hese small creatures were the ones who scampered most of all after
they had fed. Joyously they danced back toward the mountain. A few of
medium height went back in pairs, firm taffy fingers intertwined in each
other.

"They mate," said Creno. "It is their custom."

"How tiring they are," said Harta. "I have lost interest. We have seen
thirty-one worlds with such customs and these creatures are too simple
to be interesting. Let us go home or try some other system."

"Not yet," Creno insisted. "We passed through the ocean and surveyed the
lands of this tiny planet. Nowhere else has there been the tiniest unit
of life. Why at this one spot should something exist?"

"But we have several parallel situations," Harta protested. "They were
colonies landed in one spot by the civilization of another planet. They
landed here with their feeder machine. And that is the explanation."

"Your mind does not function well in a four-dimension continuum, Harta.
You will need more training--"

"But these cases are rare, and, Creno--"

"I know they are rare, my child. But still they exist. You will have to
learn eventually, a little at a time. Now then, it is a rule of such
limited dimensional realms that the movement of matter and events from
place to place is highly difficult. Certain compacting procedures must
be observed. To transport a machine this size across their space would
have required enormous effort and an intelligence they do not yet have.
More than that, it would have been unnecessary. A smaller device would
have supplied them with food. I am forced to conclude that--somehow--we
are approaching this problem backwards."

"Backwards? You mean they made the machine here after they came?"

He did not reply to that. "We must concentrate together on thinking
ourselves into their functioning in their manifold."

Harta followed his suggestion, and soon their thoughts were moving among
and within the striped creatures. The insides of their bodies consisted
of fundamentally the same taffy substance; but it had been modified by
various organic structures. All, though, were built of the same
fundamental units: elongated, thin cells which readily aligned
themselves in semi-crystalline patterns.

"Enough," Creno said, "back to the hill."

Their rows of thin limbs rested on the ridge crest once more. "We have
seen such cell crystals before," she sighed. "The inefficiencies in such
a poverty of dimensions! Do you still think we h