"Gradually the Griffs have been dying out for lack of food. They are carnivorous and have systematically eliminated most of the lower animal life from our world. My race, except for occasional mishaps have been virtually beyond their reach. There are only a few of them left now, but they prowl perpetually about the walls of the city searching for an opportunity to enter and wreak havoc, or to catch some one of my race as they pass a particularly gloomy spot in the forest."
Michel Drawers thought over what the little man had said. He thought too of the sub-atomic blast used for blasting aside obstacles in search of Roxite. It would not be the first time it had been used as a weapon—a most terrible weapon of destruction.
However, for the moment he deemed it best not to mention this to Persum, as the little man so quaintly named himself. Perhaps these Griffs were not so easily destroyed. And then again to destroy them might be a fatal error. He remembered how in ages past men had wantonly destroyed the once-numerous mountain lions in reckless numbers, and then had the wild deer, which had been the mountain lion's natural prey, multiply so that they left no grass for the cattle who should have benefited through the death of the mountain lions.
Then, too there was the problem of Australia, where an apparently innocuous rodent, the rabbit, had multiplied into a national menace, once there was no natural enemy to check them. He must learn more.
They stopped before a great golden gate. Persum lifted a small reed to his lips and blew. From it there issued a long, sweet, piercing whistle. Slowly the gates rolled smoothly open, fitting right into the thick walls beside them.
Without hesitation Persum walked through the opening. Michel Drawers held back for a moment, blinded by a chance ray of sun-light that bounced off the gleaming sides of one of the buildings.
Then, he too entered, and the gates, as if by their own volition, closed behind him.
He was in another world now. Gone was all harshness and crudity. Here there was only beauty and color and gold. Buildings in peerless symmetry dug their way through the low hanging clouds to unknown heights. Spell-binding displays of coruscating lights played in rhythms through curious designs of crystals. Later Drawers learned that this corresponded to music—by sight instead of ear.
Self-consciously he ambled along the spotless streets behind Persum—streets which seemed to be paved with pure gold. He tried not to notice the open stares given him by the city's inhabitants. He realized that they did not mean to be impolite. It was simply that a man of his bulk was unique in this civilization.
More and more as they proceeded he began to take cognizance of the complete absence of transportation of any sort. Everyone here walked. Of course, the slighter gravitational pull made walking considerably less strenuous, but still, that didn't account for the various groups of golden men he had passed, laboriously pulling great blocks of stone by man-power alone—when a small wheeled vehicle, or even one beast of burden would have lightened the load immeasurably.