"I shall tell you. But first--you have seen something of this valley? You have seen that it is beautiful?" "Very beautiful, Leeta." "But only the valley is like that. All the rest of my world is bathed in a terrible fire that destroys any life it touches." "I have seen that, too," he said. "Was it always this way?" "Not always. Once the entire world was like the valley, beautiful, filled with life. There were fully as many people as on your own world. And they had great knowledge--too much knowledge, perhaps. They lived in vast cities and had many wonderful machines to serve them. They could have been happy, could have climbed to even greater heights--but there was war." The silver chiming was dulled by sadness, and a kind of instinctive horror. "It was a war fought with weapons of frightful, magic power--weapons that used the very secrets of existence itself. Life of all forms was wiped out, except in this valley. For a small group of people had guessed what the war would do and had taken refuge here. The valley, you see, was unique, not only well isolated from any possibility of attack, but shielded on all sides by mountains which contained an element capable of resisting the fire. Thus, while the fire spread like a deadly blight into other refuges, it did not reach here. Not entirely." Bryan felt an awed wonder at the picture Leeta had drawn. Behind her chiming thought images had moved--images that seemed to hold a tantalizing familiarity. He had been puzzling over the location of Leeta's world, and now he speculated startledly whether it wasn't Earth itself. He recalled that she had spoken of their individual worlds as aspects, as though they were different views of the same place rather than completely different and unrelated places. The possibility was supported by the fact that Leeta was undeniably human. Further, he knew that the consuming fire she described was radioactivity--and the people of his world were already well along in their knowledge of atomic weapons. His wonder sharpened. Was Leeta's world actually Earth--an Earth of the distant future? Was the veil that separated them time itself? * * * * * She appeared not to have noticed his fleeting thoughts. It was as though her awareness was gripped by the tragedy of what she had been describing. Slowly she went on, "The fire's terrible breath touched the valley, and its effects were felt by the creatures who had sought shelter here--both human and animal. Some died, some ... changed. The winged ones you see around you now are the results of that change. Even the flowers and trees became different. And the pool was created. The fire touched something in this particular spot--and the pool came into being. The process was never understood, but I do know that the pool has strange powers--that somehow it is alive ... intelligent. It is the pool which made possible what I have done, supplying the knowledge, tools and forces that were necessary."