At that time I was amused. Prime had managed to construct a few rather prosaic molecules, but none of them could accomplish self-growth by the usual absorption of radiant energy. I asked his purpose in such experimentation. He answered, "What was your purpose in creating life in me?" To compare his own motives with those of my gracious director was so absurdly egotistical that I made a note to check back with this same individual on my next round. Amusement is rare in my occupation, as you can conceive, and I appreciated the humor of this supremely confident bit of carbon trash, thinking he could play creator! His project seemed harmless, so I left without disturbing him further. On my next call I did search out Prime again, and great was my surprise to discover that not only had he managed to invest automatic growth and reproduction into a few complex molecules, but that he had attacked the problem from an entirely new concept, so far as I have yet determined. * * * * * On the southern tip of the land continent where I discovered Prime, still near the ocean, I found him surrounded with a growth which he called vegetation. Then he bade me examine the content of the salt water, and I beheld tiny aquatic creatures of many varieties, some active, some vegetative, but all reproducing with lusty prolificity. "What are these land growths?" I asked. He proudly replied, "I call them _lichens_ and _mosses_." "But how do they absorb energy from your sun?" "I have invented a complex compound which can accomplish this," he said. "I call it _chlorophyll_. But you have many more surprises in store for you," he warned. "Wait until your next visit." I was entranced, but his work appeared still to be no more than an oddity, so I let it pass. Prime was quite right. On my next visit he showed me his crowning achievement. He called it _animal life_, a division of his so-called _organic_ creations. Here he departed almost entirely from our known concept of life-forms. Prime's animals maintained life, or at least a convincing simulation thereof, by ingesting other organic life-forms, both vegetative and animal, and through an awkward procedure of digestion and devious, chemical transformations, generated an interior source of energy. What almost made me report the whole affair at that time was this innovation: Prime's animal life-forms now existed entirely independent of direct radiant energy! Instead, they substituted, of all things, heat-energy, gained from simple oxidation of various so-called organic compounds. At this point I asked a question to which Prime gave me a very revealing answer. I asked, "How do you define the term, 'organic compound'?" He lay there in the sun, flash--his iridescence at me in brilliant sparkles from his random facets and announced in a haughty manner: "Organic pertains to any carbon-containing life-form, of which I am the originator, of course."