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These are the undesirables, the incorrigibles, the nonconformists from the sixth planet. I permit them here because it occupies my time, to watch them evolve."
"You should live so long."
"Live?" the wind devil said. "Oh, I see your meaning. I'd almost forgotten. You are a strange entity. You travel by a means even I cannot fully understand, yet you speak of time as if some event were about to take place. I believe you think of death. I see your physical body has deteriorated since yesterday. Your body will cease to exist, almost as soon as those of the sixth planet peoples. I am most interested in you. You will bring your people, and live here."
"I haven't decided. There are these web-footed people, who were hostile until they thought I was a God. They have destructive weapons. Also, I don't understand you. I see you as a cone of sand which keeps changing color and configuration. Is it your body? Where do you come from? Is this planet populated with your kind?"
The wind devil hesitated.
"Where do I originate? It seems I have always been. You see this cavern, the heated pool, the statues, the inscriptions. Half a million years ago my people were as you. That is, they lived in physical bodies. Our technology surpassed any you have seen. The tube these webfoots use is a toy by comparison. Our scientists found the ultimate nature of physical law. They learned to separate the mind from the body. Then my people set a date. Our entire race was determined to free itself from the confines of the body. The date came."
"What happened?"
"I do not know. I alone exist. I have searched all the levels of time and matter from the very beginning. My people are gone. Sometimes it almost comes to me, why they are gone. And this is contrary to the greatest law of all--that an entity, once in existence, can never cease to exist."
Stinson was silent, thinking of the endless years of searching through the great gulf of time. His eyes caught sight of the woman, reclining now on the pallet. The men had left her and stood in groups, talking, glancing at him, apparently free of their awe and fear already.
The woman looked at him, and she was not smiling. "Please ask the Sand God," she said, "to speak to my people again. Their fear of him does not last. When He is gone they will probably kill us."
"As for the webfoots," the wind devil, or Sand God, said, "I will destroy them. You and your people will have the entire planet."
"Destroy them?" Stinson asked, incredulously, "all these people? They have a right to live like any one else."
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