ously felt sure, would slay any living thing
save only His Ultimate Supremacy, the All-Highest of Eddore.

Now, however, and not completely to his surprise, that blast of force
was ineffective; and the instantaneous riposte was of such intensity as
to require for its parrying everything that Gharlane had. He parried it,
however barely, and directed a thought at his unknown opponent.

"You, whoever you may be, have found out that you cannot kill me. No
more can I kill you. So be it. Do you still believe that you can keep me
from remembering whatever it was that my ancestor was compelled to
forget?"

"Now that you have obtained a focal point we cannot prevent you from
remembering; and merely to hinder you would be pointless. You may
remember in peace."

Back and back went Gharlane's mind. Centuries ... millenia ... cycles
... eons. The trace grew dim, almost imperceptible, deeply buried
beneath layer upon layer of accretions of knowledge, experience, and
sensation which no one of many hundreds of his ancestors had even so
much as disturbed. But every iota of knowledge that any of his
progenitors had ever had was still his. However dim, however deeply
buried, however suppressed and camouflaged by inimical force, he could
now find it.

He found it, and in the instant of its finding it was as though
Enphilistor the Arisian spoke directly to him; as though the fused
Elders of Arisia tried--vainly now--to erase from his own mind all
knowledge of Arisia's existence. The fact that such a race as the
Arisians had existed so long ago was bad enough. That the Arisians had
been aware throughout all those ages of the Eddorians, and had been able
to keep their own existence secret, was worse. The crowning fact that
the Arisians had had all this time in which to work unopposed against
his own race made even Gharlane's indomitable ego quail.

This was _important_. Such minor matters as the wiping out of
non-conforming cultures--the extraordinarily rapid growth of which was
now explained--must wait. Eddore must revise its thinking completely;
the pooled and integrated mind of the Innermost Circle must scrutinize
every fact, every implication and connotation, of this new-old
knowledge. Should he flash back to Eddore, or should he wait and take
the planetoid, with its highly varied and extremely valuable contents?
He would wait; a few moments more would be a completely negligible
addition to the eons of time which had already elapse