"
I asked them what batu meant, as I had not before heard the word.
Literally translated, it is equivalent to through, finished,
done-for, as applied to an individual's evolutionary progress in
Caspak, and with this information was developed the interesting
fact that not every individual is capable of rising through every
stage to that of Galu. Some never progress beyond the Alu stage;
others stop as Bo-lu, as Sto-lu, as Bandlu or as Kro-lu. The
Ho-lu of the first generation may rise to become Alus; the Alus
of the second generation may become Bo-lu, while it requires three
generations of Bo-lu to become Band-lu, and so on until Kro-lu's
parent on one side must be of the sixth generation.
It was not entirely plain to me even with this explanation, since
I couldn't understand how there could be different generations of
peoples who apparently had no offspring. Yet I was commencing to
get a slight glimmer of the strange laws which govern propagation
and evolution in this weird land. Already I knew that the warm
pools which always lie close to every tribal abiding-place were
closely linked with the Caspakian scheme of evolution, and that the
daily immersion of the females in the greenish slimy water was in
response to some natural law, since neither pleasure nor cleanliness
could be derived from what seemed almost a religious rite.
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