"Galactic Civilization!" Martia exclaimed.
Scarface grinned at them. "Yes," he said. "We call it that, because we have inhabited at least a dozen solar systems and are still growing. Let me continue the story...."
Mlargn had chosen a group of children because he knew they could be trained and conditioned easier. When he returned through the Chronotron to his own time, the Xlarnan immortals considered the human captives to be unimaginable, short-lived, soft-skinned bipeds, but amazingly advanced mammalia from the evolutionary viewpoint. And they could think, in a primitive fashion. Moreover, they proved to be incredibly fertile.
Only slightly encouraged, the Xlarnans threw them into a Chronotron cycle of five hundred thousand years. The resultant race and alternate time proved to be something for which they were totally unprepared. Since the continuum between Cause and Effect was a simultaneous structure in time, there it was, complete from beginning to end—a superman civilization that encompassed great stretches of the galaxy. An alien brand of intelligence. Virile resourcefulness and aggressiveness, far outstripping the sterile civilization of Xlarn.
Astounded and frightened, the Xlarnans sought to trace the beginnings of this alternate time, through the Chronotron, and throttle the totally unexpected development at its source. However, this was foreseen by the civilization which had sprung from the Chronotron—and there was war. The Xlarnans were eliminated, except for one, who swore vengeance.
This unsuspected immortal was he who had brought back the ancestors of the star men from beyond Beginning, from the world where the moon was young. This was Mlargn, himself.
Although the star men had abandoned the dying solar system of their origin, it was inevitable that a few of their number should be left behind—castaways who finally organized themselves, built a citadel of their own, and sought to build a small star ship in which to escape the threat of the reaction sphere. But the specialized science that had developed the hyper-space drive eluded them and they struggled in vain, while Mlargn besieged them, jealously endeavoring to discover what they were accomplishing. He applied his warfare so vigorously that one day only Kimnar was left, with two youngsters. In fact, they were babes.
In desperation, Kimnar gained access to the Chronotron. Hoping to create another alternate time, he hurled himself and the two children into further depths of time than he intended.
And Mlargn followed him. Aware of his own immortality and equipped with controls that could reverse his course in time because they were interlocked with the Chronotron, he was determined to spend centuries, if necessary, to find those two advanced children and use them to his own advantage....