herbivores. I remember the meaning of shapes. In the paths
of evolution there are grass eaters and berry eaters and root diggers.
Each has its functional shape of face and neck--and its wide,
startled-looking eyes to see and run away from the hunters. In all their
racial history they have never killed to eat. They have been killed and
eaten, or run away, and they evolved to intelligence by selection. Those
lived who succeeded in running away from carnivores like lions, hawks,
and men.

* * * * *

I look up, and they turn their eyes and heads in quick embarrassed
motion, not meeting my eye. The rabbity one is nearest and I reach out
to touch him, pleased because I am growing strong enough now to move my
arms. He looks at me and I ask the question: "Are there any
carnivores--flesh eaters--among you?"

He hesitates, moving his lips as if searching for tactful words. "We
have never found any that were civilized. We have frequently found them
in caves and tents fighting each other. Sometimes we find them fighting
each other with the ruins of cities around them, but they are always
savages."

The bearlike one said heavily, "It might be that carnivores evolve more
rapidly and tend toward intelligence more often, for we find radioactive
planets without life, and places like the place you call your asteroid
belt, where a planet should be--but there are only scattered fragments
of planet, pieces that look as if a planet had been blown apart. We
think that usually ..." He looked at me uncertainly, beginning to
fumble his words. "We think ..."

[Illustration]

"Yours is the only carnivorous race we have found that was--civilized,
that had a science and was going to come out into space," the doelike
one interrupted softly. "We were afraid."

They seem to be apologizing.

The rabbity one, who seems to be chosen as the leader in speaking to me,
says, "We will give you anything you want. Anything we are able to give
you."

They mean it. We survivors will be privileged people, with a key to all
the cities, everything free. Their sincerity is wonderful, but puzzling.
Are they trying to atone for the thing they feel was a crime; that they
allowed humanity to murder itself, and lost to the Galaxy the richness
of a race? Is this why they are so generous?

Perhaps then they will help the race to get started again. The records
are not lost. The few survivors can eventually repopulate Earth. Under