could he do anything to
save what he had found here. He wrenched himself free of her arms.

"It's no use, Niaga."

She knew that she had lost, and she moved away from him. One of the other
golden-skinned savages pushed a small, carved box into his hands.

"A parting gift," Niaga said. "Open it when you are aboard your ship,
Martin Lord."

Long after the _Ceres_ had blasted off, he sat alone in his cabin looking
at the box--small, delicately carved from a strange material, like a soft
plastic. It seemed somehow alive, throbbing with the memory of the dream
he had left behind.

With a sigh he opened the box. A billow of white dust came from it. The
box fell apart and the pieces, like disintegrating gelatine, began to melt
away. A printed card, made of the same unstable material, lay in Lord's
hand.

"You have three minutes, Martin Lord," he read. "The drug is painless, but
before it wipes memory from the minds of you and your crew, I want you to
understand why we felt it necessary to do this to you.

"When you first landed, we realized that you came from a relatively
immature culture because you made no response to our telepathy of welcome.
We did our best after that to simplify your adjustment to our way of life,
because we knew you would have to stay among us. Of course, we never really
learned your language; we simply gave you the illusion that we had. Nor
is there any such thing as a council of elders; we had to invent that to
satisfy you. We truly wanted you to stay among us. In time you could have
grown up enough--most of you--to live with us as equals. We knew it would
be disastrous for you to carry back to your world your idea of how we live.
We are the tomorrow of your people; you must grow up to us. There is no
other way to maturity. We could not, of course, keep you here against your
will. Nor could we let you go back, like a poison, into your world. We
could do nothing else but use this drug. The impact of civilization upon
a primitive people like yours...."

The words hazed and faded as the note disintegrated. Lord felt a moment of
desperate yearning, a terrible weight of grief. With an effort he pushed
himself from his chair and pulled open the door into the corridor. He had
to order the ship back while he could still remember; he had to find Niaga
and tell her ...

... tell her. Tell whom? Tell what? Lord stood in the corridor staring
blankly at the metal wall. He was just a little puzzled as to w