give them unlimited power over all other
denizens of Caspak.

No Wieroos come up from the beginning--all are born of the Wieroo
fathers and Galu mothers who are cos-ata-lo, and there are very few of
the latter owing to the long and precarious stages of development.
Seven generations of the same ancestor must come up from the beginning
before a cos-ata-lu child may be born; and when one considers the
frightful dangers that surround the vital spark from the moment it
leaves the warm pool where it has been deposited to float down to the
sea amid the voracious creatures that swarm the surface and the deeps
and the almost equally unthinkable trials of its effort to survive
after it once becomes a land animal and starts northward through the
horrors of the Caspakian jungles and forests, it is plainly a wonder
that even a single babe has ever been born to a Galu woman.

Seven cycles it requires before the seventh Galu can complete the
seventh danger-infested circle since its first Galu ancestor achieved
the state of Galu. For ages before, the ancestors of this first Galu
may have developed from a Band-lu or Bo-lu egg without ever once
completing the whole circle--that is from a Galu egg, back to a fully
developed Galu.

Bradley's head was whirling before he even commenced to grasp the
complexities of Caspakian evolution; but as the truth slowly filtered
into his understanding--as gradually it became possible for him to
visualize the scheme, it appeared simpler. In fact, it seemed even
less difficult of comprehension than that with which he was familiar.

For several minutes after An-Tak ceased speaking, his voice having
trailed off weakly into silence, neither spoke again. Then the Galu
recommenced his, "Food! Food! There is a way out!" Bradley tossed him
another bit of dried meat, waiting patiently until he had eaten it,
this time more slowly.

"What do you mean by saying there is a way out?" he asked.

"He who died here just after I came, told me," replied An-Tak. "He
said there was a way out, that he had discovered it but was too weak to
use his knowledge. He was trying to tell me how to find it when he
died. Oh, Luata, if he had lived but a moment more!"

"They do not feed you here?" asked Bradley.

"No, they give me water once a day--that is all."

"But how have you lived, then?"

"The lizards and the rats," replied An-Tak. "The lizards are not so
bad; but the rats are foul to taste. However, I must e