s possible for the colonists--but sensations of
friendship and good will could be broadcast, primitive ideas
exchanged.

The small animal, its humanlike front pawhands dangling over its
creamy vest, came out fully into the open, black eyes flicking from
the motionless Dalgard to the bright beads on the rock. But when one
of those paws shot out to snatch the treasure, the traveler's hand was
already cupped protectingly over the hoard. Dalgard formed a mental
picture and beamed it at the twenty-inch creature before him. The
hopper's ears twitched nervously, its blunt nose wrinkled, and then it
bounded back into the brush, a weaving line of moving grass marking
its retreat.

Dalgard withdrew his hand from the beads. Through the years the Astran
colonists had come to recognize the virtues of patience. Perhaps the
mutation had begun before they left their native world. Or perhaps the
change in temperament and nature had occurred in the minds and bodies
of that determined handful of refugees as they rested in the frozen
cold sleep while their ship bore them through the wide, uncharted
reaches of deep space for centuries of Terran time. How long that
sleep had lasted the survivors had never known. But those who had
awakened on Astra were different.

And their sons and daughters, and the sons and daughters of two more
generations were warmed by a new sun, nourished by food grown in alien
soil, taught the mind contact by the amphibian mermen with whom the
space voyagers had made an early friendship--each succeeding child
more attuned to the new home, less tied to the far-off world he had
never seen or would see. The colonists were not of the same breed as
their fathers, their grandfathers, or great-grandfathers. So, with
other gifts, they had also a vast, time-consuming patience, which
could be a weapon or a tool, as they pleased--not forgetting the
instantaneous call to action which was their older heritage.

The hopper returned. On the rock beside the shining things it
coveted, it dropped dried and shriveled fruit. Dalgard's fingers
separated two of the gleaming marbles, rolled them toward the animal,
who scooped them up with a chirp of delight. But it did not leave.
Instead it peered intently at the rest of the beads. Hoppers had their
own form of intelligence, though it might not compare with that of
humans. And this one was enterprising. In the end it delivered three
more loads of fruit from its burrow and took away al