My heart sank. Millions of years of human evolution, tens of thousands of years to build a civilization that can span the stars, and the result is war. Instead of learning and understanding one another, the so-called intelligent species of the galaxy slaughter one another.

“Why do you think I built your gift for violence into your kind, Orion?” the Golden One asked me. “There are only two kinds of intelligent creatures in the galaxy: those who can fight, and those who are extinct.”

These reptilians were our allies. They called themselves the Tsihn, and they fought on our side against our mutual enemies in the cold, dark vastness of interstellar space. Allies or not, though, they still looked too much like Set and his race for me to feel comfortable.

Aten sensed my unease. “Orion, there are many, many different races in the universe, but only a few basic body plans. Reptiles and mammals share common ancestry; when they evolve into intelligent races they tend to stand erect, walk on their hind legs, and have their brains and major sensory organs grouped in their heads. The resemblance between these reptilians and Set’s creatures is strictly an evolutionary footnote, nothing more.”

“I would think the universe would be more varied than this,” I said.

He chuckled condescendingly. “Your mind improves, Orion. Of course there are many other forms of intelligent life, based on body plans that look nothing at all like ours. But they are so alien that we have practically no interaction with them. Methane breathers. Sea-bottom dwellers. Interstellar spores. What they need we do not want; what we want they have no need for. We do not trade with them, we do not mix with them—and we do not make war with them. It would be pointless.”

“So who are we making war on?” I asked.