“Mr. Cabot,” she asked, “how could Baby Kew know anything about playing horse, seeing as there are no horses on Poros?”
Myles laughed good-naturedly.
“I said ‘horse’,” he explained, “merely to give an earthly allusion. What the little king thinks he is riding on is a whistling bee.”
This suggested another question.
“What of Portheris and his swarm?” I inquired. “Has it never occurred to you that these Hymernians, as you call them, are a race of intelligent beings almost on a par with the Cupians and the Formians, and that, therefore, there are still two races of intelligent beings on the Planet Poros? How about your assertion, made in the council hall of the palace at Kuana, that ‘there is no room on any given planet for more than one race of intelligent beings’?”
Cabot tried to laugh it off, but I could see that the suggestion worried him.
“The Hymernians are not exactly human,” he objected.
“Neither were the ants,” I countered.
After which he remained for some time in abstracted silence, evidently turning over the possibilities in his mind.
Finally he came out with: “Portheris I can trust. And his followers will be all right, so long as my people keep them supplied with plenty of green cows to eat. Toron, the regent, and Kamel, our leader in the Assembly, realize the need of that.”