“You flatter me. I’m not that good. But perhaps . . . in a very broad and general way. . . . Heights and depths, remember? And superhuman scope therein or thereat? But _we_ don’t do it, Storm. _You_ do.” “Uh-uh. Nix. You and I are one. Let’s go!” “I’ll come along as far as I can, of course, but something tells me it won’t be very far. Lead on, Six Cloud!” “Where’ll we start?” “Now we’re right back where we were before. Do you still favor spectra? Of vibration, say, for a start?” “Nothing else but. So let’s slide ourselves up and down the frequencies, seeing what we can see, hear, feel, or sense, and what we can do about ’em.” _Chapter 18_ ▂▂▂▂▂▂CAHUITA ON THE PLANET CAHUITA, unreckonable years before this story opens, an entity brooded. This entity, Medury by symbol, was not even vaguely man-like; in fact, he—the third person singular pronoun, masculine, is used very loosely indeed; but since it is somewhat better than either “it” or “she” it will have to do—was not even vaguely corporeal or substantial. Man’s earliest ancestor, it is believed, came into being through the interaction of energy and matter in the waters of the infant seas of Earth. The first Cahuitans, however, originated in the unimaginably violent, raw, crude energy-flare of an atomic explosion. This explosion did not take place on Tellus, nor in any time known to Tellurian history. The place of occurrence was a planet in the spiral arm of the galaxy across the tremendous gulf of empty space which we now call Rift Two Hundred Forty; the time, as has been said, was in the unthinkably remote past. Cahuitans are not, strictly speaking, immortal; but as far as mankind is concerned, and except for exceedingly peculiar violences, they might as well be. Medury brooded. His problem was old; it had probably been considered, academically, by every Cahuitan then alive. But only academically, and no Cahuitan had ever solved it, for the philosophy of the race had always been (and still is) the simple one of least action—no Cahuitan ever did any job until it became necessary; but, conversely, once any job was done it was done as nearly as possible for all time to come. Medury was the first Cahuitan to be compelled, by one of the basic urges of life, to deal with the problem as a concrete, not an abstract, thing. The problem was, therefore, his. His alone. His world, the only planet of its sun, was old, old. The last atoms of its fissionables had been fissioned; the last atoms of its fusibles had been fused; no more fires could be kindled.