“That is so. It happens. Our domestic animals exist in greater variety than on any other inhabited world. The orange you ate is a mutated variety, which exists nowhere else. It is this, among other things, which makes the orange so unacceptable for export. Outsiders suspect it as they suspect us—and we ourselves guard it as a valuable property peculiar to ourselves. And of course what applies to animals and plants applies also to microscopic life.” And now, indeed, Arvardan felt the thin pang of fear enter. He said, “You mean—bacteria?” “I mean the whole domain of primitive life. Protozoa,
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