Stone hesitated, seeking words for an answer.
"Quick, can you tell me how you have done it, so that I may believe you?"
"I have loaded the ships with life."
"Life?"
"Life. I don't know what the great pain is, but I did find that in the experiments, when I sent out masses of animals or plants, the life in the center of the mass lived longest. I built ships—small ones, of course—and sent them out with rabbits, with monkeys—"
"Those are Beasts?"
"Yes. With small Beasts. And the Beasts came back unhurt. They came back because the walls of the ships were filled with life. I tried many kinds, and finally found a sort of life which lives in the waters. Oysters. Oyster-beds. The outermost oyster died in the Great Pain. The inner ones lived. The passengers were unhurt."
"But they were Beasts?"
"Not only Beasts. Myself."
"You!"