Once upon a time, humanity settled throughout the galaxy, and then some of the people (from the regions of Altair) decided to return to Earth, bringing with them strange creatures - meks, who were well suited as servants. Humanity relaxed, built castles, and completely surrendered to amusements, of which there were many. The meks continued to work until evolution played a joke on humanity: it raised several meks with a bright personality as opposed to the collective intelligence of their relatives. It should be noted that the meks communicated with each other telepathically, so the progressive views of the new individuals standing for the overthrow of the human slugs quickly spread across the planet... ©SeaBreeze The story received Nebula 1966 and Hugo 1967.