"Oh, yes; I almost forgot about the way the Norlaminian scientists learn things. When one of them gets old he makes a record of his brain on a tape, and when his son takes his place he just transfers all his knowledge to the son's brain with a mechanical educator, and then he--the son, I mean--knows everything that every specialist in that line ever did find out, and he goes on from there. Rovol and Drasnik and some of the others gave Seaton One and Crane One copies of their own brains that way, and that's why they knew so much. And then they built a projector that would take images of themselves clear across the Galaxy in a couple of seconds on fifth-order rays, and into the middle of suns and anywhere else they wanted to be or work, and then they built _Skylark Three_, a space ship about five kilometers long. Not so much these days, of course, but she was the biggest thing in the ether then. "But by that time the Fenachrone fleet had started out to conquer the Galaxy, and Seaton One and Crane One and all the other Ones and the Firsts of Norlamin hunted them up with the projector and blew them up by exploding their power bars, which were made of copper instead of uranium, like _Three_ used. And then Dunark blew up the whole Fenachrone planet, so that they'd never make any more trouble, but one Fenachrone ship got away and started out for another Galaxy, 'way out of range of the projector. So Seaton One chased it and caught it out in space, halfway to the other Galaxy. They had a terrible battle, but Seaton One blew it up and the picture stopped, and I want to see some more of the 'Exploits,' mother, please!" "Very well told, son--I believe that you are old enough to follow One and his friends of ancient times. You will have them next year, anyway, in your history classes, and you might as well see them now; particularly since it is our own family history as well as that of civilization." The young woman pressed a contact in the arm of her chair and spoke: "Central Library of History, please.... Mrs. R. B. Seaton fourteen seventy. Please put on reel three of the 'Exploits.' Wave point one nine four six.... Thank you." I. Day after day a spherical space ship of arenak tore through the illimitable reaches of the interstellar void. She had once been a war vessel of Osnome; now, rechristened the _Violet_, she was bearing two Terrestrials and a Fenachrone--Dr. Marc C. DuQuesne of World Steel, "Baby Doll" Loring, his versatile and accomplished assistant, and the squat and monstrous engineer of the flagship _Y427W_--from the Green System toward the Solar System of the Fenachrone. The mid-point of the stupendous flight had long since been passed; the _Violet_ had long been "braking down" with a negative acceleration of five times the velocity of light.