The Cause of the Delay in the Falling of the Ship Karnak

“In short,” continued the captain, “I began my service just when your Right Reverence was departing for the place of your exile.

“I was still only a ‘sweeper’ on the long-distance ships of that period.

“Yes . . . a long, long time has passed by.

“Everything has undergone change and is changed since then; only our LORD AND SOVEREIGN remains unchanged. The blessings of ‘Amenzano’ on HIS UN- CHANGEABLENESS throughout Eternity!

“You, your Right Reverence, have condescended to re- mark very justly that the former ships were very inconvenient and cumbersome.

“Yes, they were then, indeed, very complicated and cumbersome. I too remember them very well. There is an enormous difference between the ships of that time and the ships now.

“In our youth all such ships both for intersystem and for interplanetary communication were still run on the cosmic substance ‘Elekilpomagtistzen,’ which is a totality consisting of two separate parts of the omnipresent Okidanokh.

“And it was to obtain this totality that just those numerous materials were necessary which the former ships had to carry.

“But these ships did not remain in use long after you flew from these parts, having soon thereafter been re- placed by ships of the system of Saint Venoma.”