“I can understand,” I said, very slowly.  “I can understand why a mother will fight for her babes; ’tis reasonable enough, no doubt.  But as for fathers doing the same—­Edam, dost mean to say that all creatures on Jeos do this?”

“Nay; only some.  It may be that fewer than half of the varieties have the custom.  Howbeit, ’tis a beautiful one.  When the vision ended I was right loath to go.”

“Faugh!” I spat upon the ground.  “Such softness makes me ill!  I be glad I were born in a man’s world, where I can take a man’s chances.  I want no favoring.  If I am strong enough to live, I live; if not, I die.  What more can I ask?”

“Aye, my lad!” said Maka approvingly.  “This be a world for the strong.  There is no room here for others; there is scarce enough food for those who, thanks to their strength, do survive.”  He slipped the gold band from off his wrist, and held it up for Jon to see.  “Here, Strokor, a pledge!  A pledge to—­the survival of the fittest!”

“A neat, neat wording!” I roared, as I took the pledge with him.  Then we both stopped short.  Edam had not joined us.  “Edam, my lad,” spake the old man, “ye will take the pledge with us?”

The stripling’s eyes were troubled.  Well he knew that, once he refused such an act, he were no longer welcome in my house, nor in Maka’s.  But when he looked around it were bravely enough.

“Men, I have neither the strength of the one nor the brains of the other of ye.  I am but a watchmaker; I live because of my skill with the little wheels.

“I have no quarrel with either of ye.”  He got to his feet, and started to the door.  “But I cannot take the pledge with ye.

“I have seen a wondrous thing, and I love it.  And, though I know not why—­I feel that Jon has willed it for Jeos to see a new race of men, a race even better than ours.”

I leaped to my feet.  “Better than ours!  Mean ye to say, stripling, that there can be a better man than Strokor?”

I full expected him to shrink from me in fear; I was able to crush him with one blow.  But he stood his ground; nay, stepped forward and laid a hand easily upon my shoulder.

“Strokor—­ye are more than a man; ye are two men in one.  There is no finer—­I say it fair.  And yet, I doubt not that there can be, and will be, a better!”

And with that such a curious expression came into his face, such a glow of some strange land of warmth, that I let my hand drop and suffered him to depart in peace—­such was my wonder.

Besides, any miserable lout could have destroyed the lad.

Maka sat deep in thought for a time, and when he did speak he made no mention of the lad who had just quit us.  Instead, he looked me over, long and earnestly, and at the end he shook his head sorrowfully and sighed: 

“Thou art the sort of a son I would have had, Strokor, given the wits of thy father to hold a woman like thy mother.  And thou didst save my life.”