have gone to join the Gone Ones. Why
should you not, also? And why should the Gone Ones come back and destroy
the World of People? Then your children will have no more children, and
your children's children will never be. It is in the World of People
that the People are born; it is in the World that they grow and gain
wisdom to fit themselves to live in the Place of the Gone Ones when they
are through with the bodies they use in the World. You should be happy
that there will be no Last Hot Time, and that the line of your
begettings will go on and not be cut short."

There were murmurs of agreement with this. Most of them were beginning
to be relieved that there wouldn't be a Last Hot Time, after all. Then
one of the class asked:

"Do the Terrans also go to the Place of the Gone Ones, or have they a
place of their own?"

He was silent for a long time, looking down at the floor. Then he raised
his head.

"I had hoped that I would not have to speak of this," he said. "But,
since you have asked, it is right that I should tell you." He hesitated
again, until the Kwanns in front of him had begun to fidget. Then he
asked old Shatresh: "Speak of the beliefs of the People about how the
World was made."

"The great Spirit made the world." He held up his carven obscenity. "He
made the World out of himself. This is a make-like to show it."

"The Great Spirit made many worlds. The stars which you see in dark-time
are all worlds, each with many smaller worlds around it. The Great
Spirit made them all at one time, and made people on many of them. The
Great Spirit made the World of People, and made the Always-Same and the
Sky Fire, and inside the Sky Fire he made the Place of the Gone Ones.
And when he made the Place of the Gone Ones, he put an Oomphel-Mother
inside it, to bring forth oomphel."

This created a brief sensation. An Oomphel-Mother was something they had
never thought of before, but now they were wondering why they hadn't. Of
course there'd be an Oomphel-Mother; how else would there be oomphel?

"The World of the Terrans is far away from the World of People, as we
have always told you. When the Great Spirit made it He gave it only an
Always-Same, and no Sky Fire. Since there was no Sky Fire, there was no
place to put a Place of the Gone Ones, so the Great Spirit made the
Terrans so that they would not die, but live forever in their own
bodies. The Oomphel-Mother for the World of the Terrans the Great Spirit
hi