"The natives of Hume couldn't reproduce in any manner. Naturally, I wanted to know why. And the answer came to me--protective coloration ... camouflage!" "Apparent. Camouflage for what?" "You've heard the expression, if you can't lick 'em, join 'em...?" "Sure, but...." "But suppose you can't join 'em, either?" Rowley laughed, excitedly. "You make like something they want to protect!... Know anything about dryads, Commander?" Spliid snorted. "Supernatural creatures that live in trees? Dryads don't exist!" "Neither do the people of Hume." Spliid looked at him in such a way Rowley felt his sanity was being weighed. * * * * * "Suppose you were a native of Hume, and some alien beings came along. You could read their minds. You'd know right off they wouldn't recognize you as a life-form like themselves. They might move right in and destroy you without knowing it, and you would be unable to defend yourself. That was actually the situation on Hume, and we were the aliens. So the natives pretended they were a type of life-form we want to protect." "How was it done?" Spliid wanted to know. "Mental projection. After the directors of the play read our minds, they tried to reproduce what they found there. They slipped on the points I mentioned, because those things meant little or nothing to them. But they were enough to rob the play of its semblance of reality. "Tsu, Smarin, Torl ... even the village itself ... were all imaginary--not something we _thought_ we saw, but solidified mental projections of the thoughts the natives had gleaned from our minds." "I'm just beginning to see the real value of your talents, Cliff." "Thanks," Rowley acknowledged briefly. "If _we_ have the right to exclude inferior cultures from contact with us, a superior culture must certainly have an equal right to exclude us from contact with theirs." Spliid wagged his head, half smiling. His pipe had gone out and he puffed at it without effect. "I've been waiting for you to tell me who these 'directors' are," he said. Rowley grinned. "You won't believe this. The directors needed something to keep their play actors busy ... some logical occupation of their time. What could they find more logical--to them--than taking care of trees? Because the directors themselves are the trees--the living, intelligent forest of Hume. Fantastic, isn't it?" Spliid sighed as if deeply gratified. "If it weren't for one thing even more so, I'd say it was the most fantastic thing I ever heard of." "What's more fantastic than intelligent trees?" "Human beings," said Spliid. THE END