advanced, and held the metal container toward them.

"Eat," she said softly. "It is good food, and life giving."

* * * * *

For an instant Brand was dumbfounded. For here was language he could
understand--which was incredible on this far-flung globe. Then he
suddenly comprehended why her sentences were so intelligible.

She was versed in mental telepathy. And versed to a high degree! He'd
had some experience with telepathy on Venus; but theirs was a crude
thought-speech compared to the fluency possessed by the beautiful girl
before him.

"Who are you?" he asked wonderingly.

"I am Greca"--it was very hard to grasp names or abstract terms--"of
the fourth satellite."

"Then you are not of these monsters of Jupiter?"

"Oh, no! I am their captive, as are all my people. We are but slaves
of the tall ones."

Brand glanced at Dex. "Here's a chance to get some information,
perhaps," he murmured.

Dex nodded; but meanwhile the girl had caught his thought. She
smiled--a tragic, wistful smile.

"I shall be happy to tell you anything in my power to tell," she
informed him. "But you must be quick. I can only remain with you a
little while."

She sat down on the floor with them--the few bench-like things
obviously used by the tall creatures as chairs were too high for
them--and with the informality of adversity the three captives began
to talk. Swiftly Brand got a little knowledge of Greca's position on
Jupiter, and of the racial history that led up to it.

* * * * *

Four of the nine satellites of Jupiter were now the home of living
beings. But two only, at the dawn of history as Greca knew it, had
been originally inhabited. These were the fourth and the second.

On the fourth there dwelt a race, "like me," as Greca put it--a
kindly, gentle people content to live and let live.

On the second had been a race of immensely tall, but attenuated and
physically feeble things with great heads and huge dull eyes and
characters distinguished mainly for cold-blooded savagery.

The inhabitants of the fourth satellite had remained in ignorance of
the monsters on the second till one day "many, many ages ago," a fleet
of clumsy ships appeared on the fourth satellite. From the ships had
poured thousands of pipe-like creatures, armed with horrible rods of
metal that killed instantly and without a sound. The things, it
seemed, had crowded over the limits of their o