ickly they became a threat?"

"Yes," Deering said quietly, "and I have been trying a long time to
forget what we did to that planetoid."

"It was necessary for survival," Jars said simply. "I think, by any
standards, we would be the ones chosen to survive."

Deering's smile was cynical. "At least, by _our_ standards. We had a
closer communication with them. About the huddlers, we know only what we
convert from their stronger video broadcasts. It is a device they seem
to use more for entertainment than for information."

Jars nodded, and stood up. "And love is their major entertainment,
perhaps. Love and war. But we gabble. I had a plan in mind, a plan to
put before the assembly."

* * * * *

He had a plan, all right, and I was part of it. The humanities had been
no major with me, but they didn't want a scholar, they wanted a
reporter, anyway. Or perhaps I could be called a recorder.

Jars talked and the assembly listened. They always do, when Jars talks.

And I was their boy, and went into a concentrated and complete briefing.
They put me under the lucidate and poured it to me, night and day, all
the information we had on the huddlers and all the theories based on
that information.

They put me into a space sphere, and said "good luck" and do our people
proud, young man. Oh, yes. And don't fall in love. Oh, no. They'd pick
me up, again, when they got a signal. They didn't expect to wait too
long for that, I guess, at the time.

The sphere was a relic of the Algrean business, and Algrea hadn't been
this much of a trip. But Mechanics said it would do, and it did.

I landed in the Pacific, about three-quarters of a mile off the Santa
Monica yacht basin, and let the sphere float north for a while until I
reached a secluded spot. In a small curve of the shore line, a few miles
above Santa Monica, I beached her, and opened the dissolving cocks.

I watched her melt into the surging water, and turned to face the red
and green light almost immediately overhead. I walked up from the beach
to the road, not even knowing what they looked like. Their evolution
should have matched ours, but who could be sure?

For all I knew, I might be a freak to them. I should have thought of
that before dissolving the ship.

Above, the light changed from red to green and across the street, I saw
a sign. This was Sunset Boulevard, and the Pacific Coast Highway. This
was open country, but Los Angeles.