r, enslave and exploit, but to help.
Sometimes the Masters came with us, since they were interested in our
work.

"Many times, by our guidance, human beings reached high levels of
development in the arts and sciences. We taught them and guided their
stumbling steps, and released to them such knowledge as we dared trust
to them. Time and again, we raised them from the slime, only to have
them fall back. There is fatal disease in the race, a disease of
instability and cruelty and violence. Call it madness--insanity--in the
technical sense. It is pathological, and the disease is common to the
human race, in all its ramifications. The Solar System is mad, and all
who dwell in it are lunatics. Dangerous and homicidal lunatics. Sol's
system is the asylum and pesthouse of our galaxy. We--my people--are its
keepers and doctors.

"We are charged with the care and treatment of an ailing form of life.
Because of our near likeness, in form and thought, it was hoped that we
could understand and help them; in time, perhaps, find a cure. There are
other races inhabiting the galaxy--many of them, civilized, intelligent,
living, and sometimes even of matter similar to ours. Their minds and
bodies are too different. We are nearest, both in form and feeling.

"We have tried, patiently and hopefully. For the most part, it is a long
history of frustration and failure. The corruption is too deep, too
basic. It is part of the life-pattern of the race. Some individuals may
rise above it, but its taint lies dormant even in them. At best, they
are carriers. And there seems little future for such a race.

"Your galactic neighbors have been patient. But now a time of decision
is near. Your ships explore, exploit at will within your system. You
have pushed your limits to the furthest expansion of that system.
Colonized and despoiled. Now, you stand at the expanding horizon of
stellar flight. Other star-systems tempt your imaginations, and
technology batters at the problems involved.

"Your neighbors are watching, and afraid. If your people burst outside
the limits of Sol's system, the contagion of your madness will spread
and engulf the galaxy. At our request, they have given time, granting
extensions freely. For countless centuries we have tried, and our
effort, all our work and thought, has led only to failure. Now, the
others have set a time limit, and the deadline is very close. Very
close. You are all living on borrowed time; and but for