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SON OF THE SUN sanity. She answered him simply, “Adam, I’m so glad you asked that. You have released me to tell you why, and I will never again refer to them as superiors. But may I humbly, and rightly so, refer to them as our ‘peers’?” she asked. “That sounds better to me, Vega. I cannot conceive of your having superiors, in my definition of the word. I can’t believe that a civilization like yours would tolerate an attitude of sub- servience.” Adam’s faculties were conditioned by the nectar tablet to speak ona plane nearly equal to her normal level. This in turn enabled Vega to speak freely. “You see, we come from a planet which orbits around the star you know on earth as Alpha Centauri. As your astronomers have told your people, it is not quite four and a half light years distant from your sun. We are centuries advanced compared to earth, just as earth is centuries advanced compared to some other worlds. Thus, we are to your higher ones what they are to your aborigines. There are worlds as much advanced beyond our world as ours is beyond yours; and we know them no better than wad “We have overcome disease in general, and we live in com- parative brotherhood. But even in our world there are some who have lagged behind. We are a minority, and we live apart from the peers, with no desire to intermingle. You see, we would not entertain for a moment the possibility of causing any backward slip of the peers in status, whether physical or moral. “We have full freedom, including marriage to a peer if mutually agreeable, but the peers, knowing it would not be wise, refrain from this practice. A peer could not elevate the backward one by that gesture; in fact, the reverse would occur. He would at once descend and join the society of the backward ones. Only the slow process of evolution could correct the back-slip for himself and his progeny. “It is easier to fall, Adam, than it is to rise. It is easier 62 man would be the limit of his capacity to absorb in a state of your world knows ours. Gran 4 :