"Not frogs," the robot said. "Certain simple, primal animals. Things that live in the water, you know. They establish a symbiotic relationship with certain algae. The animal uses the oxygen which the plant gives off and the plant uses the carbon dioxide the animal gives off.
"And there's a worm with a symbiotic alga which aids it in its digestive processes. Everything works swell except when sometimes, the worm digests the alga and then it dies because, without the alga, it can't digest its food."
"All very interesting," Adams had told the robot. "Now can you tell me what a symbiotic abstraction might be?"
"No," the robot had said, "I can't."
And Dr. Raven, sitting, at the desk, had said the same. "It would be rather difficult," he said, "to know just what a symbiotic abstraction might be."
Under questioning, he reiterated once again that it was not a new religion Sutton had found. Oh, gracious, no, not a religion.
And Raven, Adams thought, should be the one to know, for he was one of the galaxy's best and most widely known comparative religionists.
Although it would be a new idea, Dr. Raven had said. Bless me, yes, an absolutely new idea.
And ideas are dangerous, Adams told himself.
For man was spread thin across the galaxy. So thin that one word, literally one spoken word, one unbidden thought might be enough to set off the train of rebellion and of violence that would sweep Man back to the Solar system, back to the puny ring of cricling planets that had caged him in before.