“I am not a Tellurian. I am from the planet Xylmny; which, while very similar to Tellus, lies in a distant galaxy.” He told the caller, as well as he could in words, where Xylmny was. “I am a Seeker, Sevance by name. I have visited many planets very similar to yours and to Tellus and to my own in my Seeking. Tellus itself had nothing worthy of my time, but I learned there that you have a certain knowledge as yet unknown to me; that of operating through the fourth dimension of space instantaneously, without becoming lost hopelessly therein, as is practically always the case when rotation is employed. Therefore I of course followed you.”

“Naturally. I would have done the same. I am Savant Tammon of the planet Mallidax — Llurdiaxorb Three which is our destination. You, then, have had one or more successes in rotation? Our rotational tests all failed.”

“We had only one success. As a Seeker I will be glad to give you the specifications of the structures, computers, and forces required for any possibility of success — which is very slight at best.”

“This meeting is fortunate indeed. Have I your permission to come aboard your vessel, as such time as we approach each other nearly enough to make the fourth dimensional transfer feasible?”

“You certainly may, sir. I’ll be very glad indeed to greet you in the flesh. And until that hour, Savant Tammon, so long and thanks.”

Since Mergon braked the Mallidaxian down hard to help make the approach, and since the two vessels did not have to be close together even in astronomical terms, it was not long until Tammon stood facing DuQuesne in the Capital D’s control room.

The aged savant inhaled deeply, flexed his knees, and said, “As I expected, our environments are very similar. We greet new friends with a four-hand clasp. Is that form satisfactory?”

“Perfectly; it’s very much like our own,” DuQuesne said; and four hands clasped briefly.

“Would you like to come aboard our vessel now?” Tammon asked.

“The sooner the better,” and they were both in Tammon’s laboratory, where Mergon and Luloy looked DuQuesne over with interest.

“Seeker Sevance,” Tammon said then, “these are Savant Mergon, my first assistant, and Savant Luloy, his… well, ‘wife’ would be, I think, the closest possible English equivalent. You three are to become friends.”

The hand-clasp was six-fold this time, and the two Jelmi said in unison. “I’m happy that we are to become friends.”

“May our friendship ripen and deepen,” DuQuesne improvised the formula and bowed over the cluster of hands.

“But Seeker,” Luloy said, as the cluster fell apart, “must all Seekers do their Seeking alone? I’d go stark raving mad if I had to be alone as long as you must have been.”

“True Seekers, yes. While it is true that any normal man misses the companionship of his kind, especially that of the opposite sex—” DuQuesne gave Luloy a cool, contained smile as his glance traversed her superb figure — “even such a master of concentration as a true Seeker must be can concentrate better, more productively, when absolutely alone.”

Tammon nodded thoughtfully. “That may well be true. Perhaps I shall try it myself. Now — we have some little time before dinner. Is there any other matter you would like to discuss?”

For that question DuQuesne was well prepared. A Seeker, after all, needs something to be Sought; and as he did not want to appear exclusively interested in something which even the unsuspicious Jelmi would be aware was a weapon of war, he had selected another subject about which to inquire. So he said at once:

“A minor one, yes. While I am scarcely even a tyro in biology, I have pondered the matter of many hundreds probably many millions — of apparently identical and quite possibly inter-fertile human races spaced so immensely far apart in space that any possibility of a common ancestry is precluded.”

“Ah!” Tammon’s eyes lit up. “One of my favorite subjects; one upon which I have done much work. We Jelmi and the Tellurians are very far apart indeed in space, yet cross-breeding is successful. In vitro, that is, and as far as I could carry the experiment. I can not synthesize a living placenta. No in vitro trial was made, since we of course could not abduct a Tellurian woman and not one of our young women cared to bear a child fathered by any Tellurian male we saw.”

“From what I saw there I don’t blame them,” agreed DuQuesne. It was only the truth of his feelings about Tellurians — with one important exception. “But doesn’t your success in vitro necessitate a common ancestry?”

“In a sense, yes; but not in the ordinary sense. It goes back to the unthinkably remote origin of all life. You can, I suppose, synthesize any non-living substance you please? Perfectly, down to what is apparently its ultimately fine structure?”

“I see what you mean.” DuQuesne, who had never thought really deeply about that fact, was hit hard. “Steak, for instance. Perfect in every respect except in that it never has been alive. No. We can synthesize DNA-RNA complexes, the building blocks of life, but they are not alive and we can not bring them to life. And, conversely, we cannot dematerialize living flesh.”

“Precisely. Life may be an extra-dimensional attribute. Its basis may lie in some order deeper than any now known. Whatever the truth may be, it seems to be known at present only to the omnipotence Who we of Mallidax call Llenderllon. All we know about life is that it is an immensely strong binding force and that its source — proximate, I mean, of course, not its ultimate origin — is the living spores that are drifting about in open space.”

“Wait a minute,” DuQuesne said. “We had a theory like that long ago. So did Tellus — a scientist named Arrhenius — but all such theories were finally held to be untenable. Wishful thinking.”

“I know. Less than one year ago, however, after twenty years of search I found one such spore. Its descendants have been living and evolving ever since.”

DuQuesne’s jaw dropped. “You don’t say! That I want to see!”

Tammon nodded. “I have rigorous proof of authenticity. While it is entirely unlike any other form of life with which I am familiar, it is very interesting.”

“It would be, but there’s one other objection. What is the chance that on any two worlds humanity would have reached exactly the same stage of evolution at any given time?”

“Ah! That is the crux of my theory, which I hope some day to prove; that when man’s brain becomes large enough and complex enough to employ his hands efficiently enough, the optimum form of fife for that environment has been reached and evolution stops. Thenceforth all mutants and sports are unable to compete with Homo Sapiens and do not survive.”

DuQuesne thought for a long minute. Norlamin was very decidedly not a Tellus-type planet. “Some Xylmnians have it, ‘Man is the ultimate creation of God.’ On Tellus it’s ‘God created man in his own image.’ And of course the fact that I’ve never believed it — and I still think it’s unjustifiable racial self-glorification — does not invalidate it.”

“Of course it doesn’t. But to revert to the main topic, would you be willing to cooperate in an in vivo experiment?”

DuQuesne smiled at that, then chuckled deeply. “I certainly would, sir; and not for purely scientific reasons, either.”

“Oh, that would be no problem. Nor is your present quest — it will take only a short time to install the various mechanisms in your vessel and to instruct you in their use. If my snap judgment is sound, however, this other may very well become of paramount importance and require a few days of time.” He touched a button on an intercom and said, “Senny.”

“Yes?” came in a deep contralto from the speaker.

“Will you come in here, please? It concerns the in vivo experiment we have been discussing.”