Fighting Ertene itself was unthinkable. They were too human; Ertene was too Terran to think of strife between the two worlds. Being of like anatomy, they would and should cling together against the whole universe of alien bodies. But-- He had spoken to Charalas, to the nurses, to the groundkeepers, and to the scientists who came to learn of him and from him. He had told them of Terra and of the Solar System. He had explained the other worlds in detail and his own interpretation of those other cultures. And still they depicted Terra in no central light. Terra did not dominate the panel. It vied with the other nine planets and their satellites for the prominence it should have held. What was wrong? Knowing that he would have favored Ertene for the anatomical reasons alone, Guy worried. Had his word-picture been so poor that Ertene gave the other planets their place in the panel in spite of the natural longing to place their own kind above the rest? "I should think--" he started haltingly, but Charalas stopped him. "Guy Maynard, you must understand that Ertene is neutral. Perhaps the first neutral you've ever seen. Believe that, Guy, and be warned that Ertene is capable of making her own, very discerning decision." Guy did not answer. He knew something else, now. Ertene was not going to be easily convinced that Sol was the place for them. She was neutral, yes, but there was something else. Ertene had the wanderlust! For eons, Ertene had passed in her unseen way through the galaxy. She had seen system after system, and the lust for travel was upon her. Travel was her life, and had been for hundreds of generations. Her children had been born and bred in a closed system, free from stellar bonds. Their history was a vast storehouse of experience such as no other planet had ever had. Every generation brought them to another star and each succeeding generation added to the wisdom of Ertene as it extracted or tried to extract some bit of knowledge from each system through which Ertene passed. With travel her natural life, the wandering planet would be loath to cease her transient existence. Like a man who has spent too many years in bachelorhood, flitting like a butterfly from lip to lip, Ertene had become inured to a single life. It would take a definite attraction to swerve her from her self-sufficiency. These things came to Maynard as he stood in thought. He knew then that his was no easy job. Not the simple proposition of asking Ertene to join her own kind in an orbit about Sol. Not the mere signing of a pact would serve. Not the Terran-shaded history of the worlds of Sol with the Terran egotism that did not admit that Terra could possibly be wrong. Ertene must be made to see the attractiveness of living in Maynard's little universe. It must be made more attractive than the interesting possibilities offered by the unknown worlds that lie ahead on her course through the galaxy.