e voice said. "And I hold in
my hands, Earthman, the Book of the Saints. I have read it, and I have
broadcast to all of Thrayx what I have read. A truce delegation has
already departed from that planet to meet us here in Space."

"But--" the word stuck in his throat, and it was hard to think.

"Commander Kriijorl said that you suspected it was the key to our
great trouble. You were right.

"For it tells of a conference among the leaders of our two worlds many
millenia ago; a conference held in secret, because of the nature of
its subject--the very people of our worlds themselves. Secret, because
of the decision concerning them and their staggering number. Too
staggering for either planet any longer to feed. And the record itself
was then committed to this single microtape, and itself, kept in
secrecy since the day it was recorded.

"At first shrouded in deliberate mysticism, it was at length
remembered only as the Last Word of the Saints in the sudden wars
which so quickly followed its creation, the true cause of which was
skillfully falsified to the people of the time, and truly known only
to those who made the microtape I hold here.

"They were our greatest leaders; in them was invested the
responsibility for the welfare and livelihood of our two planets, both
materially and spiritually.

"When they lived, those records say, travel in Space beyond the speed
of light had not been accomplished; they believed such a feat an
impossibility imposed by a condescending Nature that could be
challenged too far. And they therefore knew no way of reaching beyond
the planets of Ihelos and Thrayx for the food and resources that
became so sorely depleted as both planets became, at length, stripped
nearly bare as their populations swelled beyond saturation point.

"Medical science had permitted the old to grow older; granted the
new-born an almost certain purchase on life once first breath had been
drawn. Yet its greatest offering was rejected by the people; there
were indignant cries at the merest suggestion that they intelligently
regulate their number, so that their posterity might live in greater
plenty than had they.

"There was but one solution for our desperate leaders. For although
warfare had long since vanished from our civilization as it had
matured, it took with it Nature's own unpleasant balance for her
overgenerous fecundity.

"The new balance, then, had to be of Man's making. And so it was made.

"Our lead