“In the air?” I echoed, recovering from my astonishment.  Then I laughed mightily.  “Man, ye must be crazy!  There is no animal can live in the air!  Ye must mean in the water or on land.”

“Nay,” interposed the star-gazer.  “Thou hast never studied the stars, Strokor, or thou wouldst know that there be a number of them which, through the enlarging tube, show themselves to be round worlds, like unto our own.

“And it doth further appear that these other worlds also have air like this we breathe, and that some have less, while others have even more.  From what Edam has told me,” finished the old man, “I judge that his vision took place on Jeos, [Footnote:  The Mercurian word for earth.] a world much larger than ours according to my calculations, and doubtless having enough air to permit very light creatures to move about in it.”

“Go on,” said I to Edam, good-humoredly.  “I be ever willing to believe anything strange when my stomach is full.”

The dreamer had taken no offense.  “Then I bent my gaze closer, as I am always able, in visions.  And I saw that the greenery was most remarkably dense, tangled and luxuriant to a degree not ever seen here.  And moving about in it was the most extraordinary collection of beings that I have ever laid these eyes upon.

“There were some huge creatures, quite as tall as thy house, Strokor, with legs as big around as that huge chest of thine.  They had tails, as had our ancient mulikka, save that these were terrific things, as long and as big as the trunk of a large tree.  I know not their names. [Footnote:  Probably the dinosaur.]

“And then, at the other extreme, was a tiny creature of the air, which moved with a musical hum.  It could have hid under thy finger-nail, Strokor, yet it had a tiny sharp-pointed bill, with which it stung most aggravatingly.  And between these two there were any number of creatures of varying size and shape.

“But nowhere was there a sign of a man.  True, there was one hairy, grotesque creature which hung by its hands and feet from the tree-tops, very like thee in some way, Strokor; but its face and head were those of a brainless beast, not of a man.  Nowhere was a creature like me or thee.

“And the most curious thing was this:  Although there were ten times as many of these creatures, big and little, to the same space as on our world, yet there was no great amount of strife.  In truth, there is far more combat and destruction among we men than among the beasts.

“And,” he spoke most earnestly, as though he would not care to be disbelieved, “I saw fathers fight to protect their young!”

I near fell from my stool in my amaze.  Never in all my life had I heard a thing so far from the fact.  “What!” I shouted.  “Ye sit there like a sane man, and tell me ye saw fathers fight for their young?”

He nodded his head, still very gravely.  I fell silent for want of words, but Maka put in a thought.  “It would appear, Strokor, that it be not so much of an effort for beings to live, there on Jeos, as here.  Perchance ’tis the greater amount of vegetation; at all accounts, the animals need not prey upon one another so generally; and that, then, would explain why some have energy enough to waste in the care of their young.”