and then
to make men suitable to live on each new world."

"To make men? But only gods--"

"No, no. Be patient and listen," said Jarl Eleven. "We don't make men.
We make them suitable. There's a great deal of difference between the
two. We take the living germ plasm, the sperm and the egg, and we modify
it. When the modified man emerges, we help him to settle down in his new
world. That's what we did on Tellura--it happened long ago, before
Gerhardt and I were even born. Now we've come back to see how you people
are getting along, and to lend a hand if necessary."

He looked from Honath to Mathild, and back again. "Do you understand?"
he said.

"I'm trying." Honath said. "But you should go down to the jungle-top,
then. We're not like the others; they are the people you want to see."

"We shall, in the morning. We just landed here. But, just because you're
not like the others, we're more interested in you now. Tell me, has any
condemned man ever escaped from the jungle floor before you people?"

"No, never. That's not surprising. There are monsters down there."

Jarl Eleven looked sidewise at the other Giant. He seemed to be smiling.
"When you see the films," he remarked, "you'll call that the
understatement of the century. Honath, how did you three manage to
escape, then?"

Haltingly at first, and then with more confidence as the memories came
crowding vividly back, Honath told him. When he mentioned the feast at
the demon's nest, Jarl Eleven again looked significantly at Adler, but
he did not interrupt.

"And finally we got to the top of the chimney and came out on this flat
space," Honath said. "Alaskon was still with us then, but when he saw
you and the metal thing he threw himself back down the cleft. He was a
criminal like us, but he should not have died. He was a brave man, and a
wise one."

"Not wise enough to wait until all the evidence was in," Adler said
enigmatically. "All in all, Jarl, I'd say 'prodigious' is the word for
it. This is easily the most successful seeding job any team has ever
done, at least in this limb of the galaxy. And what a stroke of luck, to
be on the spot just as it came to term, and with a couple at that!"

"What does he mean?" Honath said.

"Just this, Honath. When the seeding team set your people up in business
on Tellura, they didn't mean for you to live forever in the treetops.
They knew that, sooner or later, you'd have to come down to the ground
and learn to fight