ination, the fact still
remains. If your country is truly better, but if I have seen your
country only through the eyes of Pravda, how can I ... I don't know,
Kit. Let me think."

"You needn't," said Arkalion, smiling. "If the two of you would let me
get on with it you'd see this particular train of thought is
meaningless, quite meaningless." Arkalion cleared his throat.

"Strange, but I have much the same problem as Sophia has. My
indoctrination was far more subtle though. Far more convincing, based
upon eons of propaganda methods. Temple, Sophia, those who initiated
the Nowhere Journey for hundreds of worlds of your galaxy did so with
a purpose."

"I know. To decide who gets their vast knowledge."

"Wrong. To find suitable hosts in a one-way relationship which is
hardly symbiosis, really out and out parasitism."

"What?"

And Sophia: "What are you talking about?"

"The sick, decadent, tired old creatures you consider your superiors.
Parasites. They need hosts in order to survive. Their old hosts have
been milked dry, have become too highly specialized, are now incapable
physically or emotionally of meeting a wide variety of environmental
challenges. The Nowhere Journey is to find a suitable new host. They
have found one. You of Earth."

"I don't understand," Temple said, remembering the glowing accounts of
the 'superboys' he had been given by his brother Jason. "I just don't
get it. How can we be duped like that? Wouldn't someone have figured
it out? And if they have all the power everyone says, there isn't much
we can do about it, anyway."

Arkalion scowled darkly. "Then write Earth's obituary. You'll need
one."

"Go ahead," Sophia told Arkalion. "There's more you want to say."

"All right. Temple's thought is correct. They have tremendous power.
That is why you could be duped so readily. But their power is not
concentrated here. These much-faster-than-light ships are an extreme
rarity, for the power-drive no longer exists. Five ships in all, I
believe. Hardly enough to invade a planet, even for them. It takes
them thousands of years to get here otherwise. Thousands. Just as it
took me, when I came to Mars and Earth in the first place."

"What?" cried Temple. "You...."

"I am one of them. Correct. I suppose you would call me a subversive,
but I have made up my mind. Parasitism is unsatisfactory, when the
Maker got us started on symbiosis. Somewhere along the line, evolution
took a wrong turn. We are