“You are inviting us to join you,” he said numbly, “and you built that!”
WE DID NOT BUILD THE FEDERATION WORLD; NOR WOULD WE BE CAPABLE OF DOING SO IN THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. PLEASE TURN AROUND AND REGARD ME.
He turned quickly. The others, no doubt because they had already had this experience, turned more slowly. The wall on his right had become transparent, or maybe it was a wall-sized television screen showing a creature, lying or perhaps standing surrounded by a complex control desk. It was vaguely crablike, with too many legs; and appendages; the body was covered by warty excrescences and fleshy, frondlike growths. The single eye was wide and bulging, like a transparent sausage with two independently moving pupils. He had seen a pictoral representation of one of these beings in the reception area of the induction center, but this entity bore about as much resemblance to the picture as a real animal did to a cute cartoon treatment by Disney.
NO DOUBT YOU FIND ME AS VISUALLY REPULSIVE — AS I DO YOU. THE FEELING DIMINISHES AFTER REPEATED CONTACT BUT TO ANSWER THE QUESTION YOU WERE ABOUT TO ASK. THE FED-WORLD WAS THE ULTIMATE PROJECT, IN PURELY PHYSICAL TERMS, OF AN INCREDIBLY ANCIENT RACE WHICH NO LONGER DWELLS ALTHOUGH THEY STILL MAKE NON-PHYSICAL CONTACT EVERY FEW CENTURIES IN WE NEED ASSISTANCE OR ADVICE. THE PROBABILITY IS THAT THEY HAVE EVOLVED TO A STAGE WHERE PHYSICAL EXISTENCE IS NO LONGER A REQUIREMENT. THEY ARE THE BUILDERS.
MY RACE, WHICH WAS THEN AND STILL REMAINS THE MOST HIGHLY ADVANCED OF THOSE ENCOUNTERED IN THE GALAXY, WAS AMONG THE FIRST TO BE INVITED TO JOIN THE FEDERATION WORLD. WE ALSO HAD OUR SHARE OF RESTLESS AND IMPATIENT ENTITIES WHO WERE NOT SURE THAT THE SAFE.