present only to the omnipotence Who we of Mallidax call Llenderllon. All we know about
life is that it is an immensely strong binding force and that its source-proximate, I mean,
of course, not its ultimate origin-is the living spores that are drifting about in open
space.”
“Wait a minute,” DuQuesne said. “We had a theory like that long ago. So did Tellus-a
scientist named Arrhenius -but all such theories were finally held to be untenable.
Wishful thinking.”
“I know. Less than one year ago, however, after twenty years of search. I found one
such spore. Its descendants have been living and evolving ever since.”
DuQuesne’s jaw dropped. “You don’t say! That I want to see!”
Tammon nodded. “I have rigorous proof of authenticity. While it is entirely unlike any
other form of life with which I am familiar, it is very interesting.”
“It would be, but there’s one other objection. What is the chance that on any two worlds
humanity would have reached exactly the same stage of evolution at any given time?”
“Ali! That is the crux of my theory, which I hope some day to prove; that when man’s
brain becomes large enough and complex enough to employ his hands efficiently
enough, the optimum form of fife for that environment has been reached and evolution
stops. Thenceforth all mutants and sports are unable to compete with Homo Sapiens
and do not survive.”
DuQuesne thought for a long minute. Norlamin was very decidedly not a Tellus-type
planet. “Some Xylmnians have it, `Man is the ultimate creation of God.’ On Tellus it’s
`God created man in his own image.’ And of course the fact that. I’ve never believed it-
and I still think it’s unjustifiable racial self-glorification-does not invalidate it.”
“Of course it doesn’t. But to revert to the main topic, would you be willing to cooperate
in an in vivo experiment?”
DuQuesne smiled at that, then chuckled deeply. “I certainly would, sir; and not for
purely scientific reasons, either.”
“Oh, that would be no problem. Nor is your present quest-it will take only a short time to
install the various mechanisms in your vessel and to instruct you in their use. If my snap
judgment is sound, however, this other may very well become of paramount importance
and require a few days of time.” He touched a button on an intercom and said, “Senny.”
“Yes?” came in a deep contralto from the speaker.
“Will you come in here, please? It concerns the in vivo experiment we have been
discussing.”
“Oh? Right away, Tamm,” and in about half a minute $ young woman came striding in.
DuQuesne stared, for she was a living shield-maiden-a veritable Valkyrie of flesh and
blood. If she had had wings and if her pale blonde hair had been flying loose instead of
being piled high on her head in thick, heavy braids, DuQuesne thought, she could have
stepped right out of Wagenhorst’s immortal painting Ragnarok.
Tammon introduced them. `Seeker Sevance of Xylmny, Savant Sennlloy of Allondax,
you two are to become friends.”
“I’m happy that we are to become friends,” the girl said, in English, extending her
hands. DuQuesne took them, bowed over them; and said, “May our friendship ripen
and deepen.”
She examined him minutely, from the top of his head down to his toenails, in silence;
then, turning to Tammon, she uttered a long sentence of which DuQuesne could not
understand a word.
“You should speak English, my dear,” Tammon said. “It is inurbane to exclude a guest
from a conversation concerning him.”
“It is twice as inurbane,” she countered in English, “to insult a guest, even by
implication, who does not deserve it.”
‘That is true,” Tammon agreed, “but I have studied him to some little depth and it is
virtually certain that the matter lies in your province rather than mine. The decision is, of
course, yours. Caps-on with him, please, and decide:”
She donned a helmet and handed its mate to DuQuesne. Expecting a full-scale mental
assault, he put up every block he had; but she did not think at him at all. Instead, she
bored deep down into the most abysmal recesses of his flesh; down and down and
down to depths where heexpert though he was at synthesizing perfectly any tangible
article of matter–could not follow.
Eyes sparkling, she tossed both helmets onto a bench and seized both his hands in a
grip very different from the casual clasp she had used a few minutes before. “I am glad-
very, very glad, friend Seeker Sevance, that we are friends!”
Although DuQuesne was amazed at this remarkable change, he played up. He bowed
over her hands and, this time, kissed each of them. “I think you, Lady Sennlloy. My
pleasure is immeasurable.” He smiled warmly and went on, “Since I am a stranger and
thus ignorant of your conventions and in particular of your taboos, may I without offense
request the pleasure of your company at dinner? And my friends call me Vance.”
She returned his smile as warmly. Neither of them was paying any attention at all to
anyone else in the room. “And I accept your invitation with joyous thanks. We go out
that mine call me Senny. You may indeed, friend Vance, and archway there and turn
left.”
They walked slowly toward the indicated exit; side by side and so close together that hip
touched hip at almost every step. In the corridor, however, Sennlloy put her hand on
DuQuesne’s arm and stopped. “But hold, friend Vance,” she said. “We should, don’t
you think, make this, our first meal together, ono of full formality?”
“I do indeed. I would not have suggested it but I’m very much in favor of it.”
“Splendid! We’ll go to my room first, then. This way,” and she steered him into and
along, a corridor whose blankly featureless walls were opaque instead of transparent.
Was this his cue? DuQuesne wondered. No, he decided. She wasn’t the type to rush
things. She was civilized . . . more so than he was. If he didn’t play it just about right
with this girl, who was very evidently a big wheel, she could and very probably would
queer his whole deal.
As they strolled along DuQuesne saw that the walls were not quite featureless. At about
head height, every twentyfive feet or so, there was inset a disk of optical plastic perhaps
an inch in diameter. Stopping, and turning to face one of these disks, Sennlloy pressed
her right forefinger against it, explaining as she did so, “It opens to my fingerprints only.”
There was an almost inaudible hiss of compressed air and a micrometrically fitted door-
a good seven feet high and three feet wide-moved an inch out into the hall and slid
smoothly aside upon tracks that certainly had not been there an instant before.
DuQuesne never did find out how the thing worked. He was too busy staring into the
room and watching and hearing what the girl was doing and saying.
She stepped back a half-step, bowed gracefully from the waist, and with a sweeping
gesture of both hands invited him to precede her into the room. She started to say
something in her own language-Allondaxian-but after a couple of words changed
effortlessly to English. “Friend Seeker Sevance, it is in earnest of our friendship that I
welcome you into the privacy of my home”-and her manner made it perfectly clear that,
while the phraseology was conventionally formal, in this case it was really meant.
And DuQuesne felt it; felt it so strongly that he did not bluff or coin a responsive phrase.
Instead: “Thank you, Lady Sennlloy. We of Xylmny do not have anything comparable,
but I appreciate your welcome and thank you immensely.”
Inside the room, DuQuesne stared. He had wondered what this girl’s private quarters
would be like. She was a master scientist, true. But she was warmly human, not
bookishly aloof. And what would seventy thousand years of evolution do to feminine
vanity? Especially to a vanity that apparently had sever been afflicted by false
modesty? Or by any sexual taboos?
The furniture-heavy, solid, plain, and built of what looked like golden oak-looked
ordinary and utilitarian enough. Much of it was designed for, and was completely filled
with and devoted to, the tools and equipment and tapes and scanners of the top-
bracket biologist Senalloy of Allondax in fact was. The floor was of mathematically
figured, vari-colored, plastic tile. The ceiling was one vast sheet of softly glowing white
light.
Three of the walls were ordinary enough. DuQuesne scarcely glanced at them because
of the fourth, which was a single canvas eight feet high and over thirty feet long. One
painting. What a painting! A painting of life itself; a painting that seemed actually to
writhe and to crawl and to vibrate with the very essence of life itself!
One-celled life, striving fiercely upward in the primordial sea toward the light. Fiercely
striving young fishes, walking determinedly ashore on their fins. Striving young