* * * *

It is useless to speculate on what might have happened had that thing
lived. But it's dead now--burned to death in acid. And although
destruction of intelligent life is repugnant to me, I cannot help
feeling that it is perhaps better that it is gone. Considering how
rapidly it developed during its few weeks of life, and the power it
possessed, my mind is appalled at its potential. I've had my experience
and that's enough. Lord! but I'm tired. I feel like a wrung-out sponge.
Guess I'll rest for a little while ...

... and received a reply to my signal! They heterodyned it right back
along my own beam. They'll be landing in a week. I don't think I'll take
this manuscript with me. I couldn't use it--and somehow I don't feel
like burning it. Maybe I'll make a time capsule out of it. It will be
amusing to speculate about what sort of a reaction it'll provoke,
providing it is ever read. I can see them now, huge-headed humans,
wrinkling their noses and saying "Intelligent algae--fantastic--the man
must have been mad!"

_The manuscript ends here--and of course we know that the "man" was not
mad. He left behind a rich heritage indeed, for those few cells that
escaped his wrath and floated down to the sea. Did we but know his
origin we would erect a suitable memorial if we had to travel to the
farthest reach of our galaxy. But the names he quotes are not in our
repositories and as for the word "Earth" which he used for his
homeworld, I need not remind my readers that the intelligent terrestrial
inhabitants of the 22,748 planets of this sector use the term "Earth" or
its synonyms "soil" and "world" to describe their planets. Of course,
the term "Homewater" is gradually replacing this archaic concept as we
extend our hegemony ever more widely across the disunited worlds of the
galaxy._

_At that it seems strange that the unknown author's race should have
passed. As individuals they had so many advantages, while we are so weak
and individually so helpless. They could do almost everything except
communicate and cooperate. We can do but little else, yet our larger
aggregations can control entire worlds, some peopled perhaps with
descendants of this very individual. It merely proves that Dannar's
statement in the preface of his Thesis is correct._

"United, cohesive cooperation is the source of irresistible strength."

THE END

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from _Amaz