d them. They seemed to expand, grow larger; they
seemed to fill all the sky. Hypnotism! He concentrated his mind, and the
eyes suddenly contracted to the normal eyes of the stranger. The man
reeled back, as Arcot's telepathic command to sleep came, stronger than
his own will. The stranger's friends caught him, shook him, but he
slept. One of the others looked at Arcot; his eyes seemed hurt,
desperately pleading.

Arcot strode forward, and quickly brought the man out of the trance. He
shook his head, smiled at Arcot, then, with desperate difficulty, he
enunciated some words in English, terribly distorted.

"Ahy wizz tahk. Vokle kohds ron. Tahk by breen."

Distorted as it was, Arcot recognized the meaning without difficulty. "I
wish (to) talk. Vocal cords wrong. Talk by brain." He switched to
communication by the Venerian method, telepathically, but without
hypnotism.

"Good enough. When you attempted to hypnotize me, I didn't known what
you wanted. It is not necessary to hypnotize to carry on communication
by the method of the second world of this system. What brings you to our
system? From what system do you come? What do you wish to say?"

The other, not having learned the Venerian system, had great difficulty
in communicating his thoughts, but Arcot learned that they had machines
which would make it easier, and the terrestrian invited them into his
laboratory, for the crowd was steadily growing.

The three returned to their ship for a moment, coming out with several
peculiar headsets. Almost at once the ship started to rise, going up
more and more swiftly, as the people cleared a way for it.

Then, in the tiniest fraction of a second, the ship was gone; it shrank
to a point, and was invisible in the blue vault of the sky.

"Apparently they intend to stay a while," said Wade. "They are trusting
souls, for their line of retreat is cut off. We naturally have no
intention of harming them, but they can't know that."

"I'm not so sure," said Arcot. He turned to the apparent leader of the
three and explained that there were several stories to descend, and
stairs were harder than a flying unit. "Wrap your arms about my legs,
when I rise above you, and hold on till your feet are on the floor
again," he concluded.

The stranger walked a little closer to the edge of the shaft, and looked
down. White bulbs illuminated its walls down its length to the ground.
The man talked rapidly to his friends, looking with evident d