the Mesozoic, primitive mammals all the way up the scale to the
ancient cats the works. That's why the original seeding team put these
people in the treetops instead."

"Honath, what was your crime?" Gerhardt Adler said.

Honath was almost relieved to have the questioning come so quickly to
this point. Jarl Eleven's aside, with its many terms he could not
understand, had been frightening in its very meaninglessness.

"There were five of us," Honath said in a low voice. "We said we--that
we did not believe in the Giants."

There was a brief silence. Then, shockingly, both Jarl Eleven and
Gerhardt Adler burst into enormous laughter.

Mathild cowered, her hands over her ears. Even Honath flinched and took
a step backward. Instantly, the laughter stopped, and the Giant called
Jarl Eleven stepped into the oval of light and sat down beside them. In
the light, it could be seen that his face and hands were hairless,
although there was hair on his crown; the rest of his body was covered
by a kind of cloth. Seated, he was no taller than Honath, and did not
seem quite so fearsome.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "It was unkind of us to laugh, but what
you said was highly unexpected. Gerhardt, come over here and squat down,
so that you don't look so much like a statue of some general. Tell me,
Honath, in what way did you not believe in the Giants?"

Honath could hardly believe his ears. A Giant had begged his pardon! Was
this still some joke even more cruel? But whatever the reason, Jarl
Eleven had asked him a question.

"Each of the five of us differed," he said. "I held that you were
not--not real except as symbols of some abstract truth. One of us, the
wisest, believed that you did not exist in any sense at all. But we all
agreed that you were not gods."

"And of course we aren't," Jarl Eleven said. "We're men. We come from
the same stock as you. We're not your rulers, but your brothers. Do you
understand what I say?"

"No," Honath admitted.

"Then let me tell you about it. There are men on many worlds, Honath.
They differ from one another, because the worlds differ, and different
kinds of men are needed to people each one. Gerhardt and I are the kind
of men who live on a world called Earth, and many other worlds like it.
We are two very minor members of a huge project called a 'seeding
program', which has been going on for thousands of years now. It's the
job of the seeding program to survey newly discovered worlds,