There was no word in any language of the Realm of the Llurdi corresponding even remotely to “genocide.” If there had been, Klazmon would have regarded it an an etymological curiosity. All those surviving Fenachrone would have to die: no such race as that had any right whatever to live.

Before being destroyed, however, they would have to be studied with Llurdan thoroughness; and any and all worthwhile ideas and devices and other artifacts should be and would be incorporated into the Llurdan-Jelman way of life.

One vessel would be enough, however, to preserve temporarily for the purpose of study. In fact, what was left of the flagship would be enough.

The now-vanished tail-section had contained nothing new to Llurdan science, the encyclopedic records were intact, and the flagship’s personnel — males and females, adults and adolescents and children and babies — were alive and well.

Wherefore sixteen sets of multiplex projectors doubled their drain of power from Llurdias’ mighty defensive girdle, and all the Fenachrone aboard sixteen superdreadnoughts died in situ, wherever they happened to be, as those sixteen vessels became tiny sunlets.

And the Ilanzlan issued orders:

1) The bulk of the Fenachrone flagship was to be brought in to the llanzlanate at full sixth-order drive.

2) A test section of the llanzlanate was to be converted at once to a completely authentic Fenachrone environment.

3) Every possible precaution was to be taken that no Fenachrone suffered any ill effects on the way, during transfer to their new quarters, or while in their new quarters.

Dropping the Fenachrone flagship and its personnel from his mind, Klazmon immersed himself in thought.

He had learned much. There was much more of menace than he had supposed, in many galaxies other than Galaxy DW-427-LU… especially that so-called First Galaxy… and particularly the Green System or Central System of that galaxy? The green-skinned Norlaminians — how of them? And how of that system’s overlord, Seaton of Tellus? That one was, very evidently, a Jelm… and, even after making all due allowance for Sleemet’s bias, he was of a completely uncontrolled and therefore extremely dangerous type.

And as, evidently, his was a mind of exceeding power, he could very well be a very dangerous and quite immediate threat.

The mergons must be wider-spread even than originally planned and they must be on the lookout for this Overlord Seaton. In fact, he might be worth interviewing personally.

It might be well worth while, some of these years, to take some time off and go to that distant galaxy, purposely to make that Jelm Seaton’s acquaintance…

Shrugging his shoulders and shaking both wings, Klazmon cut off his projection and called another meeting of his Board of Advisors.

He briefed them on what had happened; then went on:

“We must protect all our planets in the same way and to the same extent that this planet Llurdiax is protected now: a course of action now necessary because of these many Jelman and Jelmoid races that have been developing for untold millenia in their unsane and illogical ways, with no semblance of or attempt at either guidance or control.

“Second: any force of any such race that attacks us will be destroyed before it or they can do us any harm.

“Third: the manufacture and distribution of mergons will continue indefinitely at the present rate.

“Fourth: No chance or casual vessel or fleet traversing any part of the vast volume of space to be covered by our mergons is to be destroyed, or even hailed, until I myself decide what action, if any, is to be taken.”

So saying, the Llanzlan Klazmon dismissed his advisors.

His great wings fanned idly as he contemplated what he had done. He was well pleased with it. He had, he reflected, scratching his head contentedly with the tip of his tail, provided for every possible contingency. Whatever this Jelm, or Jelmlike creature, named Seaton might be or do, he would pose no real threat to the Ilanzlanate.

Of that Klazmon was one hundred per cent sure…

And wrong!

6. OF DISEMBODIED INTELLIGENCES

WE have now seen how the ripple of thought that began with the conference between Seaton and his advisors from the Green System had spread throughout all of recorded space, and how it had affected the lives and destinies of countless millions of persons who had never heard of him.

Yet a few threads remain to be drawn into our net. And one of these threads represents the strangest entities Seaton had encountered, ever… as well as the most deadly.

To understand what these entities are like, it is necessary to look back to their beginnings.

These are most remote, both in space and in time. In a solar system so distant from that of Sol as to be forever unknowable to anyone of Earth, and at a time an inconceivably vast number of millennia in the past, there once existed a lusty and fertile Tellus-type planet named Marghol. Over the usual millions of years mankind evolved on Marghol and thrived as usual. And finally, also as usual and according to the scheduled fate of all created material things, the planet Marghol grew old.

Whether or not a Tellus-type planet ordinarily becomes unfit to support human life before its sun goes nova is not surely known. Nor does it matter very much; for, long before either event occurs, the human race involved has developed a faster-than-light drive and has at its disposal dozens or hundreds of Earth-like planets upon which even subhuman life has not yet developed. The planet Marghol, however, while following the usual pattern in general, developed a specific thing that was, as far as is known, unique throughout all the reaches of total space and throughout all time up to the present.

On Marghol, during many, many millions of years of its prime, there had continued to exist a small, tightly-inbred, self-perpetuating cult of thinkers — of men and women who devoted their every effort and their total power to thought.

They themselves did not know what freak of mind or quirk of physical environment made the ultimate outcome possible; but after those many millions of years, during which the perpetually inbreeding group grew stronger and stronger mentally and weaker and weaker physically, the seven survivors of the group succeeded finally in liberating their minds — minds perfectly intact and perfectly functioning — from the gross and perishable flesh of their physical bodies.

Then, able to travel at the unmeasurable speed of thought and with all future time in which to work, they set out to learn everything there was to know. They would learn, they declared, not only all about space and time and zero and infinity and animals and people and life and death, but also everything else comprising or having anything to do with the totality of existence that is the Cosmic All.

This quest for knowledge has been going on, through universe after universe and through dimension after dimension, for a stretch of time that, given as a number in Tellurian years, would be a number utterly incomprehensible to the human mind. For — what perceptible or tangible difference is there, to the human mind, between a googolplex of seconds and the same number of centuries? And, since these free minds ordinarily kept track of time only by the life-cycles of suns, the period of time during which they had already traveled and studied could have been either shorter or longer than either of the two exact figures mentioned.

Seven free minds had left the planet Marghol. They called themselves, in lieu of names, “One” to “Seven” in order of their liberation.

For a brief time — a mere cosmic eye-wink; a few hundreds of millions of years — there had been eight, since One had consented to dematerialize one applicant for immortality.