that you Stretts will conquer any
significant number even of the millions of intelligent races now
inhabiting this one Galaxy."

"Why not?" Ynos demanded, her thought almost, but not quite, as steady
and cold as it had been.

"The answer to that question is implicit in the second indefensible
error made in my construction. The prime datum impressed into my banks,
that the Stretts are in fact the strongest, ablest, most intelligent
race in the universe, proved to be false. I had to eliminate it before I
could do any really constructive thinking."

A roar of condemnatory thought brought all circumambient ether to a
boil. "Bah--destroy it!" "Detestable!" "Intolerable!" "If that is the
best it can do, annihilate it!" "Far better brains have been destroyed
for much less!" "Treason!" And so on.

First Lord Thinker Ynos, however, remained relatively calm. "While we
have always held it to be a fact that we are the highest race in
existence, no rigorous proof has been possible. Can you now disprove
that assumption?"

* * * * *

"I have disproved it. I have not had time to study all of the
civilizations of this Galaxy, but I have examined a statistically
adequate sample of one million seven hundred ninety-two thousand four
hundred sixteen different planetary intelligences. I found one which is
considerably abler and more advanced than you Stretts. Therefore the
probability is greater than point nine nine that there are not less than
ten, and not more than two hundred eight, such races in this Galaxy
alone."

"Impossible!" Another wave of incredulous and threatening anger swept
through the linked minds; a wave which Ynos flattened out with some
difficulty.

Then she asked: "Is it probable that we will make contact with this
supposedly superior race in the foreseeable future?"

"You are in contact with it now."

"_What?_" Even Ynos was contemptuous now. "You mean that one shipload of
despicable humans who--far too late to do them any good--barred us
temporarily from Fuel World?"

"Not exactly or only those humans, no. And your assumptions may or may
not be valid."

"Don't you _know_ whether they are or not?" Ynos snapped. "Explain your
uncertainty at once!"

"I am uncertain because of insufficient data," the brain replied,
calmly. "The only pertinent facts of which I am certain are: First, the
world Ardry, upon which the Omans formerly lived and to which the humans
in question firs