"You mean, it helps one to be more intelligent?" "Not more intelligent in relation to science or logical argument-more intelligent on the deeper level of concrete experiences and personal relationships."

"More intelligent on that level," said Mrs. Rao, "even though one may be very stupid upstairs." She patted the top of her head. "I'm too dumb to be any good at the things that Dr. Robert and Vijaya are good at-genetics and biochemistry and philosophy and all the rest. And I'm no good at painting or poetry or acting. No talents and no cleverness. So I ought to feel horribly inferior and depressed. But in fact I don't-thanks entirely to the moksha-medicine and meditation. No talents or cleverness. But when it comes to living, when it comes to understanding people and helping them, I feel myself growing more and more sensitive and skillful. And when it comes to what Vijaya calls gratuitous graces ..." She broke off. "You could be the greatest genius in the world, but you wouldn't have anything more than what I've been given. Isn't that true, Vijaya?"

"Perfectly true."

She turned back to Will. "So you see, Mr. Farnaby, Pala's the place for stupid people. The greatest happiness of the greatest number-and we stupid ones are the greatest number. People like Dr. Robert and Vijaya and my darling Ranga-we recognize their superiority, we know very well that their kind of intelligence is enormously important. But we also know that our kind of intelli gence is just as important. And we don't envy them, because we're given just as much as they are. Sometimes even more."

"Sometimes," Vijaya agreed, "even more. For the simple rea son that a talent for manipulating symbols tempts its possessors into habitual symbol manipulation, and habitual symbol manipulation is an obstacle in the way of concrete experiencing and the reception of gratuitous graces."

"So you see," said Mrs. Rao, "you don't have to feel too sorry for us." She looked at her watch. "Goodness, I shall be late for Dillip's dinner if I don't hurry."

She started briskly towards the door.

"Time, time, time," Will mocked. "Time even in this place of timeless meditation. Time for dinner breaking incorrigibly into eternity." He laughed. Never take yes for an answer. The nature of things is always no.

Mrs. Rao halted for a moment and looked back at him.

"But sometimes," she said with a smile, "it's eternity that miraculously breaks into time-even into dinnertime. Goodbye." She waved her hand and was gone.

"Which is better," Will wondered aloud as he followed Vijaya through the dark temple, out into the noonday glare, "which is better-to be born stupid into an intelligent society or intelligent into an insane one?"

12

"Here we are," said Vijaya, when they had reached the end of the short street that led downhill from the marketplace. He opened a wicket gate and ushered his guest into a tiny garden, at the further end of which, on its low stilts, stood a small thatched house.

From behind the bungalow a yellow mongrel dog rushed out and greeted them with a frenzy of ecstatic yelps and jumps and tail-waggings. A moment later a large green parrot, with white cheeks and a bill of polished jet, came swooping down from nowhere and landed with a squawk and a noisy fluttering of wings on Vijaya's shoulder.

"Parrots for you," said Will, "mynahs for little Mary Sarojini. You people seem to be on remarkably good terms with the local fauna."

Vijaya nodded. "Pala is probably the only country in which an animal theologian would have no reason for believing in devils. For animals everywhere else, Satan, quite obviously, is Homo sapiens.'

They climbed the steps to the veranda and walked through the open front door into the bungalow's main living room.

Seated on a low chair near the window, a young woman in blue was nursing her baby son. She lifted a heart-shaped face that narrowed down from a broad forehead to a delicately pointed chin, and gave them a welcoming smile.

"I've brought Will Farnaby," said Vijaya as he bent down to kiss her.

Shanta held out her free hand to the stranger.

"I hope Mr. Farnaby doesn't object to nature in the raw," she said. As though to give point to her words, the baby withdrew his mouth from the brown nipple, and belched. A white bubble of milk appeared between his lips, swelled up and burst. He belched again, then resumed his sucking. "Even at eight months," she added, "Rama's table manners are still rather primitive."

"A fine specimen," said Will politely. He was not much interested in babies and had always been thankful for those repeated miscarriages which had frustrated all Molly's hopes and longings for a child. "Who's he going to look like-you or Vijaya?"

Shanta laughed and Vijaya joined in, enormously, an octave lower.

"He certainly won't look like Vijaya," she answered.

"Why not?"

"For the sufficient reason," said Vijaya, "that I'm not genetically responsible."

"In other words, the baby isn't Vijaya's son."

Will looked from one laughing face to the other, then shrugged his shoulders. "I give up."

"Four years ago," Shanta explained, "we produced a pair of twins who are the living image of Vijaya. This time we thought it would be fun to have a complete change. We decided to enrich the family with an entirely new physique and temperament. Did you ever hear of Gobind Singh?"

"Vijaya has just been showing me his painting in your meditation room.

"Well, that's the man we chose for Rama's father."

"But I understood he was dead."

Shanta nodded. "But his soul goes marching along."

"What do you mean?"

"DF and AI."

"DFandAI?"

"Deep Freeze and Artificial Insemination."

"Oh, I see."

"Actually," said Vijaya, "we developed the techniques of AI about twenty years before you did. But of course we couldn't do much with it until we had electric power and reliable refrigerators. We got those in the late twenties. Since then we've been using AI in a big way."

"So you see," Shanta chimed in, "my baby might grow up to be a painter-that is, if that kind of talent is inherited. And even if it isn't he'll be a lot more endomorphic and viscerotonic than his brothers or either of his parents. Which is going to be very interesting and educative for everybody concerned."

"Do many people go in for this kind of thing?" Will asked.

"More and more. In fact I'd say that practically all the couples who decide to have a third child now go in for AI. So do quite a lot of those who mean to stop at number two. Take my family, for example. There's been some diabetes among my father's people; so they thought it best-he and my mother-to have both their children by AI. My brother's descended from three generations of dancers and, genetically, I'm the daughter of Dr. Robert's first cousin, Malcolm Chakravarti-MacPhail, who was the Old Raja's private secretary."

"And the author," Vijaya added, "of the best history of Pala. Chakravarti-MacPhail was one of the ablest men of his generation."

Will looked at Shanta, then back again at Vijaya.

"And has the ability been inherited?" he asked.

"So much so," Vijaya answered, "that I have the greatest difficulty in maintaining my position of masculine superiority. Shanta has more brains than I have; but fortunately she can't compete with my brawn."

"Brawn," Shanta repeated sarcastically, "brawn ... I seem to remember a story about a young lady called Delilah."

"Incidentally," Vijaya went on, "Shanta has thirty-two half brothers and twenty-nine half sisters. And more than a third of them are exceptionally bright."

"So you're improving the race."

"Very definitely. Give us another century, and our average IQ will be up to a hundred and fifteen."