ack,
his senses sharpen and the poisons of fatigue and mental strain
disappear.

"I'm listening," he said.

Tamu set his glass on the edge of a nearby table and bent forward, his
manner earnest. "It won't take long, Martin Kirk. Hear me. We of Mythox
are far in advance of the peoples of Earth--both spiritually and
scientifically. Life on our planet materialized in much the same manner
as on your own world, but countless ages before. Almost the same process
of evolution took place; but somewhere along the line humanity on Mythox
managed to reach full development without the flaws of character found
among so many of Earth's inhabitants. When I tell you that we find it
almost impossible to voice an untruth, that taking a human life
willfully for any reason is equally difficult, that crime of any nature
is almost unknown here--then you will see the difference between the two
planets.

"For ages our scientists have observed the events taking place on Earth.
By perfecting a method for changing matter from terrene to
contraterrene, we have managed to bridge the million light years of
space separating our worlds as we saw fit. Thousands of years ago we
could have gained control of your ball of clay and turned mankind into
any pattern we might choose.

"That is not our way, Martin Kirk. Free will is our heritage too--and we
respect it in ourselves, and for that reason must respect it in others.
So long as Earth's peoples confined their more destructive tendencies to
themselves we kept our hands off--even while we failed to understand
such senseless conduct.

"And then one day we witnessed an explosion on Earth's surface--an
explosion different from any of the countless ones before it. That
explosion was the first man-made release of atomic energy--a process we
had known how to bring about for ages, but one we would never use. For
we have learned the secret of limitless power without the transformation
of mass into energy. Your way is the way of destruction, Martin Kirk;
ours is exactly the opposite.

"For the first time, the leaders of Mythox knew the meaning of
fear--fear that, once Earth's scientists had found the secret of nuclear
fission they would go on to the one extreme forbidden throughout the
Universe itself.

"And so we acted. Not in the way your people would have acted were the
situations reversed. For we were still determined that there would be no
intervention on our part in Earth's affairs--and that is st