"We thought all the art had been drawn, all the songs had been sung, all the wars had been fought. We lived as if we had all the inventions and philosophied all the philosophies - even the ones beyond our understanding. We told all we found among the stars that we had perfected society and they should abandon all else and join us. And join us they did. But after a while the unliving and unfeeling drones that care for our every need come to be despised... We may have been without want, without crime, without spite, and without injustice, but we were without drive. We had no ambitions. No life. Death would change nothing.

"Then we found you. We observed you playing and enjoying solved games. You enjoy games of chance. You know that probability is unforgiving given enough time, but you don't care. You continue to love and feel for your former spouses. Your psychologists can't describe or even agree on these feelings adequately, yet you embrace them, develop them.

"Sure, most of your intellectual resources go into killing and torture. But also into medicine, helping the helpless. Even then, it's all about money - even when lives are at stake. You are a dichotomy so close to the perfection the rest of us achieved - yet so very far away.

"So the ones of us selected by the Bureau of Sociology and Historonics come and observe and learn. Though we already know what we observe, somehow, our knowledge after observing you is different.... humans would say 'deeper.'"

"Uh, intergalactic peace and all. But I was just looking for a place top photograph a tree."

"Do you not know what trees look like?"

"Yes, but not on the inside."

"Your camera is incapable of-"

"Exactly."