don't even have an opaque white skin. Any
living creature exposed to the rays of a sun, which is certain to emit
some chemical rays, is subject to coloration as a protection against
those rays. The whites, who have always lived where sunlight is weakest,
have developed a skin only slightly opaque. The Orientals, who live in
more tropical countries, where less clothes and more sun is the motto,
have slightly darker skins. In the extreme tropics Nature has found it
necessary to use a regular blanket of color to stop the rays. Now
extrapolating the other way, were there no such rays, the people would
become a pigmentless race. Since most proteins are rather translucent,
at least when wet, they would appear much as these beings do. Remember,
there are very few colored proteins. Hemoglobin, such as in our blood,
and hemocyanin, like that in the blue blood of the Venerians, are
practically unique in that respect. For hydrogen absorption, I imagine
the blood of these creatures contains a fair proportion of some highly
saturated compound, which readily takes on the element, and gives it up
later.

"But we can kick this around some more in the lab."

Before starting for New York, Arcot had convinced the officer in charge
that it would be wise to destroy the more complete of the invaders'
ships at once, lest one of them manage to escape. The fact that none of
them had any rays in operation was easily explained; they would have
been destroyed by the Patrol if they had made any show of weapons. But
they might be getting some ready, to be used in possible escape
attempts. The scientists were through with their preliminary
investigations. And the dismembered sections would remain for study,
anyway.

The ships had finally been rayed apart, and when the three had left,
their burning atmosphere had been sending mighty tongues of flame a mile
or more into the air. The light gas of the alien atmosphere tended to
rise in a great globular cloud, a ball that quickly burned itself out.
It had not taken long for the last of the machines to disintegrate under
the rays. There would be no more trouble from them, at any rate!

Now Morey asked Arcot if he thought that they had learned all they could
from the ships; would it not have been wiser to save them, and
investigate more fully later, taking a chance on stopping any sudden
attack by surviving marauders by keeping a patrol of Air Guards there.

To which Arcot replied, "I thought quite a b