Ramsey thought he heard a growl from the box. He stood before it, looking in. The hackles rose on his neck.
“You see,” Vardin said. “My ancestors and yours discovered the power of a god—and did not understand it. We were incorporeal. We created life—your ancestors. We patterned it to fit the evolution of the three thousand worlds. Human life. Millions of them, colonists for the worlds of normal space. We were tampering in our tragic pride, Ramsey, with forces we would never comprehend.
“We colonized the worlds, deciding that physical existence, along with the mental prowess we had, was the ideal state. A few of us, like myself, or my ancestors if you wish, although the purely mental lives continuously—a few of us stayed behind and saw—the loss of a million years!”
Ramsey’s eyes still could not pierce the darkness inside the box.
“What do you mean?” he asked in an awed voice.
“We sent out god-like men. We did not understand our discovery. The god-like men—but look at Garr Symm.”
The spacesuited figure got up slowly. It blinked at Ramsey. It growled. It had a recognizably green, scale-skinned face. But it was not the face of Garr Symm. It was the face of Garr Symm’s caveman ancestors, a million years ago….
“This is what happened to my people,” Vardin said.
She looked at Ramar Chind and Chind, responding, went to Garr Symm and led him quietly back toward the Dog Star. Chind never said a word. Garr Symm growled.
“Take the Earthgirl and go,” Vardin told Ramsey.