"I wouldn't doubt it," said Andrew Young. "The Galaxy is cluttered up with descendants of mine." The man was very humble. "Of course, you must resent us sometimes. But we are proud of you, sir. I might almost say that we revere you. No other family—" "I know," interrupted Andrew Young. "No other family has any fossil quite so old as I am." "Nor as wise," said the man. Andrew Young snorted. "Cut out that nonsense. Let's hear what you have to say and get it over with." The technician was harassed and worried and very frankly puzzled. But he stayed respectful, for one always was respectful to an ancestor, whoever he might be. Today there were mighty few left who had been born into a mortal world. Not that Andrew Young looked old. He looked like all adults, a fine figure of a person in the early twenties. The technician shifted uneasily. "But, sir, this ... this...." "Teddy bear," said Young. "Yes, of course. An extinct terrestrial subspecies of animal?" "It's a toy," Young told him. "A very ancient toy. All children used to have them five thousand years ago. They took them to bed." The technician shuddered. "A deplorable custom. Primitive." "Depends on the viewpoint," said Young. "I've slept with them many a time. There's a world of comfort in one, I can personally assure you." The technician saw that it was no use to argue. He might as well fabricate the thing and get it over with. "I can build you a fine model, sir," he said, trying to work up some enthusiasm. "I'll build in a response mechanism so that it can give simple answers to certain keyed questions and, of course, I'll fix it so it'll walk, either on two legs or four...." "No," said Andrew Young. The technician looked surprised and hurt. "No?" "No," repeated Andrew Young. "I don't want it fancied up. I want it a simple lump of make-believe. No wonder the children of today have no imagination. Modern toys entertain them with a bag of tricks that leave the young'uns no room for imagination. They couldn't possibly think up, on their own,
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