On coming nearer, however, Wellesley observed a very curious fact. The Ophirians were of two varieties. The ones in the mud were gross and toadlike in appearance. Whenever they found an especial delicacy they would run, with their webbed feet making smacking sounds in the shoal water, and lay it at the feet of an Ophirian who sat in a wallow of peat moss and mud, and did nothing. He was a much smaller variety, but, Wellesley noted, with considerably greater frontal development to his skull. Also his thin body bore a long, green tail. The tails of the workers were vestigial.
"The chief?" Wellesley asked.
"No," Joseph said. "It's something else."
"Are they a clan, then, or brothers?"
"Closer than brothers," Joseph said, scratching Omur's head.
"I have it—avatars! I should have guessed!" He had heard of this odd genetic arrangement before, but never witnessed it. In such cases a dozen or more individuals were born of a single nucleus in a single egg. Of these, one developed more fully than the rest and controlled his mentally-stunted avatars with a mental vinculum far more fundamental and powerful than mere telepathic union. On the other hand, the avatars were his hands and feet, and had larger bodies.
The large-headed Ophirian sat in his wallow and accepted the food offered him with long, leathery fingers. He crunched noisily. Once he turned to stare at them briefly with great, owl eyes. Eleven avatars turned simultaneously to stare. It was like looking into a multiple mirror.
"They sense us," Joseph said, "but they can't see us. Come on."
From nearby, the pipes were even more awe-inspiring. Besides the massive old towers there were smaller ones in every stage of development. It was incredible to think that they were actually growing; pushing up out of the lake.