"Open it," said the Guardian.
Angus bent and lifted the cover. He gazed on the archaic lettering etched into the thick vellum.
Each man has in him the seeds of his own immortality. He must progress or he must die. And the race is like the man. Who shall say what path that progression shall take? A man cannot know his own future. Neither does the race. This is the Book of Nard, first of the Elder Race. With encouragement to all peoples who come after us, we leave this short transcript of our past.
Angus lifted his eyes. He stared at the smiling Guardian, who nodded. Quickly the pirate touched the parchment, spread the pages wide. His keen blue eyes scanned the etchings while he read the record of those who had gone on. He scanned mathematical and astronomical formulae, chemical equations, biological charts.
He whispered, "The entire history of the race, told in the achievements of its scientists!"
"It is all that lives."
"I don't understand it, of course. I catch a thought, here and there. But the entire equation...."
"You don't understand it?"
"No."
The old man smiled. He said suddenly, "Would you like to see some of those achievements in action? Would you like to see the worlds in three-dimensional space, the island universes, the galaxies, the stars and their planets?"