consider yourself intelligent life. There is only one form of intelligent life. You are a quirk, a miscalculation. You have rudimentary intelligence and this is a sadness, for you will never advance beyond your miserable state. Your tiny brain serves only to make you useful to me. If only you knew the
effort of will it took to permit your brain to continue to exist, but that is beyond your understanding. Listen closely and I will explain. You have, in your background, an analogy. You enjoy fishing for the small creatures of the waters. You lower a lure or a bait into the water and feel an
excitement. It is so with us. It is an amusement. In recent time we felt, but
could not believe that we felt, the force of the ancients, the movement of a mechanical ship out of time and space. We know that the ancients are gone, that they could not exist. And yet we feel the signal again and we
pull, directing our force into the affected area of space without being able to pinpoint the location. We catch and are disappointed, for the primitive ship has no life. Ten times we pull, and ten times we have lifeless metal. We increase the power of our lure and, ah, we catch the first of your kind. We are astounded, but we enjoy. There are no more of the nibbles caused by the force of the ancients, but we receive tiny, random signals and it is difficult. We dedicate ourselves to the fishing, and we catch now and again. Then we caught you and exercised supreme will to preserve the tastiest part of you, the brain, for we wanted to give you a continued existence so that you could serve us. You proved useful from the beginning, finding a planet of the food creatures, one we had overlooked. Now you will lead us to your own planet, a planet of super-food creatures.» Plank struggled, trying to protest, trying to free his mind. «Do not anger us. You have already annoyed us. You were grown to serve us. You are nothing more than a freak mutation, a slight advance over what you think of as the slugs, and you are ours to enjoy. You can
help, but you resist. It is hopeless to resist, for you have already given us the location of your home planet. It is merely a matter of doing the boring checking of the mechanical toys, wherein are the data necessary.» «No,» Plank said, forcing past the mind-bending force. «The master of the galaxy is, by fate, meant to be alone. It pleases us to use you as a momentary diversion. We will allow you to exist for what to you will be an eternity. We bend even more. We offer you the woman thing. What you think of as your mobile form is actually more sophisticated than your own primitive flesh. You want more? Ah, well, with billions awaiting us we can be generous. We give you a dozen others of your kind. Even 100 of your choosing. Together you will serve us. You
will exist and know pleasure. You will be free to hunt the galaxy for us. We have seen the suns too many times and travel bores us. You will be our arm. While you hunt to give us pleasure, we will concentrate on the limitation. Observe.» The dark ship was flashing outward toward the edge of the galaxy, Plank aboard. Then he was not aboard, but outside, watching as the ship moved in normal space away from the finest sprinkle of stars into the deep blackness. Suddenly it smashed. «You anger me almost beyond endurance with your joy to discover that
we are limited, confined to this galaxy. We consider projecting you, living,
into the heat and fire of a star, there to linger. Or we might have a tiny bit of enjoyment with the remaining morsel of your flesh. But no. There is the
game and we have use for you. It is pointless to resist. Look. See us in our natural form. Are we not magnificent? Do not feel belittled. Note how functional, how balanced. Four walking appendages for stability, four sets of hands for dexterity beyond your belief. We are the ultimate form of mobile life and your ignorance is shown by your repugnance, not recognizing true beauty. But you will realize our beauty as time goes on. Now we give you your friends. Now we proceed with the game.» Plank was in a room. A door opened. Hara and Heath entered. Plank's
eyes saw the slightly strange texture of their skin. With a sinking feeling of sorrow, he knew that they were now like him. CHAPTER FOURTEEN «Where are you?» Plank asked, as Hara and Heath looked around in surprise. «I was going to ask you that,» Heath said. «I mean, do you know where your brains are?» Plank asked. A look of fear crossed Hara's face. '"We're like you?» «Yes.» She felt herself, running her hands over her body. She was dressed in her uniform. She looked the same, but Plank knew. «Think,» Plank said. «See if you have any indication of where your brains are being kept.» «It's blank,» Hara said. «I'll repeat the question,» Heath said, looking slightly dazed. «Where are we as we are?» «The tinker-toy planet,» Plank said. «And them?» «Here,» Plank glanced swiftly around the room. It was the same, but the walls were solid. The huge screen or viewport was not in evidence. «You're my reward for being a good boy,» he said. «I can have a total of 100.» «They know?» Heath asked. «Not yet. They're going over the records of the communicators. It sounds as if it might be a slow process, a process that bores them. I don't know how much time we have.» «You have a weapon,» Heath said, noting Plank's side arm. «Not effective against them,» Plank said. «They, or it—since I think it uses the 'we' pronoun as royalty used to use it on Earth—well, it's pretty powerful.» «Is there anything we can do?» Hara asked. «I don't know. I know this. I know what it looks like in what it calls its primary form. It's a cross between an animal and an insect. It can change
forms—the eater on the other planet was one. I think it's insane, at least by our standards. It's very old. It thinks it owns the galaxy, and it probably
does. It has fantastic powers over all physical matter. And it plans to make a meal of everyone on Earth and the Centauri planets. It equates us with
the slugs on Plank's World. It discounts our intelligence. It considers us as low as the animals and wants us to do its hunting, because it doesn't like
to travel around the galaxy. It wants us to find planets where there's life. Apparently, there used to be more than one 'it,' and these creatures seeded
planets with the little slug animals for food. It thinks we evolved from the slugs and are, therefore, just a bit bigger morsel of food.» «Is there any way we can warn Earth?» Heath asked. «I don't think so, and I doubt it would do any good if we could,» Plank
said. «If anything can be done, we have to do it; and we have to do it while
it's concentrating on finding the location of Earth. There's one small thing in our favor. It has a certain amount of arrogance. It's so sure it's all
powerful that it probably won't be watching us very closely. I think it gets involved in what it's doing. Back on Plank's World I surprised it. Flew right above it without being seen.» «Perhaps we can find the ship and just get out of here,» suggested Hara. «Get back to Earth and try to organize a defense.» «I don't know where the ship is,» Plank said. «I do know that the dark ship is destroyed. The creature smashed it into some sort of barrier out beyond the edge of the galaxy.» «A barrier?» Heath asked.