itself the
only sentient form of life, Earth the only home of intelligence, both
from a scientific and a religious point of view. We kind of expected
to find--neighbors out in space. Kit, the sky is full of stars, most
stars have planets. The universe crawls with life, all sorts of life,
all sorts of intelligent life. In short, we are not alone. It would be
sort of like taking the jet-shuttle from Washington to New York during
the evening rush and expecting to be the only one aboard. In reality,
you're lucky to get breathing space.

"There are biped intelligences, like humans. There are radial
intelligences, one-legged species, tall, gangling creatures, squat
ones, pancake ones, giants, dwarfs. There are green skins and pink
skins and coal black--and yes, no skins. There are ... but you get the
idea."

"Uh-huh."

"Strangely enough, most of these intelligences are on about the same
developmental level. It's as if the Creator turned everything on at
once, like a race, and said 'okay, guys get started.' Maybe it's
because, as scientists figure, the whole universe got wound up and
started working as a unit. I don't know. Anyway, that's the way it is.
All the intelligences worth talking about are on about the same
cultural level. Atomics, crude spaceflight, wars they can't handle.

"And this is interesting, Kit. Most of 'em are bipedal. Not really
human, not fully human. You can see the difference. But seventy-five
percent of the races I've encountered have had basic similarities. A
case of the Creator trying to figure out the best of all possible
life-patterns and coming up with this one. Offers a wide range for
action, for adaptation, stuff like that. Anyway, I'm losing track of
things."

"Take it easy. From what you tell me I have all the time in the
world."

"Well, I said all the races are developmentally parallel. That's
almost true. One of them is not. One of them is so far ahead that the
rest of us have hardly reached the crawling stage by comparison. One
of them is the Super Race, Kit.

"Their culture is old, incredibly old. So old, in fact, that some of
us figure it's been hanging around since before the Universe took
shape. Maybe that's why all the others are on one level, a few
thousand million years behind the Super Race.

"So, take this Super Race. For some reason we can't understand, it
seems to be on the skids. That's just figurative. Maybe it's dying
out, maybe it wants to pack up and leave the g