Buos whipped in front of her angrily. "This is an assignment," he snapped, his emotion crackling the air about him. "We have a purpose here."
"Purpose!" she groaned, settling over a patch of crowded clover. "How many centuries will this assignment last?"
"This world is young," said Buos. "It will take time."
"But how long?" she asked mournfully. "Our world will be shrivelled and dead before these people have the knowledge to rescue us. Why can't we spend our lives here ..."
"And leave the others behind?" said Buos stiffly. "Selfish being," he said sadly. "This world cannot support one-fourth our number."
"Oh, I know, I know," Laloi said. "I do not mean to say such things. I am twisted by my sorrow ..." As if to express her self-abnegation, she corkscrewed out of the clover and into a thin spiral of near-nothingness.
"Settle down, foolish one," said Buos, not unkindly. "I know your feelings. Do you think I am not tormented as well, by the slow pace of these Earth-things? Crude, barbaric beings, like children with the building blocks of science. They have such a long way to go ..."
"And so few know," said Laloi despairingly. "A handful of seeing minds, tens of millions of ignorant ones. Not even first principles—they're stupid, stupid!"
"But they will learn," Buos said stubbornly. "That is historical fact. Someday, they will know the true meanings of matter and light and energy. Slowly, yes, slowly. But in terms of their growth, it will seem like great speed to them ..."