wants to know what the people of your world are like. Are
they all the same as you?"

* * * * *

Dex started to reply to that; but Brand flung him a warning look.
"Tell him we are the least of the Earth people," he answered steadily.
"Tell him we are of an inferior race. Most of those on Earth are
giants five times as large as we are, and many times more powerful."

Greca relayed the message in the whistling, piping Rogan tongue. The
tall one stared, then hissed another sentence to the beautiful
interpreter.

"He wants to know," said Greca, "if there are cities on your globe as
large and complete as this one."

"There are cities on Earth that make this look like a--a--" Brand cast
about for understandable similes--"like a collection of animal
burrows."

"He says to describe your planet's war weapons," was the next
interpretation. And here Brand let himself go.

With flights of fancy he hadn't known he was capable of, he described
great airships, steered automatically and bristling with guns that
discharged explosives powerful enough to kill everything within a
range of a thousand miles. He told of billions of thirty-foot giants
sheathed in an alloy that would make them invulnerable to any feeble
rays the Rogans might have developed. He touched on the certain
wholesale death that must overtake any hostile force that tried to
invade the planet.

"The Rogan shock-tubes are toys compared with the ray-weapons of
Earth," he concluded. "We have arms that can nullify the effects of
yours and kill at the same instant. We have--"

But here the Rogan leader turned impatiently away. Greca had been
translating sentence by sentence. Now the tall one barked out a few
syllables in a squeaky voice.

"He says he knows you are lying," sighed Greca. "For if you on Earth
have tubes more effective than theirs why weren't you equipped with
them on your expedition here to the red kingdom?"

Brand bit his lips. "Check," he muttered. "The brute has a brain in
that ugly head."

* * * * *

The Rogan leader spoke for a long time then; and at each singsong
word, Greca quivered as though lashed by a whip. At length she turned
to Brand.

"He has been telling what his hordes can do, answering your boasts
with boasts of his own. His words are awful! I won't tell you all he
said. I will only say that he is convinced his shock-tubes are
superior to any Earth arms, and that h