"The problem is that you actively and often maliciously attack the symmetry of creation," the Watcher said. The extension fixed her large blue eyes on Vinn. "In nature, development of a particular species can be looked upon as somewhat experimental. It's as if creation says—ah, let's see if this will work. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but if a species vanishes it was not the experiment that failed, but the subject of that experiment. You overturn the entire scheme of things by, in effect, taking over the experiment yourself. You are not content to live in your environment, you change it to suit your desires at the moment. Let me give you an example. Through you I know the planet you call Terra II. Ithas taken centuries of effort to even partially repair the damage you did to it."

"That was thousands of years ago," Vinn said. "And speaking of altering the environment, what do you call what was done to this planet?"

"It is not necessary to justify the actions of the Creators," the Watcher said. "However, I will tell you that eradicating life from this planet was a part of the restoration of balance. Unlike what you did to your Earth, the actions taken by the Creators were essential. You know so little about your own mother planet, but you do know that you soiled it, used it up, and then charred it. You made it unfit for life except in its lowest forms."

"You know Earth?" Vinn asked.

"Only through your knowledge of it, but I can describe it to you. Once it thrived with living things. Creation has a talent for seeking out and filling with life all possible habitats. There were millions of species of vegetation.

There was an extravagant diversity of animal life and bird life, not to mention insects and microbes and other microscopic forms. Then evolution produced you and you altered the experiment. You lifted yourselves beyond the purpose for which you were intended. For just such a situation have we been waiting."

"You have been waiting to do what?" Iain asked.

"We will discuss that," the Watcher said.

"How long have you waited?" Vinn asked.

"No matter, you have come. Now we must decide."

"We can't decide anything with nothing more than hints about you and your purpose," Vinn said. "Before we attempt to make any heavy decisions, we have to have the answers to a few basic questions."

The extension nodded.

"First, tell me how you regard yourself."

"I am that which was created."

"By whom?"

"By the Creators."

"Do you consider yourself to be a living entity?"

"From your own mind I find the phrase: I think, therefore I am."

"That's an evasive answer," Vinn said.

"You would call me a machine."

"A thinking computer with the ability to reason and learn?"

"Yes."

"Therefore you were manufactured, put together, by someone like us, someone who breathed oxygen, someone who was flesh and blood."

"Yes."

"Who were your creators?"

"Yes, you would have to ask, wouldn't you? You have no way of knowing."

"No, we don't know," Vinn said.

"I was created by you."

Pete, who had been leaning forward eagerly, sat back with an audible sigh of exasperation.

"And the Sleepers," Vinn said. "Who are they?"

"They are what you would have been."

"Would have been if what?" Vinn asked in exasperation.

"Excuse me, Vinn," Pete said, "isn't this just so much mumbo jumbo?

Let's ask this thing why it killed my wife's family."

"I will answer that question. Those who trespassed were silenced because, as I have pointed out to you, it is the intent of creation that each life-form be allowed to perform its purpose."

"I'm sorry," Vinn said, "that doesn't make sense. Those who came to your planet were, at least in their view, going about a purpose. It's the nature of mankind to seek knowledge."

"It has been your nature to disregard the intent of creation, to interrupt the natural process, to destroy, to alter. The Creators saw this and took steps to restore the balance."

Vinn wiped a film of nervous perspiration from his forehead. It was easy to forget that the lovely woman who smiled at him so caringly was nothing more than metals and plastics. The way she— or it—was lecturing them told him that the Watcher considered itself to be superior, but there was a chilling irrationality in its reasoning.

A world had been, somehow, wiped clean of life and then turned into a frozen fortress to guard what seemed to be a force of cosmic enforcers of a doctrine that not only questioned but prohibited human achievement.

There was no time to think through the hints and tidbits of information that the Watcher had thrown out, but it was evident that the Watcher and its creators believed that the development of life was common in the galaxy, and that the end result of creation, or the evolution of life-forms, was man, or something so like man that there was, in the Watcher's awareness, no difference.

Of course, they were curious, the four who sat on the age-dried coverings of the functionally designed chairs and listened to the words of the Watcher coming from the lips of an imitation of life in the form of a beautiful woman. But there was an underlying implication of deadly danger that made Vinn want to look over his shoulder. He had used the finely tuned sensors of the E.V.A. suit's gloves to touch the smooth, artificial skin of the female who sat demurely opposite them. There had been no life there. The skin was cold and unfeeling. She was nothing more than an extension of a machine, and he was beginning to think that that machine, the Watcher, was not rational or—equally as dangerous, that those who had made the machine and set it to make life and death decisions in the name of keeping nature's balance had been psychopathic to the point of believing that it was their duty to commit genocide in the name of a natural balance.

There was an air of tension in the stark room. Vinn felt as if he should be doing something, that time was running out.

"I'd like for you to explain that last statement," Vinn said. "Just how did those who made you restore the balance?"

"You have seen," the lovely woman said with a slight smile, and into Vinn's mind sprang the images of the dead worlds spinning their way through eternal emptiness.

On the hand holding his rifle, Iain's knuckles went white. "Vinn," he said, "I think it's time we started looking for an exit."

"Not yet," the Watcher said. "It has not been decided." The extension rose. "Now you will come with me."

"Not just yet," Vinn said. "Why did the Creators destroy those planets we call the Dead Worlds?"

"To restore the balance in that segment of the galaxy," the Watcher said.

"Men like us lived on those worlds?" Vinn asked.

"Yes."

"You have accused us of being insensitive, of doing damage to worlds, of depriving other species of the right to fulfill their purpose. How can you justify the slaughter of billions of people?"

"When you administer a drug to cure yourself of an infectious illness you destroy billions of units of life to restore the equilibrium within your own personal system," the Watcher said.

"If you think that comparing mankind to a virus is original," Pete said angrily, "you're crazy."

"It was, I felt, an analogy you could understand."

"We may understand more than you give us credit for," Pete said.

"Vinn, let's go," Iain said nervously.

"Not just yet," Pete said.

"Come," said the extension, moving toward the door to the chamber.

Vinn followed the extension into a long corridor. He tensed, and his hand was on the butt of his weapon. Iain bumped into him, lifted his saffer rifle. Dozens of silent, still, metallic, anthropoid forms stood with their backs against the walls.

"They are not animated," the Watcher said.