he could not contain
his curiosity completely. _Well, to hell with it_, he decided.
_Conventional manners and tact don't have much meaning between two
different races_. "Are you--married?" he asked.

"Only three times," Zezdon Afthen told him blandly. "And to forestall
your next question--no, our system does not create problems. At least,
not those you're thinking of. I know my wives have never had the jealous
quarrels I see in your mind pictures."

"It isn't safe thinking things around you," laughed Wade. "Just the
same, all of this has made me even more interested in the 'Ancient
Masters' you keep mentioning. Who were they?"

"The Ancient Ones," began Zezdon Afthen slowly, "were men such as you
are. They descended from a primeval omnivorous mammal very closely
related to your race. Evidently the tendency of evolution on any planet
is approximately the same with given conditions.

"The race existed as a distinct branch for approximately 1,500,000 of
your years before any noticeable culture was developed. Then it existed
for a total of 1,525,000 years before extinction. With culture and
learning they developed such marvelous means of killing themselves that
in twenty-five thousand years they succeeded perfectly. Ten thousand
years of barbaric culture--I need not relate it to you, five thousand
years of the medieval culture, then five thousand years of developed
science culture.

"They learned to fly through space and nearly populated three worlds;
two were fully populated, one was still under colonization when the
great war broke out. An interplanetary war is not a long drawn out
struggle. The science of any people so far advanced as to have
interplanetary lines is too far developed to permit any long duration of
war. Selto declared war, and made the first move. They attacked and
destroyed the largest city of Ortol of that time. Ortolian ships drove
them off, and in turn attacked Selto's largest city. Twenty million
intelligences, twenty million lives, each with its aims, its hopes, its
loves and its strivings--gone in four days.

"The war continued to get more and more hateful, till it became evident
that neither side would be pacified till the other was totally
subjugated. So each laid his plans, and laid them to wipe out the entire
world of the other.

"Ortol developed a ray of light that made things not happen," explained
Zezdon Afthen, his confused thoughts clearly indicating his own
uncertainty.

"'A r