"Try to reason," said Amco. "That command was given you to provide for the advent of aliens bent on harmful intent. I have no such intentions." "Why are you here?" "I'm here to try and determine what course civilization has taken since my time. What course has evolution taken, if any? And if it has evolved, is there any conceivable goal toward which it is evolving?" The teleo-electronic man's reaction radiations were confused. Amco glanced at the rows of outstretched bodies. "Is this the end? These Dhomans sleep. Is such sleep the ultimate end for two million years of struggle? If so, what is its nature and purpose?" The teleo-electronic man radiated: "This is both the beginning and the ending. Somewhat of a state of eternity. I am fitted to repair myself so that I will also be eternal. I administer to them, and repair myself, and we all live on and on." Amco's consciousness expressed distaste at the robot's vagueness. "You must pardon me," emanated the robot. "I love beauty of words for its own sake. Thought doesn't interest me. I am not an intellectual, but an aesthete. I brood and am forced to introspect over long periods. You understand. Damn the loneliness! I've been a long time alone. A long time. Wait! Two million years! These sleepers have slept for almost that long. One million nine hundred and fifty thousand. Only a few years after you left your City." The robot paused, then lost interest. "So lonely." Amco's mind whirled confusedly. Two million years of sleep for these--these were the same who had inhabited the City when he--perhaps the Coordinator--perhaps--Why he had just missed becoming a living corpse himself by a few years. Now, when he returned--his mind groaned with strain. "Would you mind explaining all this," he thought. "No," replied the robot. "Anything I tell you, you won't remember anyway when you return to your own time. It will not have happened yet." Amco's thoughts were ones of hopeless dismissal. The trivial cliches of the paradox of time travel. He had gone over them countless times with the Coordinator. Of course it was illogical. But it seemed to work. Perhaps three-dimensional logic was distorted when applied four-dimensionally. He was partially a four-dimensional object now, so-- "So, I'll tell you of this hall of dreams," radiated the teleo-electronic man dramatically.... "Dhomans have always been dissatisfied with the shallow, sensory world. This is their last recourse to escape from this shallowness. You see, they have retreated into the boundless realms of the mind to live.