And Karen and Camilla, together in Tregonsee's ship, glanced at each other and exchanged flashing thoughts. Should they interfere? They hadn't had to so far, but it began to look as though they would have to, now--it would wreck their mother's mind, if she could understand. She probably could not understand it, any more than Cleonie could--but even if she could, she had so much more inherent stability, even than Dad, that she might be able to take it, at that. Nor would she ever leak, even to Dad--and Dad, bless his tremendous boots, was not the type to pry. Maybe, though, just to be on the safe side, it would be better to screen the stuff, and to edit, if necessary, anything about Eddore. The two girls synchronized their minds all imperceptibly with their mother's and Helen's, and learned. * * * * * The time was in the unthinkably distant past; the location was unthinkably remote in space. A huge planet circled slowly about a cooling sun. Its atmosphere was not air; its liquid was not water. Both were noxious; composed in large part of compounds even yet unknown to man. Yet life was there; a race which was even then ancient. Not sexual, this race. Not androgynous, nor hermaphroditic, but absolutely sexless. Except for the many who died by physical or by mental violence, its members lived endlessly. After many hundreds of thousands of years each being, having reached his capacity to live and to learn, divided into two individuals; each of which, although possessing _in toto_ the parents' memories, knowledges, skills, and powers, had also a renewed and increased capacity. And, since life was, there had been competition. Competition for power. Knowledge was desirable only insofar as it contributed to power. Power for the individual--the group--the city. Wars raged--_what_ wars!--and internecine strifes which lasted while planets came into being, grew old, and died. And finally, to the few survivors, there came peace. Since they could not kill each other, they combined their powers and hurled them outward--together they would dominate and rule solar systems--regions--the Galaxy itself--the entire macrocosmic Universe. Amorphous, amoeboid, each could assume at will any imaginable form, could call into being members to handle any possible tool. Nevertheless, as time went on they used their bodies less and less. More and more they used their minds, to bring across gulfs of space and to enslave other races, to labor under their direction. By nature and by choice they were bound to their own planet; few indeed were the planets upon which their race could possibly live. Also, it was easier to rejuvenate their own world, or to move it to a younger sun, than to enforce and to supervise the myriads of man-hours of slave labor necessary to rebuild any planet to their needs. Thus, then, they lived and ruled by proxy an ever-increasing number of worlds.