d in a cave under a great mountain.

"The Terrans whom the Great Spirit made lived for a long time, and then,
one day, a man and a woman found a crack in a rock, and went inside, and
they found the cave of the Oomphel-Mother, and the Oomphel-Mother in it.
So they called all the other Terrans, and they brought the
Oomphel-Mother out, and the Oomphel-Mother began to bring forth Oomphel.
The Oomphel-Mother brought forth metal, and cloth, and glass, and
plastic; knives, and axes and guns and clothing--" He went on,
cataloguing the products of human technology, the shoonoon staring more
and more wide-eyed at him. "And oomphel to make oomphel, and oomphel to
teach wisdom," he finished. "They became very wise and very rich.

"Then the Great Spirit saw what the Terrans had done, and became angry,
for it was not meant for the Terrans to do this, and the Great Spirit
cursed the Terrans with a curse of death. It was not death as you know
it. Because the Terrans had sinned by laying hands on the
Oomphel-Mother, not only their bodies must die, but their spirits also.
A Terran has a short life in the body, after that no life."

"This, then, is the Oomphel Secret. The last skin of the fooshkoot has
been peeled away; behold the bitter nut, upon which we Terrans have
chewed for more time than anybody can count. Happy people! When you die
or are slain, you go to the Place of the Gone Ones, to join your fathers
and your fathers' fathers and to await your children and children's
children. When we die or are slain, that is the end of us."

[Illustration]

"But you have brought your oomphel into this world; have you not brought
the curse with it?" somebody asked, frightened.

"No. The People did not sin against the Great Spirit; they have not laid
hands on an Oomphel-Mother as we did. The oomphel we bring you will do
no harm; do you think we would be so wicked as to bring the curse upon
you? It will be good for you to learn about oomphel here; in your Place
of the Gone Ones there is much oomphel."

"Why did your people come to this world, Mailsh Heelbare?" old Shatresh
asked. "Was it to try to hide from the curse?"

"There is no hiding from the curse of the Great Spirit, but we Terrans
are not a people who submit without strife to any fate. From the time of
the Curse of Death on, we have been trying to make spirits for
ourselves."

"But how can you do that?"

"We do not know. The oomphel will not teach us that, though it teaches