The old man leaned back and looked at Donay. His eyes were tragic. "That's what ails the people, Steve Donay. They're treated ... and the treatment did everything he said it would. It's really a new factor introduced into the human metabolism. You know something of chemistry?"
Steve Donay nodded. The old man went on, wearily. "Well, you know how complicated the protoplasm molecule is, then. This change he introduced is only a new atom in the basic living molecule. As if, say, you're making pancakes and put in more shortening ..." the old man laughed. "When I make pancakes they swell up, like balloons. This is the opposite effect. The yeasty growth of life is changed, subdued, altered into a new pattern, by a single new ingredient in the chemical transversion in the body. The end product, the basic plasm-cule, is more stable, less affected by adverse conditions, a lot more durable. But it isn't what I call life! You've noticed?"
Steve nodded. "They act like robots," he observed, sadly. "I'd like to get some fuel, get back to my own world."
The old man scribbled some notes on a pad, nodded. "They will synthesize your fuel. I'll put through a requisition for it. Now, they may ask you if you want the treatment. It's tempting, because it gives you a life cycle, from birth through fecundity to death, of around ten times the ordinary cycle. Almost immortality you would think. But I refrained, and now I'm the only one left of the old race. The new race is not flesh."
"I'll refuse, too." Steve observed. "They pay for their long lives."
The old man nodded sagely. "Things happen ten times as slowly, although to the eye they move as rapidly as before. The drive toward growth and progress is lessened by ten, to my eyes. They're satisfied to go on at the new slow pace."
"Stasified, you mean," Steve grinned. The old man smiled. "How come they made you their ruler?" asked Steve.
"I'm not the ruler. They believe I am the only one capable of understanding you, a flesh man."