Fast Falls The Eventide
Astounding Science Fiction – May 1952
(1952)*
Eric Frank Russell
illustrated by van Dongen

	In the long, long megayears of the future, even suns and planets grow old and eventually die. And with them, the race they nurtured—unless a different way of life can be found!

-

	It was an old world, incredibly old, with a pitted moon and a dying sun and a sky too thin to hold a summer cloud. There were trees upon it but not the trees of yore, for these were the result of aeons of gradual accommodation. They inhaled and exhaled far less than did their distant forebears and they sucked more persistently at the aged soil.

	So did the herbs.

	And the flowers.

	But the petal-lacking, rootless children of this sphere, the ones able to move around of their own volition, these could not compensate by sitting in one place and drawing from the ground. So slowly, ever so slowly they had dispensed with what once had been a basic need. They could manage quite well on the bare minimum of oxygen. Or at a pinch without any at all, experiencing no more than mild discomfort, a certain lassitude. All could do this without exception.

	The children of this world were bugs.

	And birds.

	And bipeds.

	Moth, magpie and man, all were related. All had the same mother: an ancient sphere rolling around a weakly glowing orange ball that some day would flicker and go out. Their preparation for this end had been long and arduous, partly involuntary, partly deliberate. This was their time: the age of fulfillment, shared between all, belonging to all.

	Thus it was in no way odd that Melisande should talk to a small beetle. It sat attentively on the back of her pale, long-fingered hand, a tiny creature, black with crimson spots, clean and shiny as if subjected to hours of patient polishing. A ladybird. An amusingly toylike entity that seemed to lack a miniature handle in its side with which to wind it up.

	Of course the ladybird could not understand a word of what was being said. It was not that intelligent. Time had run so far and the atmosphere become so thin that the insect's wings had adapted accordingly and now were twice the size of those owned by ladybirds of long ago. And with the physical alteration there had been mental alteration; its pin-sized brain was different too. By the standard of its own humble kind it had climbed several rungs up the ladder of life. Though it could not determine meanings, it knew when it was being addressed, sought human company, derived comfort from the sound of a human voice.

	And so with the others.

	The birds.

	The latter-day bees.

	All the timid things that once had run for a hiding place or sought shelter in the dark.

	Those who had survived—and many species had not—were shy no more. Regardless of whether or not they could understand the mouth-noises made, they liked to be spoken to, their existence acknowledged. They could and did listen for hours, extracting strange pleasure from the intimacy of sound. Or was the pleasure strange?

	Perhaps not, for there were times when the sonic relationship was reversed and men stood fascinated while, in lilting language peculiarly its own, a blackbird or nightingale poured forth its very soul.

	It was the same indefinable ecstasy.

	You see?

	So Melisande talked as she walked and Little Redspots listened with his own insectual pleasure until finally she gently flipped her hand and laughed, "Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home."

	It raised colorful wing-cases, spread gauzy wings and fluttered from sight. Melisande paused to look at the stars.

	In these times they could be seen with brilliance and clarity by day as well as by night, a phenomenon that would have made her air-loving ancestors become filled with fear lest the breath of life soon depart.

	No such sensation was within her as she studied the stars. There was only curiosity and speculation coming from a purely personal source. To her, the five-miles-high atmosphere, the dim sun, the sparkling stars were all normal. Often she looked at the stars, sorting them out, identifying them, asking herself the same question again and again.

	"Which one?"

	And the heavens answered only, "Ah, which?"

-

	Ceasing her speculation she tripped lightly onward along the narrow woodland path that led into the valley. Far to her left, on the verge of the horizon, something long, slender and metallic arrowed down from the sky and vanished beyond the curve of the earth. A little later a much muted thundering came to her ears.

	Neither the sight nor the sound captured her attention. They were too ordinary. The ships of space came often to this ancient world, sometimes once in a month, sometimes twice in a day. Rarely were any two alike. Rarely did the people of one vessel resemble the crew of another.

	They had no common language, these visitors from the glittering dark.

	They spoke a multitude of tongues. Some could talk only mentally, in powerfully projected thought-forms. Some were nonvocal and nontelepathic, could not speak at all, and communicated by means of dexterous finger-motions, ultra-rapid vibration of cilia or other gesticulatory devices.

	Once, not so long ago, she had been briefly entertained by the slate-colored, armor-skinned personnel of a ship from Khva, a world unthinkable distances beyond Andromeda. They had been completely blind and totally dumb, making superfast limb-signals at each other and registering them through sensitive esp-organs. They had talked to her without voice and admired her without eyes.

	All this was what made learning so hard. At seven hundred years of age she had just finished her final examinations and gained the status of an adult. Long, long ago one might have absorbed the wisdom of an era in a mere century. In the dimmer days still farther back one might have done it in ten years. But not today. Not today.

	Now in these solemn times of the final centuries the knowledge to be imbibed was in quantity far too great for swift assimilation. It was an immense pile of data created by the impact of a mighty cosmos composed of worlds without end. Each new ship added a few modest grains to the mass, and the mountain already so built was as nothing to the titanic quantities yet to come—if this world lived long enough to receive them. 

	If!

	There was the rub. Creation was conquered and made the slave of the shapes it had brought forth. The atom and the power within the atom were tools in the hands or pseudo-hands of matter forms able to think and move. Macrocosm and microcosm were equally the playthings of those whose ships roamed endlessly through the tremendous void.

	But there were none who knew how to revive an expiring sun.

	It could not be done in theory, much less in fact.

	It was impossible.

	So here and there, at great intervals, a senile sun would flare up a while, collapse into itself, flare again like a feeble thing making its last frantic snatch at life and then become extinguished for all time. A tiny spark in the dark suddenly blown out, unnoticed and unmissed from the limitless host that still blazed on.

	Almost each vanishing marked tragedy, perhaps immediate in one case and delayed in another. Some life forms could resist cold longer than others but eventually succumbed just the same. By their superior techniques some could warm themselves and their worlds until the raw material sources of their heat were exhausted. Then they, too, became as if they had never been.

	Any system whose primary reverted to an enormous cinder thereby became the property of a great, white, greedy idiot bearing the name of Supernal Frost. He would share his drear estates with none but the dead.

	Melisande thought of all these things as she reached the valley. But the thoughts were not morbid; they held nothing of sadness or resentment. She was of her own kind and it was a life form old in experience and remarkably astute. It had faced^ the inevitable a thousand times before and had learned the futility of battering against it head-on. It knew what to do with an immovable object: one climbs over it or burrows under it or sneaks around it. One uses one's brains because they are there to be used.

	Inevitability was not to be feared.

	That which cannot be stayed must be avoided with skill and ingenuity.

-

	A great marble palace sprawled across the end of the valley. Its farther side faced a long series of shrub-dotted and flower-carpeted terraces with narrow lawns and feathery fountains. Its nearer side was the back looking upon nothing but the valley. Melisande always approached it from the rear because the path through the woods was the short cut to home.

	Mounting the steps she experienced a thrill of excitement as she entered the huge edifice. Wide, mosaic-floored corridors with walls bearing colorful murals led her to the east wing whence came a steady murmur of voices and occasionally the penetrating sound of a caller-trumpet.

	Bright-eyed with anticipation, she went into a large hall whose seats rose in semicircular tiers to considerable height. It was a place originally designed to hold four thousand. The number of people now seated therein came to no more than two hundred—almost a score of empty seats for every one occupied. The place looked bare. The voices of the few floated hollowly around the emptiness, were echoed by the curved walls and reflected by the overhead cupola.

	All the world was like this: facilities for thousands available to mere dozens. Cities with small-town populations; towns numbering no more citizens than a one-time village; and villages holding only three or four families. Whole streets of houses of which half a dozen were homes while the others, empty, silent and glassy-eyed, stared at the lowering sky.

	There were just over one million people on this world. Once upon a time they had numbered four thousand millions. The vanished numbers had long since taken to the star-trails, not like rats leaving a sinking ship but boldly, confidently as those whose destiny has become magnified until too great for the confines of one planet.

	The small remainder were to follow as soon as they were ready. And that was why the two hundred were here, waiting in the hall, fidgety, chattering, a little on edge as they listened for the fateful blare of the caller-trumpet.

	"Eight-two-eight Hubert," it suddenly gave forth. "Room Six."

	A blond giant came up from his seat, stalked down the aisle watched by almost two hundred pairs of eyes. Voices were temporarily silent. He went past Melisande who smiled and murmured low.

	"Good luck!"

	"Thanks!"

	Then he was gone through the distant door. The chatterers resumed. Melisande sat herself at the end of a row next to a thin, swarthy youth of some seven and a half centuries, little older than herself.

	"I'm a minute late," she whispered. "Have they been calling long?"

	"No," he assured. "That last name was the fourth." He stretched out his legs, pulled them in, stretched them out again, surveyed his fingernails, shifted in his seat, registered vague discomfort. "I wish they'd hurry up with this. The strain is rather—"

	"Nine-nine-one Jose-Pietro," boomed the trumpet. "Room Twenty."

	He heard it with his mouth open, his eyes startled. The way he came to his feet was slow, uncertain. He licked thin lips suddenly gone dry, cast an appealing glance at Melisande.

	"That's me!"

	"They must have heard you," she laughed. "Well, don't you want to go?"

	"Yes, of course." He edged past her, his gaze on the door through which the blond Hubert had gone. "But when it comes to the point I sort of go weak in the knees."

	She made a negligent gesture. "Nobody's going to amputate your legs. They're simply waiting to give you a document—and maybe it'll be one with a gold seal."

	Throwing her a look of silent gratitude, he speeded up, exited with a mite more self-assurance.

	"Seven-seven Jocelyn—Room Twelve."

	And immediately after, "Two-four-oh Betsibelle—Room Nineteen."

	Two girls went out, one dark and plump and smiling, one tall, slender, red-haired and serious.

	Came a series of names in quick succession: Lurton, Irene, George, Teresa-Maria, Robert and Elena. Then, after a short interval, the summons for which she was waiting.

	"Four-four Melisande—Room Two!"

-

	The man in Room Two had light gray eyes, snowy hair and smooth, unlined features. He might have been middle-aged—or old, extremely old. There was no way of telling at a time when a person can retain a seamless face and snowy locks for more than a thousand years.

	Waiting for her to be seated, he said: "Well, Melisande, I am happy to say you have passed."

	"Thank you, my tutor."

	"I felt sure you would pass. I viewed it as almost a foregone conclusion." He smiled across at her, went on, "And now you want to know where you are weak, where you are strong. Those are the essential details, aren't they?"

	"Yes, my tutor." She uttered it in low tones, her hands folded demurely in her lap.

	"In general knowledge you are excellent," he informed. "That is something of which to be proud—that one should hold the immense storehouse of wisdom described by the inadequate name of general knowledge. You are also most satisfactory in sociology, mass-psychology, ancient and modern philosophies and transcosmic ethics." He leaned forward, looking at her. "But you are rather poor in general communications."

	"I am sorry, my tutor." She bit her lower lip, vexed with herself.

	"You are nontelepathic and seem quite unable to develop even rudimentary receptivity. When it comes to visual signaling you are somewhat better but still not good enough. Your communication-rate is sluggish, your mistakes numerous, and you appear to be handicapped by a form of tactile uncertainty."

	She was now looking at the floor, her face wearing a blush of shame. "I regret it, my tutor."

	"There is nothing to regret," he contradicted sharply. "One cannot excel in everything, much as one might like to do so." He waited for her eyes to come up, then proceeded, "As for purely vocal forms of communication, you are no more than fair in the guttural languages." A pause, then: "But you are superb in the liquid ones."

	"Ah!" Her features brightened.

	"Your oral and written tests for liquid languages were taken in the speech-patterns of the Valreans of Sirius. Your errors were exactly none. Your vocal rate was three hundred twenty words per minute. The average for the Valreans is three hundred fourteen. That means you can speak their language a little better than they can themselves." He smiled to himself, deriving much satisfaction from the thought that his pupil could outshine the very originators of a linguistic mode. "So now, Melisande, the time has come to make serious decisions."

	"I am ready, my tutor." Her gaze forward was steady, level and unswerving.

	"First I must give you this." He handed her a thin scroll from which dangled a crimson cord terminating in a gold seal. "I congratulate you."

	"Thank you!" Her fingers took it, held it, fondled it like something infinitely precious.

	"Melisande," he asked, gently, "do you desire children?"

	Her answer came evenly, undisturbed, quite without trace of embarrassment. "Not yet, my tutor."

	"Then you consider yourself free to go out?" He gestured toward the window  beyond which a multimillion lights gleamed and beckoned. "Yes."

	His face became solemn. "But you will not abandon all thoughts of children of your own? You will not plunge so deeply and become so absorbed as to be forgetful of your own shape and kind?"

	"I think not," she promised.

	"I am glad of that, Melisande. We are scattered afar, in little groups and numbers over an immensity of places. There is no need to increase our count within the cosmos, no need at all. But we should not reduce that count. We should maintain it. That way lies immortality as a species."

	"Yes, I know. I have thought of it often." She studied her scroll without really seeing it. "I shall play my little part when the right moment comes."

	"You have plenty of time, anyway. You are very young." He sighed as if he wished he could say the same of himself. Crossing the room to where a machine stood by the wall, he opened a cabinet at its side, took out a thick wad of cards. "We'll sort the applications and narrow them down to those most suitable."

	He fed the cards one by one into the machine. They were no more than rectangles of thin, white plastic each bearing a reference number at the head, the rest being perforated with many circular or square-shaped holes. When the lot had been inserted he opened a cover revealing a small keyboard. On this he typed, " Nonvocals," and pulled a lever at one side.

	The machine clicked, whirred, expelled cards in rapid succession. When it had finished, he glanced at its retention-counter.

	"Eighty-four left."

	Again resorting to the keyboard, he picked out the word, " Gutturals." The machine responded by throwing out another spray of cards. "Supersonics." More cards. "Staccatos." Out shot a little bunch. "Whistlers." No result.

	"Twenty-one." He glanced at his pupil. "They are all liquid speakers now but I think it would be as well if we eliminated the slow ones, don't you?" Getting her nod, he reset the keyboard, "300-max." Several cards emerged. Extracting the remainder, he shuffled them in sensitive fingers, eyed the stars through the window. "There are eleven, Melisande. You have eleven worlds from which to choose."

	Filing the first card into a different part of the machine, he set a pair of dials and pressed a stud. The apparatus emitted a faint hum while it warmed up, then a voice came from its hidden speaker.

	It said: "Application Number 109,747. Valrea, a union of four planets located in—"

	Abruptly it cut off as he jabbed another stud in response to a wave of Melisande's hand.

	"You are not interested?"

	"No, my tutor. Perhaps I ought to be because I already know their language and that would save a lot of bother. But they have some of us already, haven't they?"

	"Yes. They applied for four hundred. We sent them thirty-six and, much later on, another twenty." He regarded her with almost paternal solicitude. "You would have company there, Melisande. You would have others of your own kind, few as they are."

	"That may be," she admitted. "But is it fair that people like the Valreans, who have gained some of what they want, should be given still more while others who have none should continue to be denied?"

	"No, it is not." He fed in a second card.

	"Application 118,451," said the machine. "Brank, a single planet located in the Horse's Head Nebula, Section A71, Subsection D19. Mass 1.2. Civilization type-F. The dominant life form is a bipedal vertebrate as shown."

	A screen above the apparatus glowed in full colors, depicted several gaunt, greenish-skinned creatures with long, spindly arms and legs, seven-fingered hands, hairless skulls and enormous yellow eyes.

	For another two minutes the voice poured forth a flood of data concerning Brank and its emaciated inhabitants. Then it ceased and the machine went quiescent.

	"Thirty years ago they asked for a hundred of us," he told Melisande. "We sent ten. They have now been allocated another six of which you may be one if you so desire."

	Seeing that she was noncommittal, he slid another card into the apparatus.

	"Application 120,776. Nildeen, a planet with one large satellite, heavily populated, located in the Maelstrom, Section L7, Subsection CC3."

	It went on and on. The appropriate life form displayed itself on the screen, a tentacular, eyeless type of being with esp-organs protruding from its head like an insect's antenna. The Nildeens already had had forty of Melisande's kind, still wanted more. She turned them down.

	The eleventh and last card aroused her greatest interest, caused her to lean forward with ears alert and eyes alight.

	"Application 141,048. Zelam, a single planet located on the fringe of the known, reference numbers and coordinates not yet filed. Recent contact. Mass I. Civilization type-J. Dominant life form is reptilian as shown."

	They had a faint resemblance to erect alligators, though Melisande did not know it. All of her own planet's lizardlike species had vanished a million years ago. There were now no local forms to which she could liken these horny-skinned, long-jawed and toothy Zelamites. By the standards of the dim past they were appallingly ugly; but by the standards of her especial planet and her especial era they were not ugly. They were merely an individualistic aspect of the same universal thing which is named Intelligence.

	True, the varying forms might also vary in the accuracy with which they reflected this elusive but cosmos-wide thing, yet, taking the long view, it was nothing but a variation in time. Some had more centuries to catch up than did others. Some had come early on the scene and that was their good fortune. Others had come late and that was their hard luck. They were like differently handicapped runners in the same field, spread out, panting, some in front, some behind, but all heading the same way, all destined to pass the finishing line. The Zelamites were held-back runners.

	"I will go to those," she said, making it an irrevocable decision.

-

	Spreading the eleven cards across his desk, he surveyed them with a bothered frown. "They asked for sixty. Everyone asks for far too many, especially the newcomers. We've none to spare just yet. But we don't like to refuse anyone."

	"So?"

	"It has been suggested that we send them one, just one, as a beginning. It would show willingness if nothing else."

	"I am one," she pointed out. 

	"Yes, yes, I know." He had the resigned air of a person about to be cornered without hope of escape. "We would rather that one were masculine." 

	"Why?"

	"Dear me!" It defeated him completely. "There is no reason at all except that we would prefer it."

	"Surely, my tutor, it would be a retrograde step and quite unworthy of us to insist upon something without any reason?"

	"Not if it does no harm," he countered. "There is the true test—whether it does harm or good."

	"Does it do the Zelamites good to refuse them a suitable volunteer?"

	"We are not refusing them, Melisande. There are others besides yourself. Someone else may also have chosen Zelam. A dozen may wish to go there. At this stage, with so many applications, we just can't send all of them. Only one can go now. Others may follow later."

	"Find out for me, please," she begged.

	A mite unwillingly he nicked the switch on his desk and spoke into the silver instrument beside it.

	"How many have selected Zelam, Reference 141,048?"

	There was quite a long wait before the answer came, "None."

	Switching off, he leaned back, eyed her thoughtfully. "You will be lonely."

	"All first arrivals are lonely."

	"There may arise perils beyond imagining."

	"Which will remain the same whether borne by one or shared by a hundred," she gave back, undismayed.

	Searching around for one last item of discouragement, he told her, "The Zelamites are nocturnal. They will expect you to work at night and sleep by day."

	"Those of us on Brank have been doing the same for years, and many more elsewhere. My tutor, should it be harder for me than for them?"

	"No, it should not." He came across to her. "I see that you are determined in your choice. If it be your destiny, it is not for me to thwart it." Taking her hand, he raised it gently, impressed a light kiss upon her fingers in the conventional farewell. "Good luck, Melisande. I am glad to have had you as a pupil of mine."

	"Thank you, my tutor." Holding her scroll tightly to her breast, she paused in the doorway as she went out, gave him a final bright-eyed smile. "And I am proud to have had you!"

	Long after she had gone he sat and gazed absently at the door. They came and they went, one after another. Each arrived as an utter stranger, departed like a child of his very own taking some of his essential essence with them.

	And each one that went forever among the vast concourse of stars made his dying world a fraction smaller, barer, less possessed of life. It is not easy to remain with a long-loved sphere which is nearing its end, to watch the flame die down, watch the shadows creep and grow.

-

	Even at the terrific velocities of this age the journey to Zelam was long and tedious, stretching through days and weeks into many months. It involved several changes, first from a huge hyperspatial mainliner to a smaller branchliner, then to a light blue sphere crewed by dumb Xanthians, then to a battered old rocketship manned by a weirdly mixed mob among whom were two bipeds of Melisande's own kind. Finally to a strange, wedge-shaped and mysteriously powered contraption which sinuous and scintillant Haldisians employed for trading around a small group of systems in one of which was the planet called Zelam.

	Beyond this point was a great sprawl of darkness in which reposed a coil of brilliant mist that eventually would be reached by bigger and better ships. Another island universe. Another mighty host of living shapes and forms the highest of which would share one thing in common—and therefore prove willing to share it yet again.

	But the length of the trip had been useful. With the aid of a phonetic dictionary and a rudimentary phonograph provided by Zelam, plus her own natural aptitude, she had become an accomplished speaker of the language by the time the planet rolled into view.

	Lacking ladder, ramps or anything of that nature, the Haldisians got rid of her by the simple expedient of throwing her through the outer door of the air lock. A power exerted by them personally or perhaps by some unseen apparatus within the vessel—she did not know which—took hold of her, lowered her gently the forty feet to earth. Her luggage followed the same way. So did two of the crew. Another two came out but floated upward, gained the ship's fiat topside, commenced opening cargo hatches.

	There was a small Zelamite deputation to meet her, the news of her coming having been received a few days before. They were bigger than she had expected for the screen on which she had first seen them had given no indication of relative size. The shortest of them towered head and shoulders above her, had sharp-toothed jaws the length of her arm and looked as if he could cut her in half at one savage snap.

	The largest and oldest of the group, a heavily built and warty-faced individual, came forward to meet her, as the others hastened to pick up her bags.

	"You are the one named Melisande?"

	"That's me," she admitted, smiling at him.

	He responded with what looked remarkably like a threatening snarl. It did not mislead her in the least. Her kind had learned a thousand centuries ago that those with different facial contours and bony structure perforce must have different ranges of expressions. She knew that the alarming grimace was nothing but an answering smile.

	The tone of his voice proved it as he went on, "We are pleased to have you." His orange-colored eyes with their slot-shaped pupils studied her a moment before he added in mild complaint, "We asked for a hundred and hoped to get ten, perhaps twenty."

	"More will come in due course."

	"It is to be hoped so." He threw a significant glance toward the ship from which items of cargo were floating down. "The Haldisians have twenty. We are tired of hearing them boast about it. We think we are entitled to at least as many."

	"They started with two of us," she pointed out. "The others came later—as yours will do. We have no choice but to deal with applications in strict rotation."

	"Oh, well—" He spread the long fingers of one hand in the Zelamite equivalent of a shrug, conducted her to a six-wheeled vehicle standing nearby, superintended the loading of her luggage, then got in beside her. "I must compliment you on your fluency. It is remarkable."

	"Thank you."

-

	She concentrated on the blue-moss coated and yellow-flowered landscape as he drove to town at a fast pace. His body exuded a faintly pungent odor which her nostrils noted but her brain ignored. That was another very ancient lesson: that different metabolisms produce different manifestations. How boring would the universe be if all its creatures were identically the same!

	They drew up before a long, low stone-built edifice with high-tilted roofs and plastic windows. The place was imposing mostly because of its lengthy facade. It stretched at least half a mile, had a blue-moss carpet along its front and a railed yard at each end.

	"This is your college." He pointed to the nearer end. "And there is your home." Observing her expression he added by way of explanation, "of course, we cannot expect more than one person can do. We built apartments for ten, with space for extensions if we were lucky enough to get more of you."

	"I see." Getting out, she watched her bags being taken inside. Despite centuries of training, free choice of destination and months of anticipatory journeying, some adjustment still was necessary. "And there is your home," he had said. It would take her at least a week and perhaps a month to get used to thinking of it as home. Probably even more because domestic routine would be topsy-turvy so long as she slept daytimes and worked nights.

	"Before you go in," he suggested, "what about something to eat?"

	"Good heavens, no!" She gave a tinkling laugh. "The Haldisians insisted on providing a farewell dinner. They didn't know when to stop. I don't feel like looking at any more food for days."

	"Armph!" The twist on his reptilian face suggested that he'd have liked it better if the Haldisians had left well alone. "In that case, all I can offer you is the rest and relaxation you must need. Do you think you might be ready to start work tomorrow evening?"

	"Most certainly."

	"You can have longer if you wish."

	"Tomorrow evening will do," she assured.

	"Good—I will tell Nathame. He is our chief cultural supervisor and high in governmental affairs. He will call to see you shortly before you begin."

	Giving her another wide-jawed and toothy smile, he drove away. She watched him go, then went and inspected her front door which the luggage-bearers had left invitingly open. It was a simple vertical shutter affair wound up and down by a side handle and could be fastened from the inside only by means of a small bolt.

	Beyond it lay the passage, solid, motionless, solely to be walked upon and not for automatic transport. And lights that had to be switched because they knew nothing of perpetual illumination. But it was home-to-be.

	She stepped inside.

-

	Nathame came with the twilight on the next day. A sharp-eyed, alert specimen of Zelamite life, he wore glittering insignia on his shoulder-straps, bore himself with authoritative self-assurance. For a while he chatted inconsequentially, his keen gaze never shifting from her face, then added a grumble to the effect that if one person were another world's idea of a hundred it might be better to ask for ten thousand and thus obtain the number really required.

	He fell silent for a bit, occupied by his own thoughts, then said: "Before we made contact with other people we had no history but our own. Now we've had to learn the lore of a whole galaxy. It is a record' voluminous enough to absorb a lifetime. Nevertheless, I have specialized in it and have learned one thing: that your own particular kind of life is supremely clever."

	"Do you think so?" She watched him curiously.

	"I do not think it. I know it." He warmed to his subject. "History records that between sixty and seventy life forms have disappeared from the universal scene. Some warred together and exploded each other's worlds. Some were the victims of cosmic collisions that could be neither foreseen nor avoided. They vanished—pouf!—like that! The large majority died when their suns died and warmth went away from them and supernal cold took over." His orange-colored orbs still stared at her unblinking. "It proves one thing: that an entire species can be exterminated and become as though it had never been."

	"Not necessarily," she contradicted, "because—"

	"Ah!" He held up a hand to halt her. "Of a verity it is for your kind to deny the possibility. What or who can wipe out a life form scattered over a hundred million worlds? Nothing! Nobody!"

	"I don't think anyone would wish to try."

	 "Not unless they were completely crazy," he agreed. "You have made yourselves invincible. You have preserved yourselves for eternity. I call that cleverness of the highest order." He pulled a face. "And how have you done it?"

	"How do you imagine?" she invited.

	"By using your great experience and immense wealth of wisdom to exploit the snobbery of lesser races."

	"I don't see it that way."

	Ignoring her, he went determinedly on, "Your people anticipated disaster. They foresaw that when your sun collapsed no other planet and no other system could or would accept a sudden influx of refugees numbering thousands of millions. But nobody minds a few dozen or hundreds, especially if they add to their hosts' prestige. Comes the master stroke: you persuade them to scramble for self-esteem like children clamoring for gifts. You made them want you."

	"But surely—"

	He silenced her again, clasped his hands together in a peculiarly artificial manner, minced across the room and spoke in high-pitched, long-drawn vowels, manifestly imitating a type of character with which she was not yet familiar.

	"Really, Thasalmie, we wouldn't dream of sending our children to a state school. We've shipped them to the central college at Hei. Terribly expensive, of course. They have Terran tutors there and it makes such a difference in later life when one can say that one has been educated by Terrans."

	Relaxing into a normal pose, he said, "You see? Since the first Haldisian ships discovered us we've had visits from about twenty life forms. Every one of them took up a patronizing attitude. What, you have no Terrans? By the stars, you must be backward! Why, we have twenty on our world—or forty, or fifty as the case may be." His nostrils twitched as he emitted a loud snort. "They boast and they brag and act so superior that everyone on this world develops a severe inferiority complex and starts screaming for an army of Terrans without delay."

	"Braggarts and boasters are not Terran educated," she informed. "We don't produce that kind."

	"Maybe you don't, but that's the effect of your presence among those you've not yet taught. They shine in reflected glory. So I say again that you are supremely clever, and on three counts. You are making use of the fact that the more intelligent a people the less they enjoy being thought stupid. Secondly, you have thus insured your own survival for all time. Thirdly, by being content merely to maintain your numbers and not increase them you are also maintaining the confidence of your various hosts. Nobody views with alarm an alien colony that never grows."

	She smiled at him and remarked, "All along you've been inviting me to say, 'Look who's talking!' Haven't you?"

	"Yes, but you were too diplomatic." Moving nearer and speaking with greater seriousness, he continued, "We asked for a hundred of your kind. Had we got them we would have asked for more. And more again. Not for prestige, but for other and better reasons."

	"Such as?"

	"We look far ahead. The Haldisians, who know more about it than we, say that ours is a short-term sun. That means an end similar to the end of your world. We must seek the same way out because we can conceive no other. The path your kind has made our kind can tread also. The demand for Terrans is greater than the supply—and there aren't many more of you, are there?"

	"Not many," she admitted. "About a million. The old world hasn't long to go."

	"Some day we shall be compelled to say that, too. It would be nice if by that time the Zelamites had become an acceptable substitute for Terrans." He made an imperative gesture. "So there is your job as far as one can take it. It's a hard job. Starting with our brightest children you must make us clever enough to share your salvation."

	"We'll do our best," she promised, deliberately using the plural.

	It did not escape him. Even his face could register gratification. Saluting her, he took his departure. Re-angling her mind and directing it exclusively to the task in hand, she hurried along the main corridor, reached the room from which was coming a shrill uproar.

	Silence dropped like a heavy curtain as she entered. Taking her place by the desk, she surveyed the hundred small, thin-snouted, slot-eyed faces that in turn were examining her with youthful candidness.

	"We shall commence tonight with the basic subject of transcosmic ethics," she informed. Turning around, she faced the dark rectangle that had no counterpart on Terra, picked up the white stick at its base and wrote upon the blackboard in a firm, clear hand.

	"Lesson One. Intelligence is like candy. It comes in an endless variety of shapes, sizes and colors, no one of which is less delectable than the others."

	She glanced over her shoulder to insure that they were giving attention, found them copying it down, orange eyes intent. One had his tongue out, its purple tip laboriously following the movements of his writing instrument.

	Involuntarily her gaze shifted to the transparent roof through which the galactic host looked down. Somewhere within that gleaming swarm was a little red light, weak and dimming. Somewhere near to it was another, silvery blue, shining to the very last.

	The ancient fountain. 

	The guiding star. 

	Old Mother Earth.

The End