hat told me these Zervs, as
Nokomee had called her race, lacked true sympathy for life forms, lacked
emotion as we know it in art. Yet it was beautiful, if repellent because
so alien, so pure in design, so lacking in the sympathetic understanding
of man's nature. This was a city no earthman could ever call home. It
lacked something. There were no dogs, no strolling women or running
children, it lay silent and waiting--for what?

Nokomee waved a hand.

"Titanis, our first earth colony. But it is no longer ours. The Schrees
have taken it from us. That is why it is silent."

I did not understand. There were plodding lines of people, disciplined,
carrying burdens, no bigger than ants at this distance. There was an
ominous horror about the quiet beauty of the place. It was somehow like
a beautiful woman lying just slain. Yet I could see no wounds of war, no
reason for the feeling that I had, like the sudden shrinking one might
have at sight of the stump of a man's arm just amputated.

I looked into Nokomee's face, and there were tears in her eyes. My heart
sank. I felt a vast sympathy for her sorrow, though I could not
understand.

"We planned so much with our new freedom here in your wilderness. Then
came the raiders, to freeze our Queen in her sleep, to drive us into
your forests, to make of us that remained mindless slaves and maimed
horrors. I cannot bear it, stranger. I cannot...."

She turned and wept, her head on my chest. I patted her head, feeling
entirely incompetent to console her for what injuries I could not
imagine.

"What raiders, Nokomee? Tell me. Perhaps there is a way I can help. Who
knows?"

"We are so few now, who were so many and so strong--and every day fewer.
There is no hope. Do not try to wake it in me. It would be madness."

"Tell me. Perhaps that alone would help you."

"How can I tell you the long history of my home world, the immortal
wisdom of our Queen, the strange science her immortal family gave her,
of how we fought to protect her from our own tyrants and at last fled
into space with her? How can I tell you of what she is? How could you
understand the ages of struggle on our own world that reduced her kind
to but a dozen, and left our kind, the mortals, at the mercy of the
Schrees? You ask, but it is impossible for you to believe things you do
not know about."

"Perhaps if I told you of my people and their life, you would understand
that I could understand what you think is imp