"They hadn't been back on Tellus very long when Dunark came to visit them, from Osnome, after some salt which they needed to make arenak, and some more Rovolon. He was going to blow up another planet of the Central Sun because they were having a war. But Seaton One didn't have enough Rovolon, so both Skylark Two and the Kondal started out to go to the 'X' planet after some, and on the way there they were attacked by a space ship of the Fenachrone, who were a race of terrible men who were going to conquer the whole universe. The Fenachrone blew up the Kondal, and pretty nearly destroyed the Skylark, too, but Seaton One could use zones of force as well as they could—I don't know much about zones of force because they're in advanced physics, but they're barriers in the ether and space ships use them yet because nothing above the fifth level can get through them—and finally Seaton One cut the Fenachrone ship all up into little pieces. Then he rescued Dunark, and one of his wives named Sitar, but one of the bad men got away without being killed and DuQuesne picked him up—"
"But you haven't said anything about DuQuesne being out there, sonny."
"Well, he was. He kept on trying to get the Rovolon away from Seaton One, but couldn't, so he took his own space ship and went to Osnome. You see, while he was there he had found out something about the Fenachrone and was going to join them. Well, he got to Osnome and stole a better space ship than the one he had and started out to go to the Fenachrone System, but on the way he passed close to where Skylark Two was fighting the big Fenachrone ship, which was the flagship Y427W. The chief engineer of the ship got away, and DuQuesne rescued him, and he showed DuQuesne how to get to the Fenachrone world, and he installed his own super-drive on the Violet, which was the name of DuQuesne's ship. But when they got there something funny happened. A Fenachrone patrol ship apparently captured the Violet, and they burned up what they thought were DuQuesne and Loring—this Loring was DuQuesne's helper—and the engineer reported over the visirecorder everything that had happened to the flagship, and Seaton and Crane were listening in on their projector. Now's the funny part. Some of the visirecorder report was right, but some of it didn't really happen that way at all, because Dr. DuQuesne knew all the time what was going—"
"You are getting ahead of the story, sonny. You have heard that part, of course, but you haven't actually seen the record of it yet."
"Well, anyway, Seaton One found out the Fenachrone's plans by reading their brains with a mechanical educator, and he made Dunark's people make peace with the other planet, the one that they were going to blow up. He knew from some old legends that there was a race of green men somewhere in the Central System that knew everything, so he went hunting for them. They went to Dasor first, where those funny porpoise men live, and a Dasorian named Sacner Carfon was councilor then. A Sacner Carfon is councilor there yet, too, and I beat his boy shooting a ray, but he beat me all hollow swimming, because he's got web feet and hands. The Dasorians told Seaton One where to go, and that's how they found Norlamin, where the oldest and wisest men in the whole Galaxy live. Rovol, the First of Rays, and Drasnik, the First of Psychology, and Caslor, the First of Mechanism, and lots of the other Firsts of Norlamin helped them build things.
"Oh, yes; I almost forgot about the way the Norlaminian scientists learn things. When one of them gets old he makes a record of his brain on a tape, and when his son takes his place he just transfers all his knowledge to the son's brain with a mechanical educator, and then he—the son, I mean—knows everything that every specialist in that line ever did find out, and he goes on from there. Rovol and Drasnik and some of the others gave Seaton One and Crane One copies of their own brains that way, and that's why they knew so much. And then they built a projector that would take images of themselves clear across the Galaxy in a couple of seconds on fifth-order rays, and into the middle of suns and anywhere else they wanted to be or work, and then they built Skylark Three, a space ship about five kilometers long. Not so much these days, of course, but she was the biggest thing in the ether then.
"But by that time the Fenachrone fleet had started out to conquer the Galaxy, and Seaton One and Crane One and all the other Ones and the Firsts of Norlamin hunted them up with the projector and blew them up by exploding their power bars, which were made of copper instead of uranium, like Three used. And then Dunark blew up the whole Fenachrone planet, so that they'd never make any more trouble, but one Fenachrone ship got away and started out for another Galaxy, 'way out of range of the projector. So Seaton One chased it and caught it out in space, halfway to the other Galaxy. They had a terrible battle, but Seaton One blew it up and the picture stopped, and I want to see some more of the 'Exploits,' mother, please!"
"Very well told, son—I believe that you are old enough to follow One and his friends of ancient times. You will have them next year, anyway, in your history classes, and you might as well see them now; particularly since it is our own family history as well as that of civilization." The young woman pressed a contact in the arm of her chair and spoke:
"Central Library of History, please.... Mrs. R. B. Seaton fourteen seventy. Please put on reel three of the 'Exploits.' Wave point one nine four six.... Thank you."