“Well, he’s not the first and I’m afraid he won’t be the last. The idea of immortality, you see, has black market value. That is why they manufacture a surrogate.”
“Couldn’t they just be supplied with plam?” asked Ostermann.
“Well, it’s possible in theory, of course, but quite out of the question from a practical point of view. And we are actually very fussy about who finds their way here. If we weren’t, we’d be facing exactly the same problems as those which beset humanity.”
“You already have the problems of smuggling and unwanted visitors,” said the writer.
“True enough. Actually, we cannot decide what to do with those creatures, whether to send them back to their caves or to intern them here in some barrack or camp. But they are so fleet-footed, so very fleet-footed…”
“Can’t you ci
