he thirty-fourth century. If any
sign of interest had shown on the peak of the metallic lord, Phobar
failed to see it. But he sensed an intolerant sneer of ridicule in
Garboreggg, as though the ruler considered these statements to be only
the most elementary of facts.

Then, for three quarters of an hour, in the manner of one lecturing an
ignorant pupil, the giant crowded its thought-pictures into Phobar's
mind so that finally he understood a little of the raiders and of the
sudden terror that had flamed from the abysses into the solar system.

* * * * *

"The universe of matter that you know is only one of the countless
universes which comprise the cosmos," began Garboreggg. "In your
universe, you have a scale of ninety-two elements, you have your
color-spectrum, your rays and waves of many kinds. You are subject to
definite laws controlling matter and energy as you know them.

"But we are of a different universe, on a different scale from yours, a
trillion light-years away in space, eons distant in time. The natural
laws which govern us differ from those controlling you. In our universe,
you would be hopelessly lost, completely helpless, unless you possessed
the knowledge that your people will not attain even in millions of
years. But we, who are so much older and greater than you, have for so
long studied the nature of the other universes that we can enter and
leave them at will, taking what we wish, doing as we wish, creating or
destroying worlds whenever the need arises, coming and hurtling away
when we choose.

"There is no vegetable life in our universe. There is only the scale of
elements ranging from 842 to 966 on the extension of your own scale. At
this high range, metals of complex kinds exist. There is none of what
you call water, no vegetable world, no animal kingdom. Instead, there
are energies, forces, rays, and waves, which are food to us and which
nourish our life-stream just as pigs, potatoes, and bread are food to
you.

* * * * *

"Trillions of years ago in your time-calculation, but only a few dozen
centuries ago in ours, life arose on the giant world Kygpton in our
universe. It was life, our life, the life of my people and myself,
intelligence animating bodies of pliant metal, existing almost endlessly
on an almost inexhaustible source of energy.

"But all matter wears down. On Kygpton there was a variety of useful
metals, other