tures were nothing more than an advanced life form with unusual psi
ability. They simply resonated strongly to the psionic attack on the
city. I had the idea backwards thinking they instigated the battle.
We'll never know the truth, though, because they are destroyed. But
their deaths did prove one thing. It allows us to find the real
culprits, the creatures who are leading, directing and inspiring the war
against the city."

"_Who?_" Kerk breathed the question, rather than spoke it.

"Why _you_ of course," Jason told him. "Not you alone, but all of your
people in the city. Perhaps you don't like this war. However you are
responsible for it, and keep it going."

Jason had to force back a smile as he looked at their dumfounded
expressions. He had to prove his point quickly, before even his allies
began to think him insane.

* * * * *

"Here is how it works. I said Pyrran life was telepathic--and I meant
all life. Every single insect, plant and animal. At one time in this
planet's violent history these psionic mutations proved to be survival
types. They existed when other species died, and in the end I'm sure
they co-operated in wiping out the last survivors of the non-psi
strains. Co-operation is the key word here. Because while they still
competed against each other under normal conditions, they worked
together against anything that threatened them as a whole. When a
natural upheaval or a tidal wave threatened them, they fled from it in
harmony.

[Illustration]

"You can see a milder form of this same behavior on any planet that is
subject to forest fires. But here, mutual survival was carried to an
extreme because of the violent conditions. Perhaps some of the life
forms even developed precognition like the human quakemen. With this
advance warning the larger beasts fled. The smaller ones developed
seeds, or burrs or eggs, that could be carried to safety by the wind or
in the animals' fur, thus insuring racial survival. I know this is true,
because I watched it myself when we were escaping a quake."

"Admitted--all your points admitted," Brucco shouted. "But what does it
have to do with _us_? So all the animals run away together, what does
that have to do with the war?"

"They do more than run away together," Jason told him. "They work
together against any natural disaster that threatens them all. Some day
I'm sure, ecologists will go into raptures over the complex adjustments