"No.  Oh, I think they might reach that decision.  You see, by their standards, we are a diseased and crippled people - the things that we do to each other, the way we fail to understand each other, our almost complete failure to grok with one another, our wars and diseases and famines and cruelties - these will be complete idiocy to them.  I know.  So I think they may very probably decide on a mercy killing.  But that's a guess, I'm not an Old One.  But, Jubal, if they decide to do this, it will be-" Mike stopped and thought for quite a long time. "-an utter minimum of five hundred years, more likely five thousand, before anything would be done."