but one answer, and it frightened Dalen a little. It meant that Mogar did have disjunctive thoughts and perhaps even feelings. It meant that even if Mogar should withdraw his opposition nominally, he would be glad to see the experiment fail, and he might even help it to fail.

That would be a vicious handicap for Dalen. The evolution of a race was subject to many perils; evolving a particular species was a hothouse sort of process that would take several billion years and much careful nurturing. If another god should be opposed, he could destroy the entire experiment, for instance, by dropping a spore of some malignant virus into the midst of the species⁠—a virus for which the race would be unprepared and against which it would have no resistance. That was only one of infinite ways to eliminate an undesirable species.

So now it was obvious to Dalen that his only recourse was to break down the barriers to Mogar’s mind. He had not intended this, but Mogar was forcing it. If he did break through the shields, then Mogar himself would be relegated, for the entire supergalaxy would know it instantly.

So now Dalen, having unintentionally worked himself into a spot where it was relegation for one or the other, gathered his energy. There was one way in which he felt positive that he could break through Mogar’s protection, even at this great distance. This was by way of the ninth-dimension elliptical spiral. Dalen had never used it, for it was prohibited to any god below the council, but if he could manipulate it into operation he could combine it with the sixth and his infinitely compounded power would be also infinitely squared.

There was one drawback. According to Dalen’s calculations, a combination of the sixth and the ninth would require an output on Dalen’s part of power to the extent of something like 8.4 times ten to the twentieth power macro-ergs-and that would be Dalen’s last effort. He would have to rest for a while after that. If it didn’t succeed, he reflected, there would be eternities to rest.