"The Terrans have what we lost. They're a young race with a vitality that's like a fire where our own is like a dying spark. That's why I let those two go; why I want the others of their kind to know of Tharnar and come here. It's not too late for us; not yet too late for contact with these Terrans to give back to us all these things we lost."
In the pause following his words the quiet of the City was suddenly shattered by the thunder of The Cat's drives. It lifted, shining and slender and graceful, and hurled itself up into the blue sky. Tal-Karanth watched it until it was a bright star, far away and going out into the universe beyond, until the sound of its drives had faded and gone.
He looked away from the sky and back to the slowly moving, softly whispering City; the City that was dying and did not know it. He felt the stirring of an uneasiness within him; a strange non-physical desire for something. It was the first time in his life he had ever felt such a sensation; it was something so long gone from the Tharnarians that the Tharnarian word for it was obsolete and forgotten. But the Terran word for it was wanderlust.
"I almost wish I could have gone with them, Vor," he said. "They're going to try to reach the heart of the galaxy and see if they can find the answer to Creation. And we on Tharnar spend our lives sipping sweet drinks as we discuss trifles and wait for the sun to shine warm enough for us to emerge from our air-conditioned houses."
"If you're right in thinking that Terrans won't come to plunder Tharnar and the City," Vor-Dergal said, "then it would be interesting to know what those two find when they reach the center of the galaxy. If they don't get killed long before they reach it."
"I think any hostile forms of life they encounter will find them hard to kill," Tal-Karanth said. "We paid a high price for their capture, remember? There were two Terran proverbs behind the name of their ship. It took me quite a while to understand the second one but when I did, I realized the true extent of Terran determination and self-confidence.
"Their mission was to explore across the unknown regions of space. They knew it would be dangerous, very dangerous. So they named their ship 'The Cat' partly because of an old Terran proverb: 'Curiosity killed a cat.' But that was only half the reason behind the name. They intended to reach the center of the galaxy and they didn't intend to let anything stop them. So there was a second meaning behind the naming of their ship:
"'A cat has nine lives.'"