—though I can't see what you figure I might get out of that. And I discovered you were planning today's change-over, which seemed reasonable enough at the time. But once you opened the outer door to the power-house, I should have realized that you had been planning something else.... Congratulations, boy; you fooled me completely. Now turn on that television set, before they get done rehashing the day's events."