The cell was about ten feet square, windowless with walls of bare white plastic. The ceiling was plastered with a green phosphorescent mould, lighting it eerily. There was a single stool and a table and that was all. He locked his hands beneath his head. His green eyes looked older. They seemed to peer inward as he sought to organize the flood of information he'd received almost instantaneously in that startling, intimate exchange with Tabak. Gradually it dawned on him that he was in full possession of Tabak's life history--all the millions of insignificant items that went to make up the girl's personality. Once he realized that, the pieces began to click into place. It was indeed like a jig-saw puzzle. And slowly the picture appeared. Tabak was a pet, like a cat or dog, and as such she'd had a greater opportunity to observe the purple-shelled octopods. The Anolyns hadn't always been the dominant life form on Yogol. Ages ago, eons perhaps--Tabak had entertained only the vaguest notion of time--the humans had ruled the planet. They had built splendid cities, now crumbled into dust and even the dust buried beneath the jungle mould. Only the legend remained. The ancients, according to that legend, had experimented finally with telepathy. They had discovered that the young of the Anolyn--a semi-intelligent, telepathic, parasite--acted as a thought receiver and transmitter if it were allowed to fasten its tentacles directly into the spinal cord. The fad spread. More and more Yogolians began to make use of the telepathic parasites. Then one day the adult Anolyn rose from the sea and, through their young, took over the human race. Not all at once and not everyone. Some had refused to allow the Anolyn to be fastened to their necks. These few fled to the wilderness, where during ages of warfare with their Anolyn-dominated brothers, they had sunk into barbarism. These were the Kagans, the wild cave people whom the Anolyn now hunted for sport. As for the Anolyn themselves, they had abandoned the fallen human cities, building their citadels around the inland seas from whence they'd sprung. They had evolved their own unique culture. They appeared to know only the most rudimentary facts of the physical sciences, though they had made startling advances in the biological field. Even their cities were built by minute, coral-like creatures working under telepathic direction. Certain insects had been trained to spin thread from their own body secretions and weave fabrics. Humans had been bred for specialized functions: draft animals and meat animals, soldiers and sailors and artisans. As soon as a Yogolian attained adolescence, a young Anolyn was fastened to his spinal cord. Thus the humans were forced to act both as living incubators for the Anolyn young and as servants for the adults.