"I'll decide that," Ixmal replied. (Did Psychband question his mastery?) Nevertheless he proceeded with caution. "_Where are you from, Zale-3?_" A long moment of silence followed during which a glacier advanced and retreated, the seas rose, and the first fierce-toothed reptiles swooped over swamp jungles on leathery wings. * * * * * _Where are you from? Where are you from?_ (And why was the mind of Zale-3 roaming space?) He hammered away at the thought, desperately trying to break its secret. A million questions pounded Ixmal's circuits; he sought a million answers. (Who created the _Intelligence_? Had it been born of the Man he was fond of? Or did it originate beyond earth?) Ixmal sensed a momentary panic. "_Where are you from?_" "_The fourth planet from the sun_," Zale-3 suddenly answered. "_And you?_" "_The third planet_," Ixmal replied loftily. "_I rule it._" He felt annoyed. For untold millions of years he had considered himself as the only _Intelligence_. Zale-3's answer galled him. Of course the other wasn't his equal. That was unthinkable. "_I rule the fourth planet_," Zale-3 said. The answer increased Ixmal's irritation. Zale-3 actually presumed equality. Well, seven hundred million years before he had met a similar challenge. (And yea, now the Man was dust ... dust.) He consulted Psychband, annoyed to find that his dislike of Zale-3 was founded on an ego-emotion integration rather than pure reason. Still, the other must be put in his place. "_I rule the Universe_," Ixmal stated coldly, withdrawing his receptors. He probed Psychband, somewhat disturbed to learn that Zale-3 would regard his pronouncement as a challenge. "Destroy him," Psychband urged. "Remember the ancient weapons?" "Yes, he must be destroyed." Ixmal ceased every activity to concentrate on the other's destruction. First he would have to locate his lair, study his habits, assess his weaknesses. And, yes, his strengths, for the alien was no harmless bit of protoplasm like Man. He must, in fact, be a creature somewhat like himself. Another god. Ah, but he was the iconoclast who toppled gods. In somewhat under twenty-five thousand years he evolved a method of focusing his remote receptors sufficient to uncover the atoms of the solar system. Now he would be able to pinpoint Zale-3, study his mind potential and, in time, root him from existence. Experimentally he searched the moon; then, with more assurance, invaded the fourth planet. Mars was flat, worn, a waterless waste of fine red dust--an old, old planet where the forces of gradation had reached near balance. Ixmal gridded the red planet into a system of squares and ingeniously enclosed the polar areas with interlocking triangles, then opened his search. (A new system allowed him to focus his remote receptors in the center of each grid, expanding the focal point to cover the entire area. By this method he would be able to complete the task in just under five hundred earth years.)