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was more subtle. Pets! He had thought of Graves and himself as prisoners of war, or, possibly, objects
of scientific research. But pets!
"I know how you feel," Graves went on, watching his face, "It's . . . it's humiliating from an
anthropocentric viewpoint. But I think it may be true. I may as well tell you my own private theory as to
the possible nature of X, and the relation of X to the human race. I haven't up to now, as it is almost
sheer conjecture, based on very little data. But it does cover the known facts.
"I conceive of the X creatures as being just barely aware of the existence of men, unconcerned by
them, and almost completely uninterested in them."
"But they hunt us!"
"Maybe.Or maybe they just pick us up occasionally by accident. A lot of men have dreamed about
an impingement of nonhuman intelligences on the human race. Almost without exception the dream has
taken one of two forms, invasion and war, or exploration and mutual social intercourse.
Both concepts postulate that nonhumans are enough like us either to fight with us or talk to us-treat
us as equals, one way or the other. I don't believe that X is sufficiently interested in human beings to want
to enslave them, or even exterminate them. They may not even study us, even when we come under their
notice. They may lack the scientific spirit in the sense of having a monkeylike curiosity about everything
that moves. For that matter, how thoroughly do we study other life forms? Did you ever ask your goldfish
for their views on goldfish poetry or politics? Does a termite think that a woman's place is in the home?
Do beavers prefer blondes or brunettes?"
"You are joking."
"No, I'm not! Maybe the life forms I mentioned don't have such involved ideas. My point is: if they
did, or do, we'd never guess it. I don't think X conceives of the human race as intelligent."
Bill chewed this for a while,then added: "Where do you think they came from, Doc? Mars, maybe?
Or clear out of the Solar System?"
"Not necessarily. Not even probably. It's my guess that they came from the same place we did-from
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up out of the slime of this planet."
"Really, Doc-"
"I mean it. And don't give me that funny look. I may be sick, but I'm not balmy. Creation took eight
days!"
"Huh?"
"I'm using biblical- language. 'And God blessed them, and God said unto them,Be fruitful and
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the
fowl of the air, and over every living thing thatmoveth upon the earth.' And so it came to pass. But
nobody mentioned the stratosphere."
"Doc-are you sure you feel all right?"
"Dammit-quit trying to psychoanalyze me!I'll drop the allegory. What I mean is: We aren't the latest
nor the highest stage in evolution. First the oceans were populated. Then lungfish to amphibian, and so on
up, until the continents were populated, and, in time, man ruled the surface of the earth-or thought he did.
But did evolution stop there? I think not. Consider-from a fish's point of view air is a hard vacuum. From
our point of view the upper reaches of the atmosphere, sixty, seventy, maybe a hundred thousand feet up
seem like a vacuum and unfit to sustain life. But it's notvacuum . It's thin, yes, but there is matter there and
radiant energy. Why not life, intelligent life, highly evolved as it would have to be-but evolved from the
same ancestry as ourselves and fish? We wouldn't see it happen; man hasn't been aware, in a scientific
sense, that long. When our grand-daddies were swinging in the trees, it had already happened."
Eisenberg took a deep breath. "Just wait a minute, Doc. I'm not disputing the theoretical possibility of
your thesis, but it seems to me it is out on direct evidence alone. We've never seen them, had no direct
evidence of them.At least, not until lately. And we should have seen them."
"Not necessarily. Do ants see men? I doubt it."
"Yes-but,consarn it, a man has better eyes than an ant."
"Better eyes for what? For his own needs. Suppose the X-creatures are too high up, or too tenuous,
or too fast-moving!for us to notice them. Even a thing as big and as solid and as slow as an airplane can
go up high enough to go out of sight, even on a clear day. If X is tenuous and even semitransparent, we
never would see them-not even asoccultations of stars, or shadows against the moon-though as a matter
of fact there have been some very strange stories of just that sort of thing."
Eisenberg got up and stomped up and down. "Do you mean to suggest,"he demanded, "that
creatures so insubstantial they can float in a soft vacuum built the Pillars?"
"Why not?Try explaining how a half-finished, naked embryo likehomo sapiens built the Empire State
Building."
Bill shook his head. "I don't get it."
"You don't try. Where do you think this came from? Graves held up one of the miraculous little water
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spheres.
"My guess is that life on this planet is split three ways, with almost no intercourse between the three.
Ocean culture, Ian culture, and another-call itstratoculture . Maybe a fourth down under the crust-but we
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