d you like to see her? She is asleep now," and without waiting
for an answer, the proud Dasorian mother led the way into a bedroom--a
bedroom without beds, for Dasorians sleep floating in thermostatically
controlled tanks, buoyed up in water of the temperature they like best,
in a fashion that no Earthly springs and mattresses can approach. In a
small tank in a corner reposed a baby, apparently about a year old, over
whom Dorothy and Margaret made the usual feminine ceremony of delight
and approbation.

* * * * *

Back in the living room, after an animated conversation in which much
information was exchanged concerning the two planets and their races of
peoples, Carfon drew six metal goblets of distilled water and passed
them around. Standing in a circle, the six touched goblets and drank.

They then embarked, and while Crane steered the _Skylark_ slowly along
the channel toward the offices of the Council, and while Dorothy and
Margaret showed the eager Seven all over the vessel, Seaton explained to
Carfon the danger that threatened the Universe, what he had done, and
what he was attempting to do.

"Doctor Seaton, I wish to apologize to you," the Dasorian said when
Seaton had done. "Since you are evidently still land animals, I had
supposed you of inferior intelligence. It is true that your younger
civilization is deficient in certain respects, but you have shown a
depth of vision, a sheer power of imagination and grasp, that no member
of our older civilization could approach. I believe that you are right
in your conclusions. We have no such rays nor forces upon this planet,
and never have had; but the sixth planet of our own sun has. Less than
fifty of your years ago, when I was but a small boy, such a projection
visited my father. It offered to 'rescue' us from our watery planet, and
to show us how to build rocket-ships to move us to Three, which is half
land, inhabited by lower animals."

"And he didn't accept?"

"Certainly not. Then as now our sole lack was power, and the strangers
did not show us how to increase our supply. Perhaps they had more power
than we, perhaps, because of the difficulty of communication, our want
was not made clear to them. But, of course, we did not want to move to
Three, and we had already had rocket-ships for hundreds of generations.
We have never been able to reach Six with them, but we visited Three
long ago; and every one who went there came back a