Seeker said, "None you can readily see standing before you."

             "Magnetic minds, then? Even they merely use science," Alvin said. "They do not truly comprehend it."

             "There are other methods of comprehension which come out of the sum of species."

             Alvin's head jerked with surprise. "But we are discussing the fundamental limits on knowledge!"

             "This 'knowledge' of yours is also a category," Seeker said, "much like 'rights.' It does not translate between species."

             "I cannot understand how that can be," Alvin said primly.

             "Exactly," Seeker said.

35

             The strange conversation between Seeker and the Supras wound on as Cley tried to think.

             In the end she saw that she had no choice. She had to take part in whatever was to come, no matter how little the gargantuan events had to do with her own fortunes. Her folk had begun to fade already in her memory, crowded out by the jarring, swift events since they had been burned into oblivion by the Mad Mind. She felt now the totality of what that vicious act had meant. To murder not merely people but a people, a species. Was she becoming more like the Supras now, that such an abstraction could touch her, arouse what Alvin would no doubt term her "animal spirits"?

             Still, she could not readily feel that the Supras and their cosmic games mattered to what she still thought of as "real" people, her own. She sensed that this attitude itself was perhaps a symptom of her kind—but if so, then so be it, she thought adamantly.

             The Supras seemed pleased with her decision. Seeker gave no sign of reaction. After all her agonizing, she was surprised that nothing happened immediately. They swooped in toward the disk of life and worlds that was the Jove complex. Trains of space biota came and went from the Leviathan, carrying out intricate exchanges.

             In the moments when Alvin and Seranis were not occupied with tasks, she learned more from them. She recalled when Seranis had let go her constraints, flooding Cley's mind with unsorted impressions and thoughts. Cley then slept long hours, fitfully, sweating, letting her brain do much of the unscrambling. She had learned not to resist. Each time she awoke, surprises awaited, fresh ideas brimming within her.

             She spent some time watching the scintillant majesty of Jove, but she now understood that this was not the outer limit to the living solar system. She had been misled by her own eyes.

             Earthborne life saw through a narrow slit of the spectrum. Time had pruned planetary life to take advantage of the flux that most ably penetrated the atmosphere, preferring the ample flux of green light. No Earthbound life ever used the lazy, meter-long wavelengths of the radio.

             So they could not witness the roll of great plasma clouds which fill the great spiral arms. Seen with a large radio eye, the abyss between suns shows knots and puckerings, swirls and crevasses. The wind that blows outward from suns stirs these outer fogs. Only an eye larger than Leviathan itself could perceive the incandescent richness that hides in those reaches. The beings which sw^am there gave forth great booming calls and live through the adroit weaving of electrical currents.

             Cley realized this after a long sleep, the knowledge coming to her almost casually, like an old memory. She would never see these knots of ionized matter trapped by magnetic pinches, smoldering and hissing with soft energies beyond the seeing of anything born in flesh.

             Yet she recalled, through Seranis, the vast flaring of plasma veins, the electromagnetic arteries and organs. Light required a week to span these beings. Bodies so vast must be run by delegation, so the intelligences which had evolved to govern such bulk resembled parliaments more than dictatorships.

             She caught a glimmer of how such beings regarded her kind: tiny assemblies powered by the clumsy building up and tearing down of molecules. How much cleaner was the clear rush of electromotive forces!

             But then her perceptions dwindled back to her own level, the borrowed memories faded, and she understood.

             "Seeker!" she called. "The Mad Mind—humans didn't make it from scratch, did they?"

             "Not wholly, no." Seeker had been quiet for a long time, its long face mysteriously calm.

             "I caught pictures from Seranis, pictures of magnetic things that seem to live naturally."

             Seeker smiled wolfishly. "They are our allies."

             Alvin spoke from behind her. "And ones we desperately need."

             Cley demanded, "Why didn't you tell me?"

             "Because I did not know, not fully. The knowledge . . ." Alvin's normally strong voice faltered. He looked more tired and pensive than before. "No, it was not knowledge. I discounted V'anamonde's testimony when it told us of these magnetic beings. Our Keeper of Records said there were none such. After all, there were no references throughout all of the Records." He smiled wanly. "Now we are wiser. It was smug legend that I knew, the arrogance of Diaspar as vast as its truths."

             Cley said slowly, "Humans somehow trapped one of those magnetic creatures?"

             Alvin settled onto a sloping, crusty branch, his shoulders sagging. "Humans have a reach which exceeds our grasp."

             "The Mad Mind got away?"

             He nodded. "And somehow, from its associations with humans, learned to perform feats which no other magnetic being knew. It ravaged enormous territories, slaughtered magnetic structures."

             "Until someone trapped it again. This Galactic civilization I keep hearing about?" This talk was unsettling. She started a small fire to cook supper.

             "Galactic civilization was once majestic," Alvin said. "It made the pure mentalities like Vanamonde, building on the magnetic beings." Alvin seemed heartened now. "Seeker, what do you think of galactic civilization?"

             "I think it would be a good idea," Seeker answered very softly.

             "But it exists!"

             "Does it? You keep looking at the parts—this or that species or phylum, fleshy or magnetic. Consider the whole."

             "The whole what? The Empire left our known universe, leav-ing-"

             "Leaving rooms for newer forms to grow. Very polite, I would say. It was certainly no tragedy."

             Alvin frowned. "For humans it was. We—"

             Cley stopped listening, taking shelter in the familiar rituals of cooking. Something in the human mind liked the reassuring order of repetition, she supposed. Alvin kept talking, explaining facets of sciences she could not even identify, but she let him run on. The man was troubled, hanging on to his own image of what human action meant. It was better to let his spill of words carry away frustration, the most ancient of human consolations. She cooked three large snakes, blackened with a crust of spices, and offered him one.

             To his credit he did not even show hesitation. "A curious custom," he remarked, after biting into a muscular yellow chunk. Its savor seasoned the air. "That such a simple procedure brings out the raw power of the meat."