Experiment
- Interlude chapter to tell you about the aliens.
- Maybe, you might think, it would be more interesting just to not explain the aliens, and leave you guessing, thus making the book about mysteries somewhat mysterious.
- Arthur C. Clarke likes explaining things, though. That's what he does. If you don't like explanations, you need to go read some other book.
- Anyway, the aliens love Mind (with a capital M) so they go around the galaxy, cultivating Mind.
- They gave humans a mental boost (see Moon-Watcher) then they left the solar system for other byways, because they gotta keep on trucking, baby.
- But they left alarm systems to tell them if the ape critters ever made it to the moon.
- Meanwhile, the aliens themselves evolved into robot spaceships and then into bodiless energy things.
- You'd think bodiless energy things would have other things to do with their time, but they're still curious about what happened with their old experiments.
- Even bodiless energy things have nostalgia, in other words. That's why the starless energy things keep outbidding you for the Star Wars figures on E-Bay.