There were some things that only time could cure. Evil men could be destroyed, but nothing could be done with good men who were deluded. - Arthur C. Clarke

Here and there, set into the somber red, were rivers of bright yellow — incandescent Amazons, meandering for thousands of miles before they lost themselves in the deserts of this dying sun. Dying? No — that was a wholly false impression, born of human experience and the emotions aroused by the hues of sunset, or the glow of fading embers. This was a star that had left behind the fiery extravagances of its youth, had raced through the violets and blues and greens of the spectrum in a few fleeting billions of years, and now had settled down to a peaceful maturity of unimaginable length. All that had gone before was not a thousandth of what was yet to come; the story of this star had barely begun.

An author should never turn down the opportunity for a new experience

And on far-off Earth, Dr. Carlisle Perera had as yet told no one how he had wakened from a restless sleep with the message from his subconscious still echoing in his brain: The Ramans do everything in threes.