lanets as naturally and as
inevitably as cats have kittens.

Be that as it may, Arisian records are clear upon the point that before
the two galaxies began to coalesce, there were never more than three
solar systems present in either; and usually only one. Thus, when the
sun of the planet upon which their race originated grew old and cool,
the Arisians were hard put to it to preserve their culture, since they
had to work against time in solving the engineering problems associated
with moving a planet from an older to a younger sun.

Since nothing material was destroyed when the Eddorians were forced into
the next plane of existence, their historical records also have become
available. Those records--folios and tapes and playable discs of
platinum alloy, resistant indefinitely even to Eddore's noxious
atmosphere--agree with those of the Arisians upon this point.
Immediately before the Coalescence began there was one, and only one,
planetary solar system in the Second Galaxy; and, until the advent of
Eddore, the Second Galaxy was entirely devoid of intelligent life.

Thus for millions upon untold millions of years the two races, each the
sole intelligent life of a galaxy, perhaps of an entire space-time
continuum, remained completely in ignorance of each other. Both were
already ancient at the time of the Coalescence. The only other respect
in which the two were similar, however, was in the possession of minds
of power.

Since Arisia was Earth-like in composition, atmosphere, and climate, the
Arisians were at that time distinctly humanoid. The Eddorians were not.
Eddore was and is large and dense; its liquid a poisonous, sludgy syrup;
its atmosphere a foul and corrosive fog. Eddore was and is unique; so
different from any other world of either galaxy that its very existence
was inexplicable until its own records revealed the fact that it did not
originate in normal space-time at all, but came to our universe from
some alien and horribly different other.

As differed the planets, so differed the peoples. The Arisians went
through the usual stages of savagery and barbarism on the way to
Civilization. The Age of Stone. The Ages of Bronze, of Iron, of Steel,
and of Electricity. Indeed, it is probable that it is because the
Arisians went through these various stages that all subsequent
Civilizations have done so, since the spores which burgeoned into life
upon the cooling surfaces of all the planets of the commingling gal