could believe you. But
how can we? We have been driven for so long and come so far, and now you
would seek to wipe us out as parasites and disease-carriers."

Dal saw the Bruckian creature's eyes upon him, saw the frail body
tremble and the lips move, but he knew now that the intelligence that
formed the words and the thoughts behind them, the intelligence that
made the lips speak the words, was the intelligence of a creature far
different from the one he was looking at--a creature formed of billions
of submicroscopic units, imbedded in every one of the Bruckian's body
cells, trapped there now and helpless against the antibody reaction that
sought to destroy them. This was the intelligence that had called for
help in its desperate plight, but had not quite dared to trust its
rescuers with the whole truth.

But was this strange virus-creature good or evil, hostile or friendly?
Dal's hand lay on Fuzzy's tiny body, but he felt no quiver, no vibration
of fear. He looked across the face of the crowd, trying with all his
strength to open his mind to the feelings and emotions of these people.
Often enough, with Fuzzy nearby, he had felt the harsh impact of
hostile, cruel, brutal minds, even when the owners of those minds had
tried to conceal their feelings behind smiles and pleasant words. But
here there was no sign of the sickening feeling that kind of mind
produced, no hint of hostility or evil.

He shook his head. "Why should we want to destroy you?" he said. "You
are good, and peaceful. We know that; why should we harm you? All you
want is a place to live, and a host to join with you in a mutually
valuable partnership. But you did not tell us everything you could about
yourselves, and as a result we have destroyed some of you in our clumsy
attempts to learn your true nature."

They talked then, and bit by bit the story came out. The life-form was
indeed a virus, unimaginably ancient, and intelligent throughout
millions of years of its history. Driven by over-population, a pure
culture of the virus-creatures had long ago departed from their original
native hosts, and traveled like encapsulated spores across space from a
distant galaxy. The trip had been long and exhausting; the
virus-creatures had retained only the minimum strength necessary to
establish themselves in a new host, some unintelligent creature living
on an uninhabited planet, a creature that could benefit by the great
intelligence of the virus-creatures,