"Fortunately for us, certain Stroid records were small metallic plates whose molecular structure was altered according to script or vocal patterns. Some of the boys in the lab have developed a device for listening to the audio records. We have actually heard the _voices_ of the Stroids! At least there are sounds that resemble a spoken language. But it is what we have found on the written records that brought me here. "More than eighty-five years ago, the most fortunate find previous to the discovery of the repository was made. An extensive cache of historical records was uncovered by Dickens, one of the early workers in the field. They were almost fused together, and the molecular alteration was barely traceable due to exposure to terrific heat. But we've succeeded in separating the plates and transferring their records in amplified form to new sheets. And we can read them. We have a remarkably complete section of Stroid history just before their extermination, and, if we are reading it correctly, there's a surprising fact about them." "What is that?" "They were not native to this Solar System. They were extra-galactic refugees whose home world had been destroyed in something completely revolting in an intellect that would foresee the doom of a world and set about to assure its own preservation." "But that is only your own subjective extension," Illia answered. "There is no such semantic concept in the idea." * * * * * "Isn't there? The egotism, the absolute lack of concern for a creature's fellows--those are semantically contained in it. And that is why I'm more than a little afraid of what we shall find if we do succeed in reviving this creature. How is it developing?" "It seems to be going through a sort of conventional embryonic growth," Illia answered. "It's already passed a pseudo-blastic stage. So far, it has generally mammalian characteristics; more than that is impossible to say. But what about this new evidence enough for my mental capacity. I can't and won't give a damn about any other aspects." "You must!" Phyfe's eyes were suddenly afire, demanding, unyielding. "We have new evidence--Terry may have been right when he asked to have the protoplasm destroyed." Illia froze. "What evidence?" "What type of mentality would attempt to preserve itself through a planetary catastrophe that destroyed all its contemporaries?" asked Phyfe. "I find some great interstellar conflict and whose enemies eventually traced them and destroyed for the second time the world on which they lived. Out of all that ancient people, destroyed as completely as was Carthage, only this single individual remained. "Do you see the significance of that? If he lives, he will live again with the same war-born hate and lust for revenge that filled him as he saw his own world fall!"