The Cahuitans in general did not care. For the adolescents, the time of need for a source of high-level quanta had not yet come. For those already fulfilled^{A} it had passed. While entirely gaseous, the planet would stay comfortably warm for a long time. Its energies, with the outpourings of its parent sun, would feed billions of people instead of the mere hundreds of thousands comprising its present population. Jobs^{A}, businesses^{A}, commerce^{A}, and industry^{A} went on as usual, unaffected. But Medury was affected: basically, fundamentally affected. The time had come when he should progress into completion, and without a new fire the Change was impossible. For a time which to a human race would have been fantastically long Medury brooded, considering every aspect of the problem; then stirred himself to action. Converting a tiny portion of his non-material being into three filaments of energy, he constructed a working platform by attaching the ends of these three filaments to the cores of three widely-separated suns. Thus assured of orientation, he launched into space a probing needle of pure force; a needle which, propagated in and through the sub-ether, covered parsecs of distances in microseconds of time. And thus for days, years, what might have been centuries and millennia as we of Tellus know time he searched; and finally, he found. Pulling in all his extensions, he shot a tight beam to a fellow-being, Litosa by symbol, and tuned his mind precisely to hers. (“Hers” being perhaps a trifle better than either “his” or “its”.) “For some little time you too have felt the need of fulfillment,” he informed his proposed complement in level, passionless thought. “You and I match well; there being no duplications, no incompatibles, no antagonistics in our twelve basics. Our fulfillment, Medosalitury, and our products, Midora and Letusy, would all three be super-primes.” “Yes.” What a freight of rebellion against fate was carried by that monosyllable! “But why discuss it? Why reach for the unattainable? From now on we die—we _all_ die—unfulfilled and without product. All life in this universe—in this galaxy, at least—ends with us now here.” “I hope not. I think not. There are many solar systems. . . .” “To what end?” Litosa broke in, her thought a sneer. “Can you kindle utterly frigid fuel? Can you work in a sun’s core? Or can you, perhaps, take a piece of star-core stuff through empty space to a cold planet and. . . .” The thought changed in tone, became what would have been on Earth a schoolgirl’s squeal of rapture: “You CAN! Or you wouldn’t have brought up such a harrowing subject. You REALLY CAN!” “Not that, exactly, but something just as good. I found sparks and kindling on a cold, solid planet.” “NO!” The thought was ecstasy. “You DIDN’T!” “I did. Whenever you’re ready, we’ll go.” “I’ve been ready for CYCLES!”