civilizations, races and cultures, covering an infinite cosmos. And yet—what had happened? Very little, in that inconceivable infinity. A rift in time, a dimensional slip—and a sector of land and three beings on it had been wrenched from their place in time and transported to our time-stratum. A robot, a flower that was alive and intelligent—and feminine—and the Other.... "The native girls," I said. "What will happen to them?" "They are no longer alive," Lhar told me. "They still move and breathe, but they are dead, sustained only by the life-force of the Other. I do not think it will harm me. Apparently it prefers other food." "That's why you've stayed here?" I asked. The shining velvety calyx swayed. "I shall die soon. For a little while I thought that I might manage to survive in this alien world, this alien time. Your blood has helped." The cool tentacle withdrew from my arm. "But I lived in a younger time, where space was filled with—with certain energizing vibratory principles. "They have faded now almost to nothing, to what you call cosmic rays. And these are too weak to maintain my life. No, I must die. And then my poor robot will be alone." I sensed elfin amusement in that last thought. "It seems absurd to you that I should think affectionately of a machine. But in our world there is a rapport—a mental symbiosis—between robot and living beings." There was a silence. After a while I said, "I'd better get out of here. Get help—to end the menace of the other...." What sort of help I did not know. Was the Other vulnerable? Lhar caught my thought. "In its own shape it is vulnerable, but what that shape is I do not know. As for your escaping from this valley—you cannot. The fog will bring you back." "I've got my compass." I glanced at it, saw that the needle was spinning at random. Lhar said: "The Other has many powers. Whenever you go into the fog, you will always return here." "How do you know all this?" I asked. "My robot tells me. A machine can reason logically, better than a colloid brain."
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