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"Thus began his rise among the beings of the planet, the rise of the Great One, Amel, the ruler who sought others to do his will, not our will, to make of Earth what he would have it be, and not what the 'Realm of Worlds' would have it be.

"Of course we sent Replimoids to destroy him. We thought they would overwhelm him easily by their sheer numbers, but no such thing happened, and communication fell off with every Replimoid ever dispatched to stop him. From the bits and pieces of information that did survive these attempts, we saw that he had sent legions of violent human mammals to destroy these Replimoids, and in some cases cut them up into pieces, saving the pieces and harvesting them for cell material for his own experiments. And he is a great maker of unusual things, this Amel.

"There is infinitely more we could tell you of Amel's rebellion, of his adventures, of his scorn for us, the Parents who had made him, for the 'Realm of Worlds.' It is enough to say that we vowed never again to send any Replimoid to Earth who would be equipped with the kind of knowledge we had given Amel. And we would never send against him any Replimoid who was clearly recognizable to him. These Replimoids were all instructed to repair and create new transmitting stations for us before they moved against Amel. But you will not have to do this. We have become impatient with Amel and his destruction is your only real purpose.

"In the meantime he became a builder of cities, an organizer of human mammals, teaching them better ways of hunting, and finally even of extracting metal from the earth and working in metal, and all manner of other things which helped them to multiply and advance, and to prosper. Through many old and new transmitting stations, we saw a great deal of what he did and what failed and what did not fail, and with horror, we realized that the evolutionary story of Earth had been fatefully marred by Amel's will and intellect.

"Eventually he built small settlements which he covered with thick roofs to block our vision, and finally he perfected the great city of Atalantaya, which is a legend to all the human beings of the planet, Atalantaya with its population of brilliant human mammals, schooled by Amel, and fostered by Amel, to dominate the entire world around them, to live in merciless indifference to the misery of the savage tribes of the planet, and on their backs, so to speak, as they labored to supply his great city with the earth's riches.

"It is now our decision that only Replimoids such as yourselves can succeed against him, Replimoids of such intellect and perfection that you can distinguish yourselves as clever and resourceful so as to gain access to the Great One himself, tell him who you are, whence you've come, and why. Tell him how angry we are with his disobedience.

"Then, you must surround him and you must detonate and blow up the city of Atalantaya and Amel.

"When you detonate the explosives in your bodies, the power stores beneath Atalantaya will surely blow, and the explosion will be sufficient to transform the world; other explosions will soon follow; raging fires will take over the forests and the plains. Volcanoes will erupt, and eventually as the smoke rises from these great conflagrations, the world will darken, and grow cold as it has many times in the past, and life will die out, and that life which does not die out will be weakened and mutated and destroyed by the toxin that will spread from your disintegrating bodies, the toxin that will poison the dark and cold planet."

The Parents then went quiet for a few minutes, until one of them told us that this was all we needed to know for now, and that we should go rest, and enjoy the transmissions from Earth as we had done before.

"But what if we cannot get into the city?" I asked. I knew I was the leader. And I also sensed I was speaking for the others. "What if we don't succeed in ever getting into Atalantaya?"

"You must," said the Parents. "As we have explained, Atalantaya has beneath it vast power stores, stores from which energy is drawn to create its lighting, its heat, its chemical laboratories and places of invention and manufacture. We do not know what these power stores are, but they are almost certainly inflammable, if not explosive by their very nature.

"And you must be in Atalantaya when you detonate so that you ignite those power stores. If you are not inside, the explosion will not be as destructive as it must be. And the dissemination of the plague inside you will not be as far reaching. If you cannot get inside the city, we will communicate with you and advise you as to what to do next to gain access. All you have to do to communicate with us is be within the vicinity of the transmitting stations. Now these are hidden and with reason. If Amel knew of them, they'd be disrupted, but there is one quite close to the main launching station for the boats to Atalantaya. It is in the remains of a small pyramid around which tribes gather constantly. It contains a Chamber of Suffering. Ask to go into the Chamber of Suffering. And when you do you will pray and in your prayers you will tell us in so many words, words not easily understood by others suffering around you, that you cannot get into Atalantaya. We will see you and hear you and you will hear us because you are configured to hear our transmissions."

"I have another question," I said. "What if we can persuade Amel to leave the protection of the dome and come out where you can talk to him and he can talk to you? Is it possible that some resolution could be achieved so that the planet does not have to suffer the cataclysm and the toxin?"

"Yes, that is possible," said the Parents, "but we are certain he will never take the risk. Remember, Amel has betrayed us and he has gone against our laws, our most sacred and important laws."

"But what if he does come out," I insisted. "What if he does want to explain to you what he has done and why? Is it possible that you will not go ahead with your plan?"

"It is possible," said the Parents. "And it is possible there could be a change of plan."

"And if there were a change of plan, perhaps we would not have to die?" I asked.

The Parents went silent for a few minutes before they answered. "There could be a change of plan," they said, "but again it is not likely. However, I think that you might have a great incentive of course to persuade Amel to come out of the dome. Yes. You could even tell him that you yourselves will not have to die if he is willing to come out. He might be moved by that. He does not like death. We could bring you back here with Amel. And then decide the fate of the planet in some other way which is not so dependent on the death of Amel along with Atalantaya.

"But do understand," said the Parents. "We must destroy Atalantaya and take the planet back to its earlier stage of development. This must be done. And if our plans through you do not work, we will use other means."

"Well, this would give us great incentive," I said. "The hope that we might return here with Amel."

Again they were quiet. Then: "Kapetria, you have been made for one purpose. Your desire to keep living should not enter into what you do."

"But you do want to talk to Amel yourselves, don't you?" I asked.

"Yes, it is true. We do," they answered. "There are things we want to know from him."

They went quiet.

"What sort of things?" I asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" asked the Parents. "We want to know what the dome of Atalantaya is made of. We want to know why it blocks our transmitting stations. We have questions about life inside of Atalantaya. And if this gives you incentive to take this approach with Amel, this is good. But we do not believe he will come out. And we believe that our plan, the explosion of Atalantaya and its power stores, and the dissemination of the toxin, is the best way to bring about a reversal of the life proces

ses on the planet. This is our chosen plan, it is the plan that we are providing to do this. This is our plan."

"But there might be another plan," I said, "that does not involve so much suffering?"

They considered this for a long time. "Kapetria," they said. "We know that you are a Replimoid and we understand your concerns. But this is the plan we have provided for the salvation of Earth. However, if you do succeed in persuading Amel to come out and we are able to remove you and him from the planet, we will consider another way of doing this."

"I'm profoundly grateful for this," I said. Welf and Garekyn also said they were grateful. Derek, however, said nothing. He was staring at them with reddened and glazed eyes.