«He thinks of it as that, not I,» she said. «Now, I believe it would be wise if you listen and let me talk.» She smiled and waited for comment. Plank shifted in the soft seat and looked at her. In his mind was a conflict. He kept seeing, in her beautiful face, the death's skull she had shown them. «You have reason for pride, for you have come a long way. There is reason, also, for humbleness, because you are, after all, only an accident. When we left your galaxy your ancestry was eating vegetation on a thousand planets.» «Sorry,» Plank said, «I don't buy that.» «You yourself ran tests on the planet you call Plank's World. You noted the amazing—that's the way you expressed it—similarity between your cells and the cells of the slugs.» «May I ask how you know all this?» Plank asked. She laughed. «You made it rather difficult,» she said. «We had to search through the remains of…» Once again there was that ear-twisting name. «…'s planet. Fortunately the data banks were rather well protected and were still intact. You will see just how fortunate that was for you later.» «Yes,» Plank said, «the cellular construction was similar.» «But still you doubt that you evolved from our food creatures.» «There's a body of pretty firm evidence on Earth that life was spontaneous on our planet. You mentioned the giant reptiles. Were they evolved from your creation?» «Life arises in many ways in the universe. However, advancement to intelligence is quite rare. Without a head start your rapid rise would have been impossible.» «Is that crucial to our discussion?» Plank asked. «Not really. Actually, we are very impressed by you. Only one other race we know of has shown such development.» «Yours,» Plank said. «Ours. There are vague similarities. We are very old and no race can trace itself to the beginning, but when your planet was the home of the giant reptiles we had achieved the ultimate state of development and were in the process of changing. We had, then, been in deep space for a million years.» «Why were you so slow?» Plank asked. For the first time an unpleasant expression marred the beauty of the woman's face. «Please do not try to antagonize me. You are, at best, an annoyance. We are being generous to give you our time to explain to you. There is a question to be resolved. First let me confirm one of your
suspicions. The Eater, as you call him, is of us, but he is, how can I say it,
to use your term, retarded. He is a great rarity. Of all the people, he alone was incapable of development. He was not at home with us. It was best for him, and for us, to give him a place of his own. We looked and found your galaxy. It, as you may know, was largely unpopulated. There were a few signs of developing life, but so primitive that he would live out his life span—since he is what you think of as mortal—» «Where you are not?» Hara asked. «Our existence is not limited. His is. He would, we reasoned, die before he could endanger the developing forms of life on the scattered planets. We established him, gave him ways to amuse himself. To give him every opportunity, in case we were wrong and the centuries would effect a change in him, we left him the necessary history of our people to guide his development, if any.» «And you fenced him in with the barrier around the galaxy,» Heath said. «You anticipate,» she said. «But yes, we fenced him in. We provided him with his food creatures, things out of our primitive history. We gave him the basic tools to build. He loved toys.» «A retarded child with a galaxy all his own,» Plank said. «How did you happen to come back just at the time you did?» Hara asked. «He was capable of self-destruction,» she said. «We were notified of the destruction of his planet.» She looked at them with a smile. «You must understand that he is not bad. He is merely afflicted.» «Depopulating a planet in a game not even necessary to his survival is not bad?» Plank asked. «No,» she said, «you judge him too harshly.» «What is the question to be decided?» Plank asked. «We simply must decide whether to leave the galaxy to him or to you,» she said, with a delicate little movement of her shoulders. Plank smoldered for a moment. «All right, what do we have to say about it?» «Whatever you please,» she said. «I am here to evaluate our knowledge of you. We know that you have developed a rather primitive technology. We know that you now understand the principle of the drive aboard the ship you call Pride and, although that drive is still primitive and mechanical, it is a rather sophisticated work. To know that you could so easily understand it is surprising. That, more than anything else, is the reason why you are here to speak for yourselves.» «You know, then, that we developed the blink drive independently,» Heath said. «There was insufficient data on the tapes, but there was evidence that the trips were based on the buildup of power during a turnaround from your ships, which use hydrogen power. Please don't try to impress me. You know and I know that it is quite impossible for you to create a device as sophisticated as the drive.» «No,» Plank said, looking warningly at Heath, «Let's not try to lie to her.» But there was an unanswered question. With all her mental powers, couldn't she read their minds? He sent, with his thoughts, insulting things, rude things. She smiled, looking at Heath. «He is right,» she said. «Your advancements are worthy, without lying about them. Knowledge of our drive will be cleared from your mind before you leave here.» «We are to be allowed to leave, then?» Plank asked. «You would be out of place here,» she said. «More retarded children?» Plank asked. «You bore me, man. But yes, and worse, for you have seen the abilities of what you call the Eater. Can you match even one of them? You are worse than a retarded child; let me assure you that your continued existence depends entirely on what I decide here.» Plank made a low bow. «I ask your forgiveness.» «Now that you are more calm, perhaps you would like to tell me of your race. Your goals, your aspirations.» «We aspire, more than anything else, to perfection,» Hara said. «Rather noble,» the woman said. «Perfection by whose standards?» «Our own, the only standards we've known,» Hara said. «John Plank went into space for money,» the woman said. «But even as he went into space for money,» Hara said, «he was trying
to be the best ship captain, the best trader, the best navigator. He tried to make his ship the best one of its type.» «I see, in your activities, something that reminds me of…» the ear-twisting name…'s games. And his games were for nothing. Is money a way of keeping score in your game?» «We also seek security and comforts,» Hara said. «Money buys us security and comforts.» «And the search for money is a game to be won by the most able,» the woman said. «I suggest that you are a grossly competitive creature, competing with your fellows since you have no one else with whom to compete. I suggest that your entire life is a game and that your one object is to win.» «Why do you have weapons on your ships?» Plank asked. «Ah, that is a good question,» she said laughing, showing her pink tongue. «Perhaps this will not be so boring after all. You show an animal shrewdness. First, the ships were primitive toys of a retarded child. However, the toys, in their time, did come equipped with weapons, for we went through a period of competition. We had our wars among ourselves.» «That sounds very human to me,» Plank said. He lifted a hand to stop her reply. «Yes, we are competitive. We are competitive with our fellow men and with ourselves. We compete with nature, and with the universe. Although we take care of our own retarded children, those less able to compete, we still reward the ablest with the most riches, the most comforts, the most security. In the jungles of the young Earth, the fittest survived to sire more survivors. This continuing process of evolution goes on still. We can document a change in our race in a short period of time. We are taller, stronger, more resistant to disease. Our life span has increased from approximately 70 years to three times 70.» «Let me ask you this,» said the beautiful woman. «If you could, if you had it within your power to provide the ideal existence for your Earth, what would that existence be?» «Freedom of choice,» Hara said. «A meaningful life for each man,» Heath said. «Health, wealth, love and time to enjoy it,» Plank said. «Three answers.» «If there were three million men here you'd get three million answers,» Plank said, «all leading toward the same thing, perhaps, but expressed in different ways. One man would think the ideal existence would be to have a plot of ground on Earth and the time to till it. Another would want a ship like the Pride to rove the stars. Another would want a dozen women at his command.» «You are stating a concept we have been studying,» the woman said. «Each of you is individual.» «And your race operates with one mind?» Plank asked. «Many minds attuned.» «Can you make the water in that brook reverse its flow and run uphill?» Plank asked. «Easily.» She demonstrated. «But you can't read my thoughts,» Plank said. «Another good point, but not conclusive. Neither can I enter the mind of the small birds that you saw outside.» «You mentioned games,» Plank said. «Let me tell you about Earth games. On Sundays, during the colder months, young men don armor and