until it makes star dust, and it shakes this
together till it makes lumps, and they float round, and pretty soon
they're big lumps like the moon and like this little ball of star dust
we're riding on--and there are millions of them out there all round and
about, some a million times bigger than this little one, and they all
whirl and whirl, the little ones whirling round the big ones and the big
ones whirling round still bigger ones, dancing and swinging and going
off to some place that no one knows anything about; and some are old and
have lost their people; and some are too young to have any people yet;
but millions like this one have people, and on some they are a million
years older than we are, and know everything that it'll take us a
million years to find out; but even they haven't begun to really know
anything--compared with what they don't know. They'll have to go on
forever finding out things about what it all means. Do you understand
that, Bill?"

"Yes, sir," said Wilbur.

"Do you understand how people like us get on these whirling lumps?"

"Yes, sir," said Wilbur.

"How do they?"

"No, sir," said Wilbur.

"Well, it's simple enough. This star dust shakes together, and pretty
soon some of it gets to be one chemical and some of it gets to be
another, like water and salt and lime and phosphorus and stuff like
that, and it gets together in little combinations and it makes little
animals, so little you couldn't see them, and they get together and make
bigger animals, and pretty soon they have brains and stomachs--and there
you are. This electricity or something that shook the star dust together
and made the chemicals, and shook the chemicals together and made the
animals--well, it's fierce stuff. It wants to find out all about itself.
It keeps making animals with bigger brains all the time, so it can
examine itself and write books about itself--but the animals have to be
good killers, or something else kills them. This electricity that makes
'em don't care which kills which. It knows the best killer will have the
best brain in the long run; that's all it cares about. It's a good
sporty scheme, all right. Do you understand that, Doctor?"

"Yes, sir," said Wilbur.

"Everything's got a fair chance to kill; this power shows no favours to
anything. If gophers could kill dogs it would rather have gophers; when
microbes kill us it will rather have microbes than people. It just wants
a winner and don't care a sn