It was the random element that baffled investigation. Even that was a — Lewis Padgett

"There was little time to waste. The Box was beginning to glow and shiver. Unthahorsten stared around wildly, fled into the next glossatch, and groped in a storage bin there. He came up with an armful of peculiar-looking stuff. Uh-huh. Some of the discarded toys of his son Snowen, which the boy had brought with him when he had passed over from Earth, after mastering the necessary technique. Well, Snowen needed this junk no longer. He was conditioned, and put away childish things. Besides, though Unthahorstens wife kept the toys for sentimental reasons, the experiment was more important. Unthahorsten left the glossatch and dumped the assortment into the Box, slamming the cover shut just before the warning signal flashed. The Box went away."

"Theres no use trying to describe either Unthahorsten or his surroundings, because, for one thing, a good many million years had passed since 1942 Anno Domini and, for another, Unthahorsten wasnt on Earth, technically speaking. He was doing the equivalent of standing in the equivalent of a laboratory. He was preparing to test his time machine."

"The tiny people were deftly building a house. Scott wished it would catch fire, so he could see the people put it out. Flames licked up from the half-completed structure. The automatons, with a great deal of odd apparatus, extinguished the blaze. It didnt take Scott long to catch on. But he was a little worried. The manikins would obey his thoughts. By the time he discovered that, he was frightened, and threw the cube from him. Halfway up the bank, he reconsidered and returned."

"Candidly, I dont see the point of teaching those apes philosophy. Theyre all at the wrong age. Their habit-patterns, their methods of thinking, are already laid down. Theyre horribly conservative, not that theyd admit it. The only people who can understand philosophy are mature adults or kids like Emma and Scotty."

"Paradine blinked. The "abacus," unfolded, was more than a foot square, composed of thing, rigid wires that interlocked here and there. On the wires colored beads were strung. They could be slid back and forth, and from one support to another, even at the points of juncture."

"Truth will triumph. It always does. However, I figure truth is a variable, so were right back where we started from."