What were their senses through which their consciousness fed?
Nine in number had been the sapphire ovals set within the golden zone of the Disk.

Clearly it came to me that these were sense organs! But--nine senses! And the great stars--how many had they?
And the cubes--did they open as did globe and pyramid?
Consciousness itself--after all what is it?
A secretion of the brain?
The cumulative expression, wholly chemical, of the multitudes of cells that form us?
The inexplicable governor of the city of the body of which these myriads of cells are the citizens--and created by them out of themselves to rule?
Is it what many call the soul?
Or is it a finer form of matter, a self-realizing force, which uses the body as its vehicle just as other forces use for their vestments other machines?
After all, I thought, what is this conscious self of ours, the ego, but a spark of realization running continuously along the path of time within the mechanism we call the brain; making contact along that path as the electric spark at the end of a wire?
Is there a sea of this conscious force which laps the shores of the farthest-flung stars; that finds expression in everything--man and rock, metal and flower, jewel and cloud?
Limited in its expression only by the limitations of that which animates, and in essence the same in all.

If so, then this problem of the life of the Metal People ceased to be a problem; was answered! So thinking I became aware of increasing light; strode past Yuruk to the door and peeped out.

Dawn was paling the sky.

I stooped over Drake, shook him.