'How old are you?' I asked.

'I myself was hatched,' said Misk, 'before we brought our world into your solar system.'He looked down at me.'That was more than two million years ago,' he said.

'Then,' I said, 'the Nest will never die.'

'It is dying now,' said Misk.'One by one we succumb to the Pleasures of the Golden Beetle.We grow old and there is little left for us.At one time we were rich and filled with life and in that time our great patterns were formed and in another time our arts flourished and then for a very long time our only passion was scientific curiosity, but now even that lessens, even that lessens.'

'Why do you not slay the Golden Beetles?' I asked.

'It would be wrong,' said Misk.

'But they kill you,' I said.

'It is well for us to die,' said Misk, 'for otherwise the Nest would be eternal and the Nest must not be eternal for how could we love it if it were so?'

I could not follow all of what Misk was saying, and I found it hard to take my eyes from the inert figure of the young male Priest-King which lay on the stone table.

'There must be a new Nest,' said Misk.'And there must be a new Mother, and there must be the new First Born.I myself am willing to die but the race of Priest-Kings must not die.'

'Would Sarm have this male killed if he knew he were here?' I asked.

'Yes,' said Misk.

'Why?' I asked.

'He does not wish to pass,' said Misk simply.

I puzzled on the machine in the room, the wiring that seemed to feed into the young Priest-King's body at eight points.

'What are you doing to him?' I asked.

'I am teaching him,' said Misk.

'I don't understand,' I said.

'What you know - even a creature such as yourself -' said Misk, 'depends on the charges and microstates of your neural tissue, and, customarily, you obtain these charges and microstates in the process of registering and assimilating sensory stimuli from your environment, as for example when you directly experience something, or perhaps as when you are given information by others or you peruse a scent-tape.This device you see then is merely a contrivance for producing these charges and microstates without the necessity for the time-consuming external stimulation.'

My torch lifted, I regarded with awe the inert body of the young Priest-King on the stone table.

I watched the tiny flashes of light, the rapid, efficient placement of disks and their almost immediate withdrawal.

The instrumentation and the paneling of the room seemed to loom about me.

I considered the impulses that must be transmitted by those eight wires into the body of the creature that lay before us.

'Then you are literally altering his brain,' I whispered.

'He is a Priest-King,' said Misk, 'and has eight brains, modifications of the ganglionic net, whereas a creature such as yourself, limited by vertebrae, is likely to develop only one brain.'

'It is very strange to me,' I said.

'Of course,' said Misk, 'for the lower orders instruct their young differently, accomplishing only an infinitesimal fraction of this in a lifetime of study.'

'Who decides what he learns?' I asked.

'Customarily,' said Misk, 'the mnemonic plates are standardised by the Keepers of the Tradition, chief of whom is Sarm.'Misk straightened and his antennae curled a bit.

'As you might suppose I could not obtain a set of

standardised plates and so I have inscribed my own, using my

own judgement.'

'I don't like the idea of altering its brain,' I said.

'Brains,' said Misk.

'I don't like it,' I said.

'Do not be foolish,' said Misk.His antennae curled.'All

creatures who instruct their young alter their brains.How

else could learning take place?This device is merely a

comparatively considerate, swift and efficient means to an

end that is universally regarded as desirable by rational

creatures.'

'I am uneasy,' I said.

'I see,' said Misk, 'you fear he is becoming a kind of

machine.'

'Yes,' I said.

'You must remember,' said Misk, 'that he is a Priest-King and

thus a rational creature and that we could not turn him into

a machine without neutralising certain critical and

perceptive areas, without which he would no longer be a

Priest-King.'

'But he would be a self-governing machine,' I said.

'We are all such machines,' said Misk, 'with fewer or a

greater number of random elements.'His antennae touched me.

'We do what we must,' he said, 'ane the ultimate control is

never in the mnemonic disk.'

'I do not know if these things are true,' I said.

'Nor do I,' said Misk.'It is a difficult and obscure

matter.'

'And what do you do in the meantime?' I asked.

'Once,' said Misk, 'we rejoiced and lived, but now though we

remain young in body we are old in mind, and one wonders more

often, from time to time, on the Pleasures of the Golden

Beetle.'

'Do Priest-Kings believe in life after death?' I asked.

'Of course,' said Misk, 'for after one dies the Nest

continues.'

'No,' I said, 'I mean individual life.'

'Consciousness,' said Misk, 'seems to be a function of the

ganglionic net.'

'I see,' I said.'And yet you say you are willing to, as you

said, pass.'

'Of course,' said Misk.'I have lived.Now there must be

others.'

I looked again at the young Priest-King lying on the stone

table.

'Will he remember learning these things?' I asked.

'No,' said Misk, 'for his external sensors are now being

bypassed, but he will understand that he has learned things

in this fashion for a mnemonic disk has been inscribed to

that effect.'

'What is he being taught?' I asked.

'Basic information, as you might expect, pertains to

language, mathematics, and the sciences, but he is also being

taught the history and literature of Priest-Kings, Nest

mores, social customs; mechanical, agricultural and

husbanding procedures, and other types of information.'

'But will he continue to learn later?'

'Of course,' said Misk, 'but he will build on a rather

complete knowledge of what his ancestors have learned in the

past.No time is wasted in consciously absorbing old

information, and one's time is thus released for the

discovery of new information.When new information is

discovered it is also included on mnemonic disks.'

'But what if the mnemonic disks contain some false

information?' I asked.

'Undoubtedly they do,' said Misk, 'but the disks are

continually in the process of revision and are kept as

current as possible.

Chapter Sixteen: THE PLOT OF MISK

I took my eyes from the young Priest-King and looked up at

Misk.I could see the disklike eyesin that golden head

above me and see the flicker of the blue torch on their

myriad surfaces.

'I must tell you, Misk,' I said slowly, 'that I came to the

Sardar to slay Priest-Kings, to take vengeance for the

destruction of my city and its people.'

I thought it only fair to let Misk know that I was no ally of

his, that he should learn of my hatred for Priest-Kings and

my determination to punish them, to the extent that it lay

within my abilities, for the evil which they had done.

'No,' said Misk.'You have come to the Sardar to save the

race of Priest-Kings.'

I looked at him dumbfounded.

'It is for that purpose that you were brought here,' said

Misk.

'I came of my own free will!' I cried.'Because my city was

destroyed!'